Toronto Sun
Thursday, December 16, 2004
West Wing goes North
by Bill Brioux
Bill Brioux is on set as the political drama comes to Canada to shoot several episodes
JIMMY SMITS is sucking on a Stouffville lollipop. The popular TV star, new to NBC's Emmy-winning drama The West Wing, has
just ducked out of the cold and into Stouffville, Ont.'s Emerald Isle pub. "It is a bit of a shock to be in Canada,"
said Smits. "I knew the storylines were going to take us north. I just didn't realize this far north."
Executive producer John Wells (ER, Third Watch) invited the L.A. Law and NYPD Blue star to join the drama as The West Wing
prepares for life after two-term president Josiah Bartlett (Martin Sheen, who did not make the trip north). Smits plays
Matt Santos, a Houston congressman with his eye on the White House.
The story calls for Santos to test his political mettle in the wintery New Hampshire primaries. Presidential administrator
Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) seems to be backing his campaign. West Wing regulars Janel Moloney (Donna Moss) and Josh
Malina (Will Bailey), as well as recurring players Tim Matheson, Gary Cole and
Annabeth Gish, were in on the Ontario shoot.
The episodes will air in February.
Smits has worked Toronto before. "Your film festival is rocking now," he said. "It's become a barometer for the industry,
as well as one giant party."
Smits says there was no partying on this shoot. Yesterday was the end of a marathon 12-day Southern Ontario swing. The
town names fall from his lips like he grew up around here. "Dundas, Ancaster, Kleinberg -- little hamlets, as you guys
like to call them."
Yesterday's operation was based at The Fickle Pickle, a local eatery on Stouffville's main street. It is standing in for
the Merrimack, the famed New England eatery where the real Yankee pols gladhand every four years.
Producer Michael Hissrich was all set to change the sign but decided to leave the Pickle in place. "You can't invent that,"
he said.
Few other signs of Canada remain. Above the green and white Fickle Pickle sign waved a lone Maple Leaf flag. It's not in
the shot, so it stays.
Across the street, past the Stouffville clock tower, three Old Faithfuls wave. Cardboard New Hampshire licence plates were
placed on cars parked on both sides of main street. Two phony U.S. News trucks sit nearby.
Even Sun photographer Veronica Henri was fooled. She went to mail a letter in a blue U.S. mailbox before realizing it was a
prop.
All the merchants had to remove their Christmas decorations during the shoot. It didn't seem to bother Sara Marsala, owner
of the Tempest In A Teapot gift shop. "We're highly excited," she said. "This doesn't happen every day in our quaint little
town."
Also pumped is the mayor, Susan Sherban, who snuck into the street scene (along with 59 other extras). Even though she
found her back-and-forth sidewalk duty "tedious, repetitive and non-creative," she wasn't going away. "You wanna be a mayor
or you wanna be an actor?" she asked, rhetorically. "You wanna be an actor."
Especially when you get to hang with Jimmy Smits. "I told Jimmy he was buying the beer," she said.
Beer would have been handy. The task yesterday afternoon was to get through four-and-a-quarter pages of tricky West Wing
dialogue. (Each episode runs around 65 pages.) That's a sprint back on the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, Calif.,
where a seasoned Hollywood crew usually works this show. This mostly local crew has to rip through it, then head to Port
Perry for a final night setup.
Besides the cast, producer Hissrich and director/executive producer Chris Missiano worked the Ontario shoot. Renowned
director of photography Dean Cundey (Jurassic Park, Apollo 13) was behind the lens. Virtually everybody else working the
shoot was Canadian, a big shot in the arm for our local TV industry -- even if it raised a red flag or two south of the
border.
As Whitford, who has been with the series since Day One, said, the Ontario airlift has caused a little tension. After all,
this is a series about the U.S. president. What's it doing on foreign soil?
Producers were taken by our New England-style architecture -- as well as our still lower dollar.
"As actors, we go where the work is," said Whitford, who notes that California crews are just as upset about other states
luring shows away with tax incentives.
Ontario Manager Of Films Donna Zuchlinski, on site yesterday, lobbied hard for the gig. Cozy Toronto hotel rooms were
comped for the stars. Other incentives were hustled. Local unions cut deals.
Whitford said the Canadian crews have been "fantastic," an assessment echoed by both Smits and Hissrich.
That goes double for the townspeople. High winds at the Hamilton airport threatened to sabotage an earlier setup. Prop
planes were literally being blown off the runway.
A quarter-hour later, local airport workers moved two 727s in place -- 15 real planes in all. "People have been standing
on their heads left and right," said location manager Neil Lum Lock.
The scene finally wrapped, Smits stops to autograph a copy of the Stouffville Sun-Tribune before heading to a late lunch.
"Donna -- Best wishes to you," he writes. It is one of hundreds he's penned over the shoot.
That doesn't happen much anymore in California, he says. "People there are intrusive, they always see it.
"Here, they're jazzed."
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Special thanks to alfornos at the Haven
Message Board for the above article.
