I had never even been in a drama class or nothing like that. I thought I had something to add to it. By the way? The bank robbers, who were very much an element of life in the neighborhood for decades, have been gone for 15 years, replaced by a new Charlestown where gentrification has taken hold and the more accurate stereotype of the moment is: Oh, you must be a yuppie. Affleck: What I liked about [the book] was that it was similar to [Dennis Lehanes] Gone, Baby, Gone in that I both could use the bones and the structure of the story and there was good dialogue and interesting characters in there, but also they kind of inspired me to create more and add on to it. They ran mass auditions of up to 1,000 people at a time, Affleck recalls. Which I like, and its good, but I want to sort of put our perspective on it.. When fans of The Town think of Charlestown, they think of banks and bars and punchlines. And I say, Whats that? And they say, Thats a still of someone robbing a bank. And I said, Did they rob the bank in that skeleton mask with the dreadlocks? They said, Yeah. So I became obsessed with that mask. He was given just 13 days, during which the sound of automatic gun fire spooked a wedding party that had hired Fenway as a venue and were apparently not made aware that there was also a film shoot in progress. And there were probably a couple of guys there who were still robbing banks.. I liked the way it was released, man. If youre gonna make a film of it, you have to add something to it, or try to. MacRay is pulled between the devil and angel who sit on his shoulders: Jem, who spent nine years in prison for killing someone who was supposedly planning to kill Doug; and Claire, the bank manager Doug falls for after a job. Ive been on the force for 20 years and Im not looking for money or anything, but Im originally from Charlestown and I think I could be helpful. Shes like, Well, its really great to talk to you, we do have technical advisers and everything kind of lined up, but if you wanted to drop off a card or something like that. I said, Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Affleck was born in Berkeley, California but grew up in Cambridge, also across the Charles River from Boston but far removed from the inner-city neighborhood of the film. ], Affleck: Having been through an experience myself where I felt that people had a sense of me that wasnt really fair, Im very sympathetic to and interested in people who are, I think, sort of pigeonholed. So theres a whole range of accents. Chief Judge Frank Caprio#CaughtInProvidence#thetown#bankrobber See less Comments Most relevant Connie Ann My husband and I watched the movie right after I saw the Providence clip. One of those characters you love to hate and find sort of intoxicating and moving; all of those things at the same time. Welliver: The character Dino was a cop who grew up in Charlestown. And I hadnt seen it with the new one tacked on. They get their tips and kick up to local crime lord Fergus Fergie Colm, played by veteran character actor Pete Postlethwaite. And then he was out, so we were using him again for research. WebThe Town. I sort of pretended that Charlestown was still the way it used to be. And then she recorded her voice, read some of the pages, so that we shared that with Blake Lively, so she could try to get the accent down. Matheson: Weve had this official tour [of Bostons FBI office] and as were leaving, I notice a picture across the room, pasted to the wall, of a person in a mask, from the CC TV. Or a child abduction? You can come over to my house for dinner. It was just short of, If you need protection, were here for you. It was incredible. Burch: We did it during off days. We went back to his hotel room right after. Hes crazy. Hes from Modesto, and hes kind of got that bulldog, kind of dirtbag sensibility. The North End, Bostons Little Italy, is one of the citys smallest, densest, oldest neighborhoods; the asymmetrical Fenway Park, which fits snugly on a single block, is picturesque but impossibly cramped. This is the script I want. And I said, Adrian, this is gonna be a three-and-a-half-hour movie. Hes like, Well, if Scorsese can make a three-and-a-half-hour movie, I want to.. How are you gonna figure this out because you want to drive an armored car out of one of our gates? Also, Starr starred in a silent movie based on his criminal activity titled A Debtor to the Law. Its not wedding bells which break up the old gang in Ben Afflecks The Town, its witness protection. Although we dont have the exact figures for Charlestowns crime rate in the 90s, statistics suggest that there was indeed a surge in the rate of robberies in 2 hours ago. And we saw the film for the first time and I must say: I was across the aisle and up two or three rows from Jeremy, and I dont know if Im letting the cat out of the bag, but I think he was thrilled watching that film. He was definitely a bad guy and was going to take as many people with him as he could, but you still kind of went, You know what, this is a kid that came along, and in a different environment he wouldve been a different person but he is a product of all of this dysfunction and horror that hes grown up in. Its brilliant. When I saw it, I thought, Its fine. I wound up learning a lot from how Ben did that. Now, William shares his story after his Caught in Providence case went viral. He grew up in Cambridge,which was close enough to Charlestown for him to know a little about it. I was like, Im not gonna do another movie in Boston. They stole their tunes., The interviews also gave The Town an on-tap supply of authentic extras. Carter: They were looking at Chris Pine in the very beginning, because of course Star Trek had just come out. Bill Simmons saysthere were a lot of Boston ladies like Kris in real life. It seems likely that Lively had met a few. But it really wasnt. So all of a sudden, while theyre getting married, they hear gunshots at Fenway. Unlike them, Doug had a chance at success, a chance to escape following in his father's criminal footsteps. He knows how to get a story from one place to another and connect all the dots in between so that you are in it and immersed in it and believe it and its thrilling and its really entertaining, as well as being serious. Its been in development here for a while. Ill use them because Im from Boston to get into Fenway. Cooper: I dont know Jeremys height, but Ben is a pretty big boy. A Boston bank robber looks for a way out of his criminal lifestyle after beginning a passionate romance with the woman that his gang briefly took hostage. Burke: To go sit in the stands with Jeremy Renner in an empty stadium, it was surreal. I kind of got to tiptoe around and watch them shooting from afar without them knowing I was there. They like walking out with a little bit of hope. Craig: I lived in Somerville for a while in the 90s. First of all, it was about 20 pages shorter. And on Afflecks instructions, Blake Lively, a California girl, spent three months hanging around with locals in bars and apartments to prepare for her role. I wasnt really in the movie world. My father insisted that I go over. WebCharlestownis the oldest neighborhoodin Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. And I was like, Who the hell is this guy? WebMassachusetts, U.S., Town Birth Records, 1620-1850. The Ringers Bill Simmons, who lived in Charlestown for eight years, said on The Rewatchablesthat, of all films, this one makes me the most nostalgic for Boston. The bars in the film are real Charlestown bars:Old Sullys (for townies), where Douggie and Jem meet early on, and New Sullys (for yuppies), where Hamms FBI officer approaches Niki. Dillinger assembled a crack team and he himself would hop over the bank booths like a jack-rabbit, hence his nickname. But No R.. He had the beginnings of the accent, clearly he had the ability to do ita bad Boston accent would ruin that part. Al Pacinos Sonny in Dog Day Afternoon wants enough money to give a better life to his wives. Affleck: Im glad to have worked on movies that are part of that tradition. Welliver: Weve got a couple of great little homages to The Friends of Eddie Coyle when theyre in Fenway: You live at such and such a street Thats completely Alex Rocco talking to the bad guy and hes saying like, We have your wife and your children are in the house. In my imagination, hes always been Ben Affleck. [The Town] is not just entertainment and popcorn. WebThe Town. If possible, its really great to hire people with whom an audience isnt overly familiar, because audiences have developed expectations and kind of anticipate what an actor might do if theyve seen them a bunch. FBI figures reveal significantly higher crime rates pre-gentrification. No above-the-line people got paid any money. Citizens Bank, located at 315 Hanover St., was robbed at 9:10 a.m. and a Santander Bank at 287 Hanover St., was robbed a mere 4 minutes later. Every take had the same amount of tension and edge but it was just all over the place. I look over and its Pete, and hes having his breakfast, and hes reading the paper, and I hadnt met him before because I didnt have any scenes with him. And obviously it was in Bostonthat I was comfortable with. Its not a super cheap movie but its not expensive like a studio movie. When its not, its predictable and obvious and trite. They are holding their automatic weapons and wearing their disguises. And we had a lot of days for a movie that was relatively inexpensive. For his turn as Jem, Renner was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, though he lost out to Christian Bale, who played the troubled brother of boxer Micky Ward in yet another movie set in Massachusetts: The Fighter. WebFind many great new & used options and get the best deals for Lego Jail Prisoner Robber Crook Minifigure Lot of 12 w/ Accessories Town City at the best online prices at eBay! And in an exciting way. During the Cold War he had a great joke: The Russians wont invade Boston, theres nowhere to pahk! I thought, Yup, theres a lot of truth to that. That was our greatest hurdle. He gave me so much ammunition all the time to play off and to feel. Norbums. Affleck never had so much fun, One blue-collar Boston neighbourhood has produced more bank robbers and armoured-carthieves than anywhere in the world: Charlestown.. To Charlestown, our one square mile of brick and [Adrian Lyne did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this article.]. They were all from Charlestown. So unexpected. I was doing that. Welliver: It [was] like doing photo shoots in front of Graceland with Elvis when Elvis was still alive. He loved it, optioned it. Affleck: Because it was the first time I was gonna star and direct, and because I didnt have a lot of money to pay a bunch of stars, I had the luxury of being able to just cast the best actors. Violence, unsolved murders . He was with his mother. The funny thing isand I found this out laterhe met John Cena for that role. [It was] probably the most intense production that weve had at the ballparkfrom both an overall action perspective, but also the grandeur of it. Afflecks Doug MacRay, the leader of the gang, is the one whos gotten tired of the life. Adrian was off the project. The second thing was, I realized what a fool I was to think like, Oh, if its bad Ill have a story. I realized that I wouldve been crushed if that movie was bad. soap.. This week marks the 10-year anniversary of The Town, Ben Afflecks Oscar-nominated crime thriller about a group of bank robbers in Charlestown who target Fenway Park for one final score. The Boston area was prime cinematic crime fields during the early 2000s. All three were from Charlestown. Jem is his right hand muscle, and unquestioning backup. Afflecks big killing in The Town is Fenway Park, and over 60 years later, the take is the same. Afflecks second film as a director charts the fall of a mythic heist gang and the streets which made them. The romance in the middle of the film is only there to delineate the boundaries between heist film and crime procedural. With the premiere of The Town 10 years ago, the No R genre peaked. And they said, We like what you did, we think youre a good director and we believe in you. 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