Local seniors are ready for their close-up

Residents score roles as extras

HAVERHILL - When the credits roll on "This Side of the Truth" sometime next year, Roland Sans Souci may be listed as Old Guy on Porch.

That is, if he gets credit. The 82-year-old has no lines in the Warner Bros. comedy, which portrays an alternate reality where lying hasn't yet been invented. Such is the life of a first-time movie extra. Until today, the closest Sans Souci has come to acting fame was playing the lead role in a 1963 community theater production of "The King and I."

His job on this drizzly May morning is to sit in a wheelchair on the covered porch of Merrivista, the senior community where he lives in Haverhill, and pretend to converse with Frank McKenney, 74, another resident-turned-extra. At some point, British actor and comedian Ricky Gervais, star of the BBC version of "The Office," who acts in and directs this movie, will stroll by.

So - as someone yells "Action!" - Sans Souci and McKenney chat for the cameras. Fingers wag. Lips move. A beard is stroked.

"I love this guy in the chair," second assistant director Matthew "Bagel" Baker says to no one in particular. "Brilliant face."

It's been years since Hollywood crossed paths with Haverhill, the city where Louis B. Mayer - cofounder of MGM Inc. - made his start as a theater operator more than a century ago. Massachusetts tax breaks are now luring modern movie moguls, and many have flocked to the North Shore: Gervais's movie, which also stars Jennifer Garner, is filming in Lowell and Haverhill; "The Proposal," with Sandra Bullock, is shooting in Manchester, Rockport, and Gloucester; and "The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," with Matthew McConaughey and Michael Douglas, just wrapped up in Ipswich.

In Haverhill, Tinseltown's return brought six Merrivista residents their first movie role. Auditions took place in an office at the senior apartments. Casting callbacks came as a complete surprise for some. And none knew quite what to expect on the Friday of filming.

"I was dumbfounded, absolutely dumbfounded," said 75-year-old Freddie M. White, who said she immediately called her sister in Tennessee.

"We don't know nothing. We don't even know the story line," Barney Bedard, 65, added as he and the others sat in Merrivista's library, doing the hurry-up-and-wait routine. Someone from wardrobe had already dressed everyone - in earth-tone costumes consisting mostly of Mr. Rogers-style cardigans paired with casual pants and no makeup.

"How are you guys? We're gonna make you famous today," Baker said as he walked through to check on the group. A local TV crew followed on his heels, ready to do a segment on the Merrivista group. The fledgling actors seemed nonplussed at first, but later began to joke about what they'd do with their newfound fame.

"Still live here, I guess," White said.

"Get an agent," said Barbara Mirandette, 71.

"You'll need a manager and an agent. That's why I'm here," replied Joe Romatelli, a friend who had stopped by for a visit.

Beyond the room's doorway, Merrivista's lobby had been rearranged to accommodate cameras on wheels and other movie-making paraphernalia, including prop oxygen tanks. On the porch, more cameras and equipment stood ready.

When scouting for locations, Gervais and codirector Matthew Robinson said, they fell in love with Lowell and Haverhill - two classic New England mill towns. "It reminds me so much of England," Gervais said. And Merrivista, a multi-storied brick building with a sweeping lawn overlooking the Merrimack River, had the look everyone wanted for the fictional nursing home where Gervais's character visits his mother.

"We were looking for simplicity," explained producer Lynda Obst. "This isn't a fancy world, our world. It's plain. Chicago wouldn't have done. Boston wouldn't have done. It's too famous, too particular. . . . We are playing Haverhill for [anywhere in] America."

By noon, Merrivista was ready for its silver-screen debut.

Sans Souci and McKenney shot their scene first - several times.

"Stand by to rehearse," Baker told the pair before filming one take. "Just be standing there by each other, chatting . . . stand by. Chat, chat."

White and 71-year-old Alginon Smith were up next.

Crews placed the two in armchairs side by side, where they would be sitting when Gervais's character enters the lobby to inquire about his mother. Real-life Merrivista staff stood in a corner watching the action.

Filming wrapped a few hours later - proving what codirector Robinson had said at the beginning of the day: "Everyone here has been easy to work with and lovely. . . . We've been working banking hours, basically. It's been easy filming."

The Merrivista residents had a slightly different outlook on the day.

"It was kinda hard, 'cause the walker is shorter than me," McKenney said of his scene on the porch with Sans Souci. Meanwhile, jitters almost got the best of White. "I was so nervous," she said. "They said, 'Knit.' I can't knit. I was so nervous, I dropped the needle."

As the oldest of the extras, Sans Souci had a more pragmatic concern. "I just hope we're all alive to see this come out."

Erin Ailworth can be reached at eailworth@globe.com.