Nicolas Cage Makes WWL Studio Hollywood for a Day

By Kevin Eck 

cage on wwl setNew Orleans CBS affiliate WWL got a visit from film star Nicolas Cage in between the morning and noon news yesterday.

But he wasn’t there to talk, he was there to work. Cage was in town to shoot a movie set in the wake of the BP oil spill.

Houston CBS affiliate KHOU reports the director shot in New Orleans because he wanted to keep keep the film authentic.

Advertisement

But another important element for him was keeping things local. That included dozens of crew members in the studio and some familiar faces you’ll see in the film.“Like Wendell Pierce and Bryan Batt and a lot of the smaller roles are a lot of local actors, and about 90 percent of our crew are also Louisiana locals as well.”

Marcus Lyle Brown grew up in Lafayette.

“My character Chris Wilcox is the Louisiana attorney general and he is running for office, U.S. Senate, and he’s there interviewing and basically talking about the BP oil spill and its negative impact on the citizens,” Brown said.

An interview scene sounds simple enough, but the crew shot it over and over and over.

“You’re doing different takes to get the performance right and then you’re also shooting coverage,” [Director Austin] Stark said. “When you watch film it’s not all just one shot. You’re getting different angles and different sizes on the different characters and the action.”

And Stark already has high hopes that all of those takes equal a compelling movie.

“I think it will be a very powerful and very poignant film.”

Advertisement