Meryl Streep – IAMNOTASTALKER

June 12, 2020June 13, 2020

Mother Moo Creamery from “Big Little Lies”

Though Big Little Lies’ second season was an all-around disappointment, the biggest letdown of all was Meryl Streep and Reese Witherspoon’s infamous ice-cream-throwing scene – captured by paparazzi and splayed all over the internet – which never actually made it to the screen. The cut didn’t go unnoticed. Calling the lost segment “the biggest lie so far,” the Eater website opined, “The biggest mystery of season two revolves around a food fight that never happened.” Thanks to some signage visible on neighboring buildings in the paparazzi pics, I tracked down and stalked Mother Moo Creamery, the adorable Sierra Madre ice cream shop where the cone-tossing scene took place, long before the sophomore season premiered. So the disappointment over its non-airing was particularly stinging for me. Though Streep assured fans the footage would be included in the Season 2 DVD extras, that did not come to pass. Oh, BLL producers, why are you holding out on us? Regardless, I figured Mother Moo was still worthy of a post and, since restaurants are just starting to reopen, decided now was the perfect time to pen it!

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Bright, colorful, and cheery, Mother Moo Creamery is the cutest little ice cream shop you ever did see!

Pinwheels in the planter box? Come on! So adorable!

It’s like the ice cream parlor of your dreams!

And it’s even more charming inside!

The ice cream offerings at Mother Moo are plentiful. The Grim Cheaper and I opted for a scoop of the salty chocolate and it was literally the best cone of my life!

Besides the divine scoops, Mother Moo also sells gifts, candy, and other sundries.

It is not at all hard to see how the darling shop wound up onscreen, especially on a series as picturesque as Big Little Lies.

While the cone-throwing footage never made it to to the airwaves, Mother Moo Creamery – or at least the exterior of it – did! In the episode titled “Kill Me,” Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Witherspoon) and her daughter, Abigail Carlson (Kathryn Newton), have a terse interaction with Mary Louise Wright (Streep) outside of the parlor.

We get a better look at the jeweler next door than we do Mother Moo in the segment, though.

Fortunately, we have those paparazzi photos which largely went viral thanks to a fan named Matt who posted one on Twitter with the caption, “I am praying Reese pelts Meryl with that ice cream,” to which Reese responded, “Oh Matt! No need to pray. I got her!”

Of course, I had to do it!

Shortly before Big Little Lies’ Season 2 premiere, Reese posted an Instagram photo posing with her television daughter at the shop, so I had to emulate that, as well!

Long before Mother Moo Creamery moved in, the storefront that houses it appeared briefly as an electronics shop in the 1982 horror film Halloween III: The Season of the Witch. It is amazing how little of the space has changed in the almost forty years since the segment was lensed!

I am fairly certain the site was an electronics store in real life during that time because, thanks to fellow stalker Walter, I learned that in 1986 it also popped up in the Season 2 episode of Highway to Heaven titled “Close Encounters of the Heavenly Kind” as Jack’s Video Repair, where Harvey Milsap (Harold J. Stone) attempted to get a job.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine, and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Mother Moo Creamery, from the “Kill Me” episode of Big Little Lies, is located at 17 Kersting Court in Sierra Madre. You can visit the eatery’s official website here.

August 14, 2019August 13, 2019

The Filming Locations of “Big Little Lies” Season 2 – “Kill Me”

The fifth episode of Big Little Lies’ second season may have lacked pizzazz (especially since the much-anticipated ice-cream-throwing scene was cut!), but it sure boasted a lot of locations. Read on to discover which spots the Monterey 5 frequented in “Kill Me.” (Note – as was the case with my posts about the locales from “What Have They Done?,” ”Tell-Tale Hearts,” “The End of the World” and “She Knows,” because I have already extensively detailed BLL’s inaugural season, I will not be covering flashbacks. And places that appear in multiple episodes will be noted as such, so some crossover should be expected.)

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1. Jane’s Apartment (Ocean Harbor, 125 Surf Way, Monterey) – “Kill Me” opens at the new seaside apartment Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley) shares with her son, Ziggy (Iain Armitage), located at Monterey’s Ocean Harbor. Though the inside of Jane’s place is, I believe, just a set . . .

. . . the actual interior of a unit is used as the home of Mary Louise Wright (Meryl Streep), who lives in the same complex.

“Kill Me” also offers us a rare glimpse of the exterior of Ocean Harbor towards the end of the episode as Mary Louise sits alone on nearby Del Monte Beach.

2. Celeste’s House (40 Yankee Point Drive, Carmel) – A gorgeous pad in Carmel Highlands stands in for the residence of Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman) and her children, Max (Nicholas Crovetti) and Josh (Cameron Crovetti), on the show. Used extensively throughout Seasons 1 and 2, the home, more specifically its dining room, only appears briefly in “Kill Me.” Celeste’s bedroom and the twins’ room, which are also shown in the episode, were just studio-built sets.

3. Nathan and Ed’s Argument (Monterey Bay Coastal Recreation Trail, near 459 Ocean View Boulevard, Pacific Grove) – Nathan Carlson (James Tupper) calls Ed Mackenzie (Adam Scott) a “nut-f*ck” – the planet is inhabited by them! – on Monterey Bay’s gorgeous Coastal Recreation Trail, which runs 18 miles from Castroville to Pacific Grove. In the scene, the two men argue near the Lovers Point Mural, about 0.2 miles east of Lovers Point Beach.

4. Monterey Superior Court (Superior Court of California, Marina Division, 3180 Del Monte Boulevard, Marina) – Celeste and Mary Louise attend the first part of their custody hearing at an actual Central Coast courthouse located in Marina, a small town just north of Monterey. Little of the unique building is shown in the scene, though we catch better views of it in the Season 2 finale, “I Want to Know.”

I believe the actual interior of the courthouse also made an appearance in the episode.

5. Cypress Community Hospital (Lanterman Developmental Center, 3530 Pomona Boulevard, Pomona) – Bonnie Carlson (Zoë Kravitz) sits vigil at her mother Elizabeth Howard’s (Crystal Fox) bedside at what is supposed to be Monterey’s local Cypress Community Hospital. Filming actually took place at an abandoned former health facility in Pomona known as Lanterman Developmental Center. The same spot is also where Amabella Klein (Ivy George) was taken after her anxiety attack in “The End of the World” and where Elizabeth was admitted following her stroke in “She Knows.” (Big THANK YOU to my friend Owen for IDing this location! Smile )

6. Ziggy and the Twins’ Fist Fight (Carmel River Elementary School, 2770 15th Avenue, Carmel) – Though Ziggy, Max and Josh are suspended for pummeling a bully on the Otter Bay Elementary playground, Kenter Canyon, which typically portrays the school of the Monterey 5’s children on the series, was not used in the scene. Filming instead took place at Carmel River Elementary, with the bungalows of the neighboring Mission Ranch Hotel clearly visible in the background.

7. Otter Bay Elementary (Kenter Canyon Elementary School, 645 North Kenter Avenue, Brentwood) – Kenter Canyon does make an appearance in “Kill Me,” though. It in the school’s principal’s office that Celeste and Jane are informed of their children’s three-day suspension and outside of the school that Jane asks Ziggy what caused the fight.

8. Madeline and Ed’s Marriage Retreat (Seven Coves, 157 Spindrift Road, Carmel) – A massive compound in Carmel which also cameoed in the 1992 thriller Basic Instinct stood in for the “healing institute” where Ed and his wife, Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon), try to repair their marriage. The sprawling property, known as Seven Coves in real life, boasts 5 separate homes, more than 4 acres of land, 1,000 feet of coastline, 17,000 square feet of living space, 12 bedrooms, and 17 bathrooms. If you have an extra $52 million lying around, the whole thing can be yours, as it is currently on the market.

It is in the property’s quaint, one-bedroom Writer’s Cottage that Ed and Madeline attend the retreat’s infamous hugging seminar in “Kill Me.”

9. Renata and Gordon’s House (27326 Winding Way, Malibu) – In the hopes of getting her to drop the custody battle against Celeste, Renata Klein (Laura Dern) invites Mary Louise for tea at her massive modern mansion, now virtually empty due to her bankruptcy – which, of course, does not go unnoticed by Mary Louise. The pad, featured in both Seasons 1 and 2, can be found on a private road in the hills of Malibu above Escondido Beach. Both the interior and exterior are utilized extensively on the series.

10. Madeline and Ed’s House (30760 Broad Beach Road, Malibu) – Chloe Mackenzie (Darby Camp) offers her father, Ed, some solace in the form of a hug in the kitchen of their idyllic Cape Cod-style home in “Kill Me.” Like Renata’s place, the Mackenzie residence is located in Malibu. The stunning property is a vacation rental in real life, which means you, too, can live like the Monterey 5 – well, temporarily, at least. You can check out a post I wrote about the dwelling here.

11. Liberation Yoga (124 South La Brea Avenue, Hancock Park) – Bonnie hosts a “singing for sleep apnea” class and is confronted by her father, Martin Howard (Martin Donovan), at a real yoga studio in Hancock Park. Or at least it was. Sadly, Liberation Yoga, formerly located on La Brea Avenue, has since moved and the storefront that once housed it sits vacant, so you can no longer get your namaste on there. The site also popped up a couple of times in Season 1 and was where Elizabeth surprised Bonnie in Season 2’s “Tell-Tale Hearts.”

12. Ira Farber’s Office (Scheper Kim & Harris LLP, The CalEdison DTLA, 601 West 5th Street, 12th Floor, downtown Los Angeles) – Mary Louise’s lawyer, Ira Farber (Denis O’Hare), unsuccessfully tries to broker a joint custody deal between his client and Celeste at Scheper Kim & Harris, located on the 12th floor of The CalEdison in downtown L.A. The firm’s offices also showed up in episode 4, “She Knows.”

The building’s 12th floor elevator bay was utilized in “Kill Me,” as well.

13. The Monterey 5’s Parking Lot Meet-Up (White Point Park, 1801 West Paseo Del Mar, San Pedro) – Celeste calls for a late-night secret meeting in the parking lot of San Pedro’s White Point Park (quite a long way from Monterey!) to discuss the latest in Perry’s (Alexander Skarsgård) case and to inform the group that she might be required to take the stand in her custody hearing, which would put them all in jeopardy. The same lot also makes an appearance in “The Bad Mother.”

14. Bonnie and Nathan’s House (636 Crater Camp Drive, Calabasas) – Nathan tries to make a grand gesture to show his love for Bonnie by surprising her with a treadmill and running book at their bohemian-style residence, actually located in Calabasas. It is in the living room of the bucolic home, used in both Seasons 1 and 2, that Bonnie has a heart-to-heart with her dad about her childhood abuse in the episode.

15. Madeline and Mary Louise’s Ice Cream Run-In (Kersting Court, Sierra Madre) – In what proved to be the most disappointing scene of the season, Madeline and her daughter Abigail Carlson (Kathryn Newton) run into Mary Louise on a downtown Sierra Madre street after getting ice cream. Though the cone-tossing element of the segment never made it to the screen, the trio is shown having a terse conversation in front of Savor the Flavor gift store at 11 Kersting Court.

16. Corey’s Kayaking Beach (Whaler’s Cove, Point Lobos, Carmel) – Instead of keeping Max, Josh and Ziggy home during their suspension, Celeste and Jane decide to take them kayaking with Corey Brockfield (Douglas Smith) at Monterey’s famed Whaler’s Cove at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve. The pristine oasis, a popular kayaking destination in real life, is part of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

Prior to heading out on the water, Corey engages in some horseplay with the boys in the Cove’s parking lot area, which also made appearances in “The End of the World.”

17. Tori Hits on Ed (City Tavern, 9739 Culver Boulevard, Culver City) – Tori Bachman (Sarah Sokolovic) rather awkwardly hits on Ed (though things are about to get a lot more awkward in the episodes to come!), at City Tavern, the very same bar where Celeste and Jane had cocktails in “She Knows.”

18. Carmel by the Sea Police Department (Junipero Avenue & 4th Avenue, Carmel) – Carmel by the Sea PD plays itself in several episodes of Big Little Lies’ second season. In “Kill Me,” Bonnie heads there on a late-night walk and makes the shocking discovery that Corey might be working with the police.

Don’t forget to tune in Friday for my post about episode 6, “The Bad Mother.”

July 29, 2019July 29, 2019

Bean Town from “Big Little Lies”

Big Little Lies sure made use of Sierra Madre this season (in case you missed my other posts on the city’s BLL appearances, you can check them out here, here and here). And it is not very hard to see why. The San Gabriel Valley town, situated just east of Pasadena, is charming, picturesque and extremely evocative of the past. It is like Pleasantville come to life! The place is also very reminiscent of Carmel, where the show is set, though it is even more quaint than the Northern California hamlet if you can believe it. And the hit HBO series utilized pretty much every square inch of it, including Bean Town, the beloved coffee house at 45 North Baldwin Avenue, which stood in for a pizza parlor, of all things, in episode 4. Though I blogged about the café back in February 2009, due to its recent small screen cameo, I decided it was time for a redo.

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I learned about Bean Town’s appearance on Big Little Lies thanks to the employees at Mother Moo Creamery (situated just down the road at 17 Kersting Court), whom I spoke with while researching my article about locales from the series for the June issue of Los Angeles magazine. They informed me that the coffee shop was altered significantly for the shoot and, boy oh boy, was it ever! So much so that, even with the insider information, I had a heck of a time figuring out what was lensed on the premises.

It was not until I started scanning through the café’s Instagram feed that I figured things out. During the March 2018 shoot, Bean Town’s owners graciously posted several photos of the space dressed for the filming. The set of images showed the coffee shop decked out to look like an upscale Italian restaurant, with large pieces of art dotting the walls, autumn decorations splayed on tabletops, and garlic strands hanging from the ceiling. One look and I knew immediately that Bean Town was the spot where Mary Louise Wright (Meryl Streep) took grandsons Josh (Cameron Crovetti) and Max (Nicholas Crovetti) for “the beeeeesssst pizza in the wooooooorld!” in “She Knows.” Virtually none of the café is actually shown in the scene (which is surprising considering the energy apparently spent on decorating it). What you see below is the extent of its appearance.

Despite the scant footage, though, enough was visible for me to be able to positively identify the place. As you can see, the artwork, fall wreath and decorative plate positioned behind Mary Louise in the segment match the décor pictured in Bean Town’s Instagram photo of the café’s back wall perfectly.

In everyday life, that back wall looks considerably different.

Per Bean Town’s Instagram, the coffee shop was closed for a full four days for the shoot, from Tuesday, March 27th through Friday, March 30th, so it is fairly gobsmacking that its appearance amounted to exactly sixty seconds of screen time! Typically, a scene of that length would require about a half a day of filming. And while the set dressing was extensive . . .

. . . I just can’t imagine that it necessitated three and a half days of prep and strike time.

So where did all that extra time go? My guess is that several additional segments were shot at the pizza parlor, but that they, like so much of Season 2, wound up on the cutting room floor. Who knows for certain, but man, what I wouldn’t give to see director Andrea Arnold’s original cut!

The Big Little Lies shoot required Bean Town and the Starbucks down the block (the only two coffee shops in the area!) to be closed simultaneously (the horror!), so, in an amazing gesture, the former set up an outdoor kiosk and offered free java so the community would not be without! The café, which was originally established in the ‘80s, actually has a long history of goodwill. When a horrible wind storm hit the San Gabriel Valley in December 2011, owner Matt Krantz powered the eatery with three generators so that locals could still get their fix. As he explained to the Patch, “We lost some signage, we lost a light and the awning tore up a bit but other than that, we’re here. Bumps and bruises. I could sit at home and not do anything, but I’d rather be here trying to keep everybody together and keep the sense of community that Sierra Madre is basically founded on.” He also delivered coffee and baked goods to the city crews working to get the town back up and running. And, in 2013, when a beloved barista unexpectedly passed away, Krantz not only shuttered the place for two full days to give friends and family a place to gather and mourn, but he also held a fundraiser on the premises to help with funeral costs. Bean Town is a café with heart! Oh, and their coffee is darn good, to boot!

As I mentioned in my 2009 post, Bean Town also appeared numerous times throughout the 2005 comedy Kicking and Screaming . . .

. . . most notably in the scene in which Phil Weston (Will Ferrell) has a minor breakdown over a too-long line. (I’ve been there, Phil! I’ve been there!) You can check out the hilarious segment here.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Bean Town, aka the pizza restaurant from the “She Knows” episode of Big Little Lies, is located at 45 North Baldwin Avenue in Sierra Madre. You can visit the eatery’s official website here. Several other spots from Season 2 can be found on the same block. The Starbucks where Tori Bachman (Sarah Sokolovic) propositioned Ed Mackenzie (Adam Scott) in “The Bad Mother” and where Renata Klein (Laura Dern) lashed out at Mary Louise in “I Want to Know” is just down the road at 1 Kersting Court. Mother Moo Creamery, where Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon) threw an ice cream cone at Mary Louise in a scene that was ultimately cut, is a few doors away at 17 Kersting Court. Deasy Penner Podley, aka Madeline’s real estate office, is at 30 North Baldwin Avenue. And the fictional Seaside Coffee Shop seen on Reese’s Instagram was created in the storefront that now houses Capelli Court Salon at 26 North Baldwin Avenue.

July 24, 2019July 27, 2019

Madeline’s Real Estate Office from “Big Little Lies”

I try to keep things positive on this blog, but, man, Sunday night’s Big Little Lies finale was an epic disappointment! The entire season was hugely lackluster, truth be told, which is especially frustrating considering the outright perfection of Season 1. I will contend that the first few episodes started out semi-promising, but the show quickly made an about-face, jumping the shark not long after Renata Klein’s (Laura Dern) “I will not NOT be rich!” jailhouse proclamation. My friend Jennifer summed things up perfectly when she messaged me Monday morning saying, “This entire season felt like it was a bunch of shots composed of the following: the same flashbacks over and over again; waves; shaky cam footage with low-to-no sound; driving shots. That was the meat and potatoes of the season, and the dessert was the one or two shots each episode that didn’t fall into those categories.” The locations proved just as mediocre as the rest of the season (again, especially disappointing considering those of S1), but I still have quite a few left in my arsenal to blog about including the real estate office where Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon) worked. So here goes!

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The supposed Monterey-area Sotheby’s where Madeline is employed first appeared in Season 2’s premiere, “What Have They Done?” (How Madeline went from being the director of a community theater in Season 1 to a real estate agent in Season 2 was never explained – like so many of the other changes made – but I guess that is beside the point.)

I did not recognize the office when initially watching the episode the night it aired back in June, but while scanning through it the following morning on the hunt for locales, I noticed the bright green and orange coloring of its exterior, shown fleetingly as Madeline walks inside, and knew immediately that filming had taken place at Hotel Shirley in Sierra Madre.

Thanks to my many visits to Sierra Madre when I lived in nearby Pasadena, I have long been familiar with the two-story structure, which is a focal point of the city’s quaint downtown.

Though one of the area’s Historical Landmarks, oddly, I could not find much information about Hotel Shirley’s background online.

Per the sign displayed out front, the building dates back to 1889 when it served as the headquarters of Hawks & Copps Real Estate and Insurance. In 1911, it was rebuilt as Hotel Shirley, a lodging for visitors to Mt. Wilson described by newspapers of the day as an “ideal summer resort in the mountains” boasting “fine cuisine” as well as having “no fleas or mosquitoes” – always a plus. In later years, the property became everything from a church meeting hall to a grocer to a house of ill repute before finally being purchased by local realtor Judy Webb-Martin in 1994. She set about restoring the structure to operate, in part, as her brokerage firm, a project which took five years to complete. Being that Hawks & Copps was the city’s first real estate office, the site really has come full circle. You can check out a short video Judy put together about the building’s provenance, which is where the black and white still below comes from, here.

Big Little Lies made use of the north side of Hotel Shirley’s lower level which, in real life, is home to the Sierra Madre outpost of the Deasy Penner Podley brokerage firm.

I ran out to stalk the place shortly after its appearance in “What Have They Done?” and was thrilled to be wholeheartedly welcomed by the agents present, all of whom expressed my same affinity for the show. How exciting it must have been for them to witness a beloved series come to life right before their very eyes in their very workspace and to share the same air with such esteemed stars as Witherspoon, Dern, and Meryl-freaking-Streep! My new friends even allowed me to take pictures of the office’s interior and showed me exactly where filming had taken place!

As you can imagine, I was like a kid in a candy store, snapping away!

Deasy Penner Podley is also where Renata rants to Madeline about Otter Bay Elementary School Principal Warren Nippal (P.J. Byrne) in the episode titled “The End of the World.” According to the employees I spoke with, the office’s actual furnishings were used in the shoot, though the site has since been remodeled slightly with the black desks swiped out for natural wood versions and the back wall painted green instead of blue. Several pieces were also moved out for the shoot to give the space more openness, but otherwise, it is very recognizable from its onscreen appearance.

The Deasy Penner Podley agents also informed me that a third scene was shot at the office, but like so much of the footage from Season 2, it wound up on the cutting room floor.

Thanks to the Dear Old Hollywood website, I learned that Hotel Shirley is visible in the background of the 1956 drama Strange Intruder in the scene in which Paul Quentin (Edmund Purdom) catches a bus to leave town. (That’s it in the top left of both screen captures below.)

The Hotel can also briefly be seen in the Season 1 episode of Camping titled “Going to Town,” which aired in 2018.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking ! Smile

Stalk It: Deasy Penner Podley, aka Madeline’s real estate office from Big Little Lies, is located on the bottom level of Hotel Shirley at 30 North Baldwin Avenue in Sierra Madre. The Starbucks where Tori Bachman (Sarah Sokolovic) propositioned Ed Mackenzie (Adam Scott) in the episode titled “The Bad Mother” and where Renata lashed out at Mary Louise Wright (Streep) in “I Want to Know” can be found across the street at 1 Kersting Court. And Mother Moo Creamery, where Madeline runs into Mary Louise in “Kill Me” – and where she was supposed to throw an ice cream cone at her -is up the road at 17 Kersting Court.

September 17, 2010January 11, 2011

The “It’s Complicated” House

This past weekend, I dragged my new husband out to Westlake Village to see a home that I’ve been absolutely dying to stalk ever since I tracked down its location a little over two months ago – the adobe-style ranch where Jane Adler (aka Meryl Streep) lived in the 2009 Nancy Meyers-directed romantic comedy It’s Complicated. I have been absolutely obsessed with Jane’s little Spanish-style bungalow ever since first laying eyes upon it while watching the flick back in July. Nancy Meyers has a true gift for choosing only the most beautiful homes to showcase in her films – from Diane Keaton’s beachside abode in Something’s Gotta Give to Kate Winslet’s English cottage in The Holiday to Steve Martin and family’s iconic white colonial residence in the Father of the Bride movies. I don’t think there’s a director out there who is better at scouting movie homes and that talent is nowhere more apparent than in It’s Complicated. The movie’s production designer, Jon Hutman, is quoted in the production notes as saying, “Nancy, perhaps more than any director I’ve worked with, comes to the table with a clear and specific vision of the world in which the story takes place.” She ends up translating that world to the screen and it becomes a place that her audiences want to live in, too. Which is why I think I became so obsessed with the It’s Complicated house – it is exactly the type of place I’d love to own myself someday.

And I am not alone in my desire. Ask anyone if they’ve seen It’s Complicated and the conversation invariably turns to Jane’s wooded, Spanish-style residence. So, it’s no surprise that I began cyber-stalking the place immediately upon finishing the movie. Unfortunately though, I couldn’t find much information about the home anywhere. The only real clues I had to go on were from the movie’s production notes, which stated that in real life the property had been built in the late 1920’s, was located in Thousand Oaks, and had belonged to several celebrities over the years, most notably comedian W.C. Fields.

I had one other pretty big clue to go on, though – one that wasn’t mentioned in the film’s production notes. Throughout the movie, Jane’s house is shown to be surrounded by a long, white wooden fence. That type of fence pops up quite often in film and television productions and when it does, it is pretty much a dead giveaway that filming took place somewhere on Potrero Road.

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Potrero Road is an extremely long, meandering street that cuts through numerous ranch-style properties in the Thousand Oaks, Hidden Valley, and Westlake Village areas and, as you can see in the above photographs, is bordered on each side by low, white wooden fences just like Jane’s. So, I decided to begin my search there. And sure enough, about ten minutes into the hunt, I located Jane’s house! As it turns out, it is situated less than half a mile east of JMJ Ranch, which was featured in fave movie Win A Date With Tad Hamilton and the more recent Back-Up Plan with Jennifer Lopez.

Before stalking the house, I was convinced that some part of it would be visible from the street. As you can see in the above photographs, though, that was not really the case. Sadly, the residence is set quite a ways back from the road and is surrounded by massive oak trees which hide the home from view. 🙁 UGH!

But that’s why God created aerial images!

And while the aerial views of the home aren’t that great, as you can see in the above screen captures, the shape of the house and the shape of the pool match those of the real residence perfectly!

Only the exterior of the Potrero Road home was featured in the production. Sadly, the beautiful interior of Jane’s house was a set that existed solely on a soundstage at Brooklyn’s Broadway Stages. Nancy Meyers was so meticulously involved in the creation of the interior of Jane’s residence, though, that she even went so far as to hand pick the books that were stored on the character’s bookshelves. She says, “I’m very particular about what’s sitting on a table. I’ll walk around the set, saying, ‘Would she really be reading this book?’” It is that attention to detail that makes the home appear so warm and inviting. Sigh!

UPDATE – The It’s Complicated house is currently for sale. You can check out a YouTube video of it here.

On a side note – fellow stalker David from Spain recently alerted me to the fact that the Gene Autry Museum in Griffith Park is currently hosting an exhibit featuring clothing that once belonged to the King of Pop. The exhibit is entitled “How The West Was Worn, by Michael Jackson” and displays such iconic pieces as the silver-plated shoes he wore to the White House in 1990 and the guitar-clasp belt he wore on the “Beat It” album cover in 1982 (pictured above). You can find out more information about the exhibit here. Special thanks to David for telling me about this event, which I will, of course, be stalking! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The It’s Complicated house is located at 714 West Potrero Road in Westlake Village. JMJ Ranch, from Win A Date With Tad Hamilton and The Back-Up Plan, is located at 930 West Potrero Road in Thousand Oaks, just a half a mile west of the It’s Complicated house.

July 27, 2010July 26, 2010

The Historic El Paseo Shopping Center from “It’s Complicated”

Another It’s Complicated location that I stalked while visiting the Santa Barbara area a few weeks back was the historic El Paseo Shopping Center located in the heart of Downtown State Street. In the movie, the Spanish-style marketplace stood in for the “Santa Barbara Medical Building” where Jane Adler’s (aka Meryl Streep’s) therapist, Dr. Allen (aka Peter Mackenzie), worked. In reality, El Paseo does not actually house medical offices, but is in fact California’s very first and oldest shopping center. I found the location thanks to this fabulous December 2009 Los Angeles Times article about the filming of It’s Complicated and even though I had yet to see the movie, I dragged my fiancé right out to stalk the place pretty much immediately upon arriving in the area.

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El Paseo Shopping Center was originally built during the 1920’s and currently houses several boutiques, restaurants, and independent offices situated amongst picturesque courtyards, sparkling water fountains, and wood-framed balconies. The place is absolutely huge and, including its parking lot, encompasses an entire city block, which is how my fiancé and I ended up stalking the wrong section of it. Because I had yet to watch It’s Complicated, I had no idea what particular part of El Paseo had appeared in the flick. So, while the Grim Cheaper and I did walk quite a bit of the property and snapped photographs of what we thought was every square inch of the place, we somehow missed the back entrance – which, of course, was the only section of the center used in the filming. Murphy’s Law strikes again!

Thankfully though, our good friends Chris and Amy, who live in the area, agreed to re-stalk the place for me this past weekend. And even though the two aren’t stalkers like myself, they did a FABULOUS job of matching their photographs to the screen captures I had sent them. YAY! Thank you, Chris and Amy!

Filming of It’s Complicated took place at El Paseo’s east entrance, which can be reached via Anacapa Street. As fate would have it, that area of the shopping center happens to be located directly across the street from the city’s main post office. During the shoot, the entire stretch of road in front of the shopping center and post office had to be shut down to all pedestrians and traffic, which on an ordinary day probably wouldn’t have been that big of a deal. But the It’s Complicated therapist office scene was actually shot on April 15, 2009. Yes, you read that right – the city actually shut down the street in front of its main post office on TAX DAY! Someone in the SB Planning Department seriously dropped the ball on that one! 😉

El Paseo’s main entrance is pictured above and, as you can see, looks markedly different from its back entrance. So different, in fact, that I thought the Los Angeles Times article had printed erroneous information when it reported that filming had taken place at the historic shopping center. It wasn’t until I did some cyber-stalking of El Paseo using Bing aerial maps that I figured out my mistake.

Amazingly enough, the It’s Complicated crew only filmed on location in Santa Barbara for a mere three days. The rest of the filming took place in Los Angeles and New York. According to IMDB’s It’s Complicated filming locations page, some of the flick was also lensed in Santa Barbara’s De Le Guerra Plaza. From what I’ve been able to discern online, the Plaza was converted into a Christmas tree lot for a scene that never actually made it into the movie. You can see some photos of the filming and read a great on-set report on the Fussy blog here.

Big THANK YOU to Chris and Amy for stalking El Paseo and taking the above photographs for me! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The area of El Paseo Shopping Center that was used in It’s Complicated can be found at 813 Anacapa Street in Santa Barbara. De La Guerra Plaza, where the deleted Christmas tree lot scene was filmed, is located in front of the Santa Barbara City Hall, which can be found at 735 Anacapa Street.

July 15, 2010July 15, 2010

The Santa Barbara County Courthouse from “It’s Complicated”

Two weekends ago, my fiancé and I headed up to Santa Barbara to spend the Fourth of July holiday with some friends. And just minutes before we left, fellow stalker Kerry texted me to let me know that the 2009 romantic comedy It’s Complicated had been filmed in the area, just in case I wanted to do some stalking while I was there. Well, let me tell you, I just about died upon hearing that and even though I had yet to see the movie, I spent the entire ninety minute drive up to Santa Barbara researching It’s Complicated filming locations on my blackberry so that we could stalk them as soon as we arrived. As it turns out, though, not all is at it seems, for while the movie was set in Santa Barbara, very little of it was actually filmed there. Oddly enough, over ninety percent of the flick was lensed in New York of all places! I was absolutely shocked when I heard that as I honestly can’t think of a place that is more diametrically opposed to Santa Barbara than New York City, aesthetically speaking at least. Anyway, one of the main Santa Barbara locations featured in the movie was the historic county courthouse, so I dragged my fiancé right over there pretty much immediately after we checked into our hotel.

And I have to say that I just about died when I saw the place as it is absolutely GORGEOUS! I’ve actually been to Santa Barbara countless times in the past as it is one of my family’s favorite vacation spots, but for some reason I had yet to ever visit the courthouse. So, I am extremely grateful to It’s Complicated, because otherwise I might never have seen the place and it is definitely a must-see Santa Barbara attraction! 🙂 The Santa Barbara Courthouse was first dedicated on August 14, 1929 and was designed by William Mooser III. It was built after the great 1925 earthquake completely leveled the county’s original courthouse. Apparently, that first courthouse had been designed in the Greek Revival-style, which is mind-boggling to me as pretty much all of Santa Barbara is either Spanish or Moorish in design. According to the National Historic Landmarks Program, the courthouse which now stands was the catalyst for the Spanish architecture that now dominates the area, so it is amazing to think about how architecturally different the city would have been had that first courthouse not been destroyed! I can’t even imagine it!

Inside, the building looks much more like a museum than it does an actual working courthouse. In fact, when we first walked in, I was convinced that the property was no longer in use, but it actually still is! Can you even imagine serving jury duty in a place that looks like that??? Would make for a much more enjoyable experience than serving at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Downtown L.A., I can tell you that! 😉 The Santa Barbara County Courthouse features vast archways and long sweeping hallways,

intricate tiling with wrought-iron detailing,

elaborately painted ceilings,

and a HUGE sunken garden.

I was most taken with the property’s historic detailing, though, like its old-school “Quiet, court is in session” signs,

wooden telephone booths,

and colorfully-painted court directory signs. LOVE IT!

The courthouse also features an 85-foot tall clock tower which is accessible to the public. The tower formerly housed the solitary confinement chamber of the now-defunct jailhouse which used to be located on the premises. It now offers visitors unsurpassed 360-degree views of the city and Pacific Ocean beyond. My fiancé and I almost neglected to visit the tower as we were feeling a bit lazy due to the heat and let me tell you what a mistake that would have been! Take my advice – no stalk of the courthouse can be considered complete without a climb up to that tower!!! The views are simply breathtaking!

The Santa Barbara County Courthouse is actually only featured very briefly in It’s Complicated, in a scene in which Jane Adler (aka Meryl Streep) is shown shopping at a local farmers’ market while making a phone call to her ex-husband, Jake Adler (aka Alec Baldwin). And when I say very briefly, I mean VERY briefly – the scene only lasted a scant 17 seconds. Not kidding! It is amazing to me that producers not only rented out the entire Santa Barbara County Courthouse, but also set up an elaborate set and hired a few dozen extras to film a scene that took up less than twenty seconds of film! I mean, couldn’t Jane have made that phone call to her ex-husband from anywhere? Did they really need to create the whole farmers’ market scenario? But I digress. Anyway, the It’s Complicated scene was filmed in the sunken garden area of the courthouse which, unfortunately, does not actually host farmers’ markets in real life.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Santa Barbara County Courthouse is located at 1100 Anacapa Street in Santa Barbara. You can visit the Courthouse’s official website here.