Gym stars as movie set for 'The Women'
For nearly 24 hours last week, an elite Sudbury gym and spa was transformed into the set of a major motion picture.
For a scene in the film "The Women," co-stars Annette Bening and Carrie Fisher worked out at the Bosse Sports & Health Club on elliptical machines normally used by well-heeled residents of Boston's western suburbs. The tennis courts became a cafeteria for the 200-plus members of the film crew, and the actors rested between takes in star trailers parked across Route 20.
The movie crew scoped out the $15 million gym - featured in a Forbes.com story on "super gyms for the super-rich" - three times over the summer, bringing between a dozen and 50 people each time to consider the space, said owner D.J. Bosse. They decided to film there Sept. 5.
The crew arrived late the night before to do some initial setup, and left by midnight. They showed up at 4 a.m. last Wednesday to remake the club's fitness room. They ran cables, set up flood lights, replaced light fixtures, and filtered the light from the windows.
"It was incredible," said Marco Cosentino, the gym's general manager. "They totally transformed it into Hollywood Central."
Scenes for the movie have also been filmed in Boston at the Prudential Center, a Roxbury apartment, and on Newbury Street, which is serving as Madison Avenue in this remake of George Cukor's 1939 film. On Monday, the crew and actors filmed in Newton, at Bullough's Pond.
Most of the Sudbury scene was filmed in the gym's 4,000-square-foot fitness room, which has Brazilian teak floors and modern art. The crew also filmed actresses eating lunch in the adjacent cafe, shooting through the huge fish tank that divides the cafe and the fitness room, Bosse said.
The scene starts with Bening on the club's climbing wall, said Tim Gorman, location manager for the movie, who said it was rewritten to include the club's wall. Bening climbed a ladder to get to the spot where producers wanted her on the wall, and her double did most of the climbing on film, said Bosse's fitness director, Chris Bullock. Though he "belayed" both actresses - holding the ropes as they climbed - Bullock will not appear in the movie, which stars only women until the end, when a baby boy is born. Instead, another actress pretended to belay Bening.
As the scene progresses, Bening leaves the climbing wall after spotting Fisher, her archenemy in the movie, enter the gym. Bening gets on an elliptical machine, and Fisher hops onto the one next to her, where the pair have a heated discussion. During the filming of the scene, a dozen or so extras walk around the fitness floor, pretending to use weights and work out on the treadmills. All the actresses had been spritzed down to simulate sweat.
Between takes, Bosse approached Fisher, who was reading on the club's outdoor patio, and told her how much he enjoyed her as Princess Leia in the film "Star Wars." He also asked to have a photo taken with her, a request she granted. Fisher later got a 50-minute massage in the club's spa, but Bening, he said, was busy practicing her lines after a scene was rewritten.
Bosse said that as part of the deal to film in the club, the moviemakers agreed to have the fictional gym staff wear clothing sporting the gym's logo. He added that he wonders how much of the five-minute scene they filmed in his gym will make it into the movie.
"That would be huge, to get five minutes in a motion picture like this," he said.
When "The Women" comes out, he said, he just might have to set up a Hall of Fame for the machines where Fisher and Bening pretended to sweat.
