Owner of antique shop provides timely piece for The Lighthouse
A Victorian toothbrush, pewter mug, pocket watch and 1890s furniture from Yarmouth shop now part of the film
The devil is in the details, they say. When it came to the filming of The Lighthouse at Cape Forchu in early spring 2018, those details were crucial to the film production crew.
Kevin Selig, owner of 87 Antique Emporium on Water Street in Yarmouth, helped out on several occasions to ensure accurate period reproduction.
He recalls when members of the film crew first discovered his shop after scouting out the area for prop sources.
“I hear this slamming of brakes in front of my shop and I look through the windows and see a rental truck,” Selig says. “Buddy’s backing up and the door is opening and a guy’s jumping out.”
“Holy cow,” one of The Lighthouse film crewmembers said to Selig. “We didn’t know this place was here.”
Set decorator Ian Greig told Selig that 95 per cent of the props they needed had already been bought but that they wished they could have found him earlier.
Over the next couple of weeks, they dropped in frequently. Then one day he received a phone call at 6 a.m.
“Is this Kevin? Can you come down and open the shop? We have an emergency,” said one of the crewmembers.
“I said, ‘that’s gonna cost ya,’” says Selig.
The caller laughed.
One of the actors (Robert
Kevin Selig, owner of 87 Antique Emporium on Water Street, holds a pocket watch similar to five he sold for the filming of The Lighthouse.
Pattinson or Willem Dafoe) had been using a pocket watch in the movie and the script called for him to take it out and look at it every so often.
“He had dropped it and it smashed and they needed to replace it. They wanted one as identical as possible because the critics pick up on those small little details,” says Selig.
The crewmember bought five pocket watches to ensure one matched the broken one.
Another time Selig received a call around 8 a.m. on a Monday.
Kevin Selig, owner of 87 Antique Emporium on Water Street, came to the rescue with a replacement after a pocket watch was broken during the filming of The Lighthouse.
“They wanted to know if I had a Victorian toothbrush. I
said no, and they said, ‘well, we have this scene where one of the actors is at his mirror, brushing his teeth and shaving and he’s got no toothbrush.’”
Selig says one of the props guys ended up carving one after Selig described it to him, and bristles from a broom were glued onto it.
On another occasion, Selig was contacted for one of the four 1890s primitive chairs he had in stock.
“I said I have four and he said, ‘No, I only want one. Here’s my dilemma. This is an authentic chair that was from the time period that we’re shooting in but it’s old. We need it to look new at that time.’”
The crewmember explained that he would take the chair to his carpenter, who would duplicate it out of new wood to make four that would look appropriate for that time period.
Later, Selig was also able to supply a pewter beer mug that viewers will see slammed onto a rough table and thrown against the floor in the film.
The antique dealer says Robert Pattinson’s personal assistant stopped at the shop four or five times to put away items for herself.
“Pattinson later sent his other assistant in to buy those things, so he could give them to her as a gift,” said Selig.
During their visits, one crew member told him, “Kevin, I feel so comfortable here. A lot of places we go, we’re just treated really differently (hounded by the public).
“I said, ‘you’re in Nova Scotia, this is the way it is,’” says Selig.