PORT TOWNSEND — Being in the movie business, “Enough” Executive Producer E. Bennett Walsh is probably familiar with the scene in Steve Martin’s “L.A. Story” where people doing lunch don’t even flinch when an earthquake hits.
Neither did Walsh when he was on Bainbridge Island talking to a Los Angeles associate on a cellphone at 10:54 a.m. Feb. 28 when the Nisqually quake let loose.
“I said ‘I’m in an earthquake’ and he said something like ‘But you’re not in L.A.’,” Walsh recalled.
The jolt didn’t phase either Walsh or the other people involved in finding a location for filming the Jennifer Lopez movie. For them, earthquakes apparently do happen without notice during lunch.
Walsh, Director Michael Apted, Location Manager Jennifer Dunne and Producer Rob Cowan roamed the Western United States in January looking for places to shoot the Columbia Pictures film.
“We looked north of San Francisco, Montana, Nevada, Idaho and part of the finding a place was that we wanted to have a film center nearby,” Walsh said. “Also, the idea of ‘Slim’ (Lopez’ character) turning over a new leaf meant where she went to was supposed to be idyllic. It was Washington state and the bay that Michael Apted fell in love with. It seemed like a good place to start a new life.”
Slim escapes from her abusive husband, Mitch, played by Billy Campbell, only to be tracked down by his henchman, “Robbie” played by Noah Wyle, in the idyllic setting, the fictitious Emmet County, Mich.
Details appear in the Friday/Saturday Peninsula Daily News, on sale throughout Clallam and Jefferson counties. Or click onto “Subscribe” to order your copy via U.S. mail.
