Another Google alert--no JI, hardly any Brotherhood,

[Hilary the Touched]

just about Rhode Island in show biz, really:



'The R.I. Look:' Is it puffy hair and big hoop earrings?

Not only. A casting call for the new Showtime series Brotherhood brings out 300 hopefuls all with their own answers.

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, August 28, 2005

BY PETER B. LORD
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- With the movie business heating up in Rhode Island, an open casting call was offered yesterday for actors who have "the Rhode Island look."

Whatever that is.

Nearly 300 responded: deeply tanned young women, mothers with toddlers, several senior citizens, and a few kids who looked better suited for football.

Their definitions of a "Rhode Island look" were as varied as they were.

Kaela Adams, of Coventry, who said she should have been packing to go back to school at Rhode Island College, followed her mother's advice and got her photograph taken.

Adams said she thought "the Rhode Island look" meant "puffy hair and big loop earrings and looking Italian."

But Alyssa, 12, Taylin, 5, and Lexie Surrette, 7, all of Bellingham, Mass., had their hair drawn up in pigtails. And Michael Campbell, 12, of North Providence, who has always wanted to be an actor, sported a crewcut.

Terry Souza, 42, of Providence, dismissed the idea of a "Rhode Island look." What distinguishes Rhode Islanders, he said, is the accent.

"It's diversity. It's down-to-earth people," said Steven Feinberg, director of the Rhode Island Film and Television Office, as he watched the line snaking through the state administration building.

"No one here is glammed up like plastic, Hollywood figurines," he said. "We are looking for people who are not fake."

THE MOVIE BUSINESS surged in Rhode Island this summer when Brotherhood, a new series slated to run on the Showtime channel, began shooting seven days a week.

The filming will continue until Nov. 8, Feinberg said, and all of it will be in Rhode Island, unlike the TV series Providence, which was shot largely in Los Angeles.

The show employs 160 full-time crew members, Feinberg said, and 150 to 200 people are hired as extras each episode.

Feinberg said he's had other Hollywood producers visit Rhode Island recently and hopes to be making some "major announcements" within a few weeks.

In June, Feinberg said, some 1,200 people attended the first casting call held in conjunction with LDI Casting, a Warwick company that casts actors and gives classes.

Since then, Feinberg said, he heard from a number of people who wished they had a chance to sign up, too. So they held another casting call yesterday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

IT WAS a varied group.

Some pulled portraits from carefully prepared portfolios. Most did not.

Some had extensive local acting experience. Many others never appeared in so much as a school play.

One young man stepped forward in a crisp, white dress shirt, unbuttoned halfway down. Behind him waited another young man in a wrinkled Hawaiian shirt. The next young man in line wore a T-shirt.

Anne Mulhall, the owner of LDI Casting, spoke briefly with each and then directed them to nearby photographers.

Mulhall was happy yesterday because she said 9 out of 10 applicants were actually Rhode Islanders.

"People here are all very different," she said. "They are what they are. They are not Hollywood. And a lot are blue collar."

As she spoke, two men submitted forms listing their occupations as carpenters.

"You are just what we want," Mulhall said to one. If a filmmaker wants to shoot a scene with carpenters in the background, or with police raiding a house, Mulhall said she would rather hire real carpenters and policemen than actors who would have to learn everything.

Steinberg said he made a similar point when lobbying Showtime to shoot its entire series in Rhode Island, rather than going to Toronto.

"I told the director that if they shot the show in Canada, they wouldn't be telling the truth," Steinberg said.

"This is the first time in the state's history an entire series is being shot within the state, and they are spending $25 million here," he said.

STEINBERG said the General Assembly also played an important part last year, when it approved a tax break for filmmakers. That, he said, put Rhode Island on an even playing field with cities in Canada.

Rhode Island, he said, also benefits from its size. Filmmakers can move from oceanfront, to a city to the country within 20 minutes.

Access to political leaders is also probably unmatched, Steinberg said. Recently, he said, he brought in a filmmaker who in one day was able to meet Governor Carcieri, Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty, Speaker of the House Speaker William Murphy and Providence Mayor David Cicilline.

"The attitude here is great," Steinberg said. "We're not cynical people, at least about movies."

But what is the Rhode Island look?

Ed Morgan, standing in line yesterday, stepped forward, stroked his grey beard, spread his arms, and said:

"It's me!"

http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo ... 4721a.html[/url]