Where the ‘action’ is
City is buzzing about the filming of AMC show ‘NOS4A2’
WOONSOCKET – A River Street junkyard where cars go to die came alive Monday with some unusual visitors – from Hollywood.
The back lot of Interstate Towing was the latest stop in the city – and not the last – for the production crew of the supernatural thriller “NOS4A2,” an AMC Network series based on the 2013 book by Joe Hill, the son of famed horror author Stephen King.
Several dozen technicians, actors and other members of the production crew were shooting a scene behind Interstate Towing for several hours. Visitors and photographers weren’t allowed on the set, but careful observers could catch a glimpse of a fake sheriffs’ car from Iowa in front of a camera moving back and forth on a dolly. One of several actors in the scene wore a tawny sheriffs’ uniform, and every once in a while a woman in a brown jacket yelled “Cut!” or “Action!”
“It’s a very stellar crew of folks from Hollywood as well as local crew members,” says Steve Feinberg, the executive director of the Rhode Island Film and TV Office. “This is a dream come true for Rhode Island’s television and film community.”
Even a casual observer could detect a little bump in the economy from the film work. Lighting, sound and electronic equipment was ferried to the set in a half-dozen tractor trailers that were driven by members of the Teamsters. The trucks parked in leased space owned by the VFW Post 85, across the street. The filmmakers also leased Interstate Towing’s garage and junkyard from Lorraine Turcotte and her husband, the owners, and at least a half-dozen Woonsocket police officers were called in to work a traffic detail on River Street.
The police officers got to borrow the film crew’s two-way radios for the job, so staff on the set – several hundred yards away – could contact them immediately if they had to stop traffic.
“I informed them that we’d like to be as accommodating as possible,” says Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, who’s getting a lot of the credit for bringing the latest contingent of Hollywood moviemakers to the city.
Baldelli-Hunt says she has a longstanding relationship with one of the location scouts for the film – Julie Fenton – who lived in the North End for many years. Feinberg says the mayor’s relationship with Fenton was also instrumental in bringing “NOS4A2” to the city.
“Julie was very excited about the potential of Woonsocket,” said Fenton. “It’s a wonderful place to make movies and TV commercials. The city has always been very encouraging to the creative economy.”
This is the second shoot in the city for “NOS4A2” in the
city – and Baldelli-Hunt says the crew will be here several more times, as well as at other locations in Rhode Island. The word on the set Monday was that the crew was heading off to Lincoln Woods after wrapping up at Interstate.
The crew shot scenes at Woonsocket High School about two weeks ago.
“NOS4A2” is the third book by Hill, whose real name is Joseph Hillstrom King. A chip off the old, blockbuster-maker father’s block, Hill is making his bones in the supernatural thriller genre, launching “NOS4A2” to critical acclaim in 2013. AMC announced in April that it had picked up the rights to the story for a 10-part series slated for release in 2019.
Judging from the talent associated with the production, AMC may be grooming “NOS4A2” as a successor to its long-lived zombie drama, “The Walking Dead.” The series showrunner, or leading
executive producer, is Jami O’Brien – one or the creative minds responsible for bringing spin-off “Fear the Walking Dead” to the screen.
Among others, the production team of “NOS4A2” also includes Hill; Tom Brady, who was associated with “Colony,” a USA Network science fiction series, and “Hell on Wheels,” a western series that also premiered on AMC; as well as Henry Bronchtein, an alumnus of HBO’s legendary “Sopranos,” as well as “Turn,” AMC’s more recent take on spy craft in the Revolutionary War era.
In case it’s not obvious, “NOS4A2” is actually a soundalike construction for “Nosferatu,” the name of the first film vampire inspired by author Bram Stoker’s 1897 chiller about the evil bloodsucker, “Dracula.” In Hill’s fictional world – and AMC’s reinvention of it – NOS4A2 is the license plate of Charlie Manx, a villain of the under-
world who survives by feeding on the souls of children.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb), the online authority on all things cinematic, sums up the storyline this way:
“A young mother, Victoria “Vic” McQueen discovers she has the power to unlock portals to other dimensions,” IMDb explains. “As she delves further into this hidden universe, she encounters many other ‘inscape travelers’ – some benevolent, and some who have been corrupted by their power. When Vic encounters Charlie Manx, an immortal who stays that way by feeding off of the souls of children, she makes a sworn enemy of Manx, who kidnaps her son in retaliation.”
Vic must “travel through hell and back to reclaim her child, while fighting to keep her family and her sanity together,” IMDb says.
While it’s unclear whether either was involved in yesterday’s junkyard scene,
the marquee talent for “NOS4A2” includes Zachary Quinto as Manx, an actor who may be best known as “Spock” in the latest screen adaptations of “Star Trek.” Also featured as the McQueen character is Ashleigh Cummings, a 26-year-old actress from Australia who has a slew of film and TV work on her resume, including multiple appearances in ABC’s “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.”
Of course, “NOS4A2,” is not the first Hollywood crew to find locations in the city worthy of big-screen backdrops. Two years ago, the makers of “The Purge: Election Year,” shot on location on Main Street. More recently, comedian Jack Black liked Bouley Field for scenes
of “The Polka King,” a bizaare fact-based drama about a band leader who turned his ensemble of polka musicians into a Ponzi scheme.
According to Baldelli-Hunt, the hub of “NOS4A2” is Haverhill, Mass – a small town a few minutes from the New Hampshire line.
It may be fiction, Baldelli-Hunt is proud that the moviemakers’ “Haverhill” will really have a lot of Woonsocket in it.
“Woonsocket will be in that series,” she says. “Even though it’s based in Harverhill, Mass., a lot of the scenes you will see are in Woonsocket.”