Downtown Illinois

This weekend our beloved James Street North got turned into downtown Illinois. They spent Sunday shooting some scenes for the upcoming movie Red Lights, starring Cillian Murphy, Sigourney Weaver and Robert DeNiro. I never had any star sightings, but I saw lots and lots of Illinois evidence.

Look ma, American mail boxes! They dressed up most of the street on Saturday afternoon, and left it overnight for filming Sunday.

The door on the right is a dressed up (or dressed down?) Leon Furs. That doorway was used for a scene they were shooting with Cillian Murphy and Joely Richardson, so look for it when the movie comes out. The “Liquor Store” is Joe’s old Canadian European Children’s Wear shop. When the crew was taking everything down at the end of the night, I heard two of them debating whether they could just leave the sign up there, by “pretending they never looked up”. I had kind of hoped it would happen, but alas, it came down. The signs in the window are still there.

They made this sign and put it outside of our store at some point on Saturday. It was still there when I left for work this morning, so I’m hoping we get to keep it! They may not have matched our fonts or logo, but they did an excellent job with the colors.

By the way, I had to sign a release saying I was ok with them using the name/image/likeness of our building and store, and that I was ok with it even if it was “defamatory”. PLEASE DON’T DEFAME MY STORE, CILLIAN MURPHY.

See? Illinois.

On the right was the closest I could actually get to the set (except by looking out my living room window). On the left is what I found when I went downstairs in the morning to take my dog for a walk. Directors chairs! Set up in my back yard! At first I was excited that DeNiro might possibly be hanging out in my backyard. Then I was mortified by the apple crates full of rotting cabbage.