Union Street is the main street of Concord, North Carolina. It’s been partly closed off the past few months because they’re doing construction. But on Sunday, both sides of the street were blocked from traffic. So towards sunset, we set off to see what the occasion was. Maybe some kind of street festival, now that COVID is (hopefully) waning? I dropped my books off at the library, and then we walked further down the street. The street was indeed closed off — jammed up as it was with old cars.
‘Look!’ I said. ‘Maybe they’re going to a have a parade.’
It looked like a large outdoors museum. We were about to nestle ourselves among the cars and get a close look, when some men, heady with their authority and yet not as alert as they ought to have been, noticed we’d gone further than what was allowed.
‘Excuse us, you can’t go any further, you have to remain behind there, this is all closed off.’
‘What for?’
‘A movie set.’
I nearly rolled my eyes. I supposed it was some rinky-dink group of high schoolers, or maybe a college project, filming with their cell phones, and because their dad was friends with the mayor, they’d managed to get downtown blocked for their own private uses.
But then we found out it was a famous book — a Judy Blume book — and with famous actors — like Oscar-level actors — Kathy Bates and Rachel McAdams. You know, the girl from the Notebook and from Mean Girls, everyone kept telling as, just in case you didn’t know who Rachel McAdams was.
Here in downtown Concord???!!!
We crossed to the other side of the road, and behind some orange cones, there were about 15 or 20 people. Kids, parents, everyone.
I asked a nice-looking older lady, wearing a mask (and I was also wearing a mask!) if she’d seen anything, been there a while? She pointed at two teenagers or young twenty-somethings and said, they’ve been here since 7:30. In the morning. (It was 8:20 pm by this time!). So they were able to tell us everything. First, who the actors were (Rachel McAdams, you know the Mean Girls girl), and they had decided to film here because they wanted to re-create New York City in the 1970s.
Imagine that! Downtown Concord being chosen as a fair copycat of New York City.
How, out of all the towns and cities in America, was Concord even on the radar of the movie people? I wondered out-loud.
No one knew, but then they told me that a few days ago, the movie had gone filming at the Moose Drugs in Mt. Pleasant. Ahahahahahahahahahaha — Mt. Pleasant — and Moose Drugs — is going to end up on movie screens around the country???? It’s literally a pigs-can-fly scenario. Granted, Moose Drugs does have a very old-timey feel — I’m sure it’s going to be perfect. But how in the world did Mt. Pleasant get on anyone’s radar for anything? Except if it’s Trump rallies, of course.
Any case, then they told me what they’d see throughout the day. First, the producers show up; then the extras come; and last come the main actors. So yes, they had seen Kathy Bates and Rachel McAdams and everyone, and the little girl who is starring as Margaret (“she was in the Antman”).
“They were filming the scene where they are moving out from their apartment in New York City, you know, that part in the book,” said the mom.
I nodded, though I’ve never read this book. (Though I’m planning on it now!)
“They spent five hours just filming the part where the Dad is closing the trunk of the car after they’ve packed everything up,” said the teen boy.
He said that they’d watched all of that happening, and then the actors had all retreated into another of the stores, one with a green awning or something, which was set up as a ‘green room’ (is that a real term or did I mis-hear) and that’s where the actors could recharge during the filming downtime. They were supposedly all in there at that very moment, as the sun was setting behind us.
The teen boy had on a hat with the logo A24 on it. He explained that it’s the parent company or something of Lionsgate — it’s Lionsgate that’s producing the film (that’s the one that also did Twilight and the Hunger Games). And that it was his dream to meet the producer who is the head of A24, who was also on set.
‘Did you see him?’ I asked.
‘I did see him,’ he said. ‘He was walking past and he came within this much of me,’ pointing at a spot 5 feet away.
And the mom added that at the end of the day, when the filming is all done, there’s a chance the actors and producers and everyone will come to to the little crowd avidly watching every move behind the orange cones, and that the guy with the hat was hoping to get it signed by the producer at that point!
Apparently, this all has been in the works for a while, because all week they had been transforming the look of Union Street to match with 1970s New York City. The sign for the ‘The Bistro’ is gone, replaced with a pizza parlor, and a blue phone booth as been installed. The teen girl showed me the picture she’d taken, earlier in the week, from when she’d gotten into the set as it was still being constructed and snapped a photo of herself in the phone booth.
I don’t know if they’ll be filming again in downtown Concord, but according to this casting call site, they will be filming somewhere else in Concord this coming Thursday.
And the family I was speaking to said that sometime in June, they’ll be filming in Southpark Mall.
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