L.A. Anchors Bring Authenticity to Jake Gyllenhaal Crime Film

By Mark Joyella 

If you want to make a movie about Los Angeles and news, you could do a lot worse than having Pat Harvey and Kent Shocknek showing you exactly how it’s done. Shocknek, who just retired from KCBSKCAL, and Harvey, who has co-anchored the 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts at KCBS since 2010, were selected for the film by director Dan Gilroy. The film, Nightcrawler, stars Jake Gylenhaal as a freelancer covering the dark world of L.A. crime.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, no actor could quite match the real thing:

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“We wanted to cast real anchors in our film because actors often can’t capture exactly what it is that news anchors have,” said Gilroy, speaking ahead of the European premiere of Nightcrawler at the Zurich Film Festival. “(But) I didn’t think any anchors would want to be in our film because they would read the script and say ‘you’re killing us.’ But they all said yes.”

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