“While You Were Sleeping:” Christmas in Chicago

by HOOKEDONHOUSES on DECEMBER 9, 2008

It’s Christmas-time in Chicago, and Lucy has no one to share it with. She works the tollbooth in a train station and has a crush on a handsome commuter named Peter who walks past her every day. When he is mugged and thrown off the platform, Lucy jumps down onto the tracks to save him from an oncoming train.

You’ve probably seen the movie a hundred times like I have and know what happens next, right? In the hospital, Peter’s in a coma, and a nurse thinks Lucy is his fiancee (she overhears Lucy sighing and saying to herself, “Oh, I was going to marry him!”). The family believes the nurse and embraces Lucy into their brood. She’s so lonely, that she lets them. They invite her to spend Christmas with them, and she can’t resist.

When Lucy pulls up to the Callahan family’s house for the first time, she smiles:

Then we see the house and smile, too:

Don’t we all wish we had a home like this to go back to for Christmas?

The look on Lucy’s face as she watches the Callahan family open their presents says it all.

She spends the night on the sofa in the living room. Peter’s brother Jack, who hasn’t met her yet, comes in and sees her first time.

I love how the set was designed to look like a real home. Very lived in and comfortable. It’s easy to believe that Peter’s parents have lived here for decades:

Lucy meets Jack for the first time:

Jack says, “Welcome to the family.”

The exterior of Lucy’s apartment:

Lucy goes through Peter’s bag of belongings that was given to her at the hospital and finds keys to his apartment and a can of cat food.

Lucy goes to Peter’s high-rise apartment with the amazing view of downtown Chicago. It has no sign of life. No Christmas decorations. No color. We knew very little about Peter before this point. Now we realize that he’s probably not a good match for Lucy. She doesn’t belong here:

Peter has a photo of himself on the bar (his wallet was filled with photos of him, too):

Peter’s brother Jack shows up as she’s feeding the cat:

Producers used Lake Point Tower in Chicago as the setting for Peter’s apartment. Here’s what it looks like from the outside (courtesy Wikipedia):

Other movies shot in this building include “Meet the Parents” and “The Lake House.” Famous people who have lived here over the years include Goldie Hawn, Mickey Rooney, and Sammy Sosa.

A side view of the Callahan house at night:

Dinner with the Callahans:

Jack watches Lucy leave:

Here’s another shot of the house from the corner, without the Christmas lights:

And the front of the house, without all the lights on:

Ox (played by Peter Boyle) in the dining room:

Jack walks Lucy back to her apartment:

After Lucy leaves Peter at the altar, explaining that she can’t marry him after all, Jack and his family show up at Lucy’s tollbooth to propose to her:

She accepts:

The outdoor train scenes were filmed at State/Lake Station:

A little “While You Were Sleeping” trivia: did you know the role was originally written for Demi Moore? Sandra Bullock had just come off the blockbuster “Speed” and was ready to try something different. This was the beginning of her romantic comedy career when it premiered in 1995.

Visit my TV/Movie Houses page to see the others I’ve featured, from A Christmas Story to Home Alone.

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“The Proposal” House in Sitka, Alaska

by HOOKEDONHOUSES on AUGUST 8, 2010

One of my favorite romantic comedies last year was the Sandra Bullock-Ryan Reynolds movie The Proposal. Not only was it a lot of fun, but it featured a fabulous cedar shingle and natural stone house in (what was supposed to be) Sitka, Alaska.

Most of the movie was actually filmed on location in Massachusetts. The 9-bedroom, 10-bath house is in Manchester, a 40-minute drive north of Boston.

When the camera first pans up from their boat to the house with the mountains in the background, director Anne Fletcher says (in the DVD commentary), “That’s all fake.”

There were actually “other houses and brown, dead trees” surrounding the house. The mountains, lighthouse, and many of the trees were added to make things look more scenic. Fake branches with leaves were literally twist-tied to the trees around the house.

When they were looking for the right house to use, Production Designer Nelson Coates says they wanted one with a rustic feel: “The script said it should feel like something out of Alaskan Architectural Digest. I was laughing when I read that. What is Alaskan Architectural Digest?”

The script also called for something on the water, with a dock. “The family needed to look like they were isolated from town–like they needed a boat to get there,” Coates told the New York Times.

He took photos of the house, then added mountains, leaves, totem poles and stone with Photoshop before sending the photos to the execs at Disney. “They’re going, ‘Oh, my God, we had no idea they had mountains like that in Massachusetts.’ It was hilarious.” And it sold them on the house.

Most of the movie was shot inside the house, although they rebuilt some of of the rooms on a soundstage for the re-shoots later on. More movie magic transformed the interiors. In this photo of Ryan Reynolds on set you can see the stone fireplace behind him:

But the real house is much more traditional in style. They thought it looked “too Colonial.” So Production Designer Nelson Coates built a facade on all of the interior walls of the house to make it looks more Alaskan.

All the beams are fake, as are all the walls. Even the fireplace stones are fake. Here’s how the real fireplace looked before they gave it a rustic makeover (via the NYT):

Unfortunately, this is not a movie that allows the camera to lovingly dwell on the house itself the way, say, a Nancy Meyers film might do. In fact, there are so many people in the living room scenes that we never get as good a look at it as I would have liked. The characters are always center-stage.

From the behind-the-scenes featurette on the DVD we see another side of the room, as well as the movie lights installed overhead:

You can see the dining room behind Reynolds and Bullock in this scene as they make up a story about how he proposed:

When Margaret walks through the dining room one morning we get a better–if a little blurry–look at it without all the people blocking the view:

The Kitchen:

We get a couple of passing looks at the kitchen table and what appears to be a sitting room or living room of some sort behind it. I have to say I was really frustrated that the camera didn’t pan just once across it so we could get a look! *Shaking fist at the screen.*

However, we do get a good look at the $1,980 “Sara Milk Glass Chandelier” (viaTonic Home) in several scenes. You might recall that Sarah Jessica Parker had a similar one in her Hamptons house.

There weren’t any scenes in the kitchen, but there was a deleted one that gives us a look at the fabulous cabinets in there:

We can also see a little of it behind Mary Steenburgen in this scene–but not nearly enough:

This is a TV room-slash-study off the kitchen (that’s Craig T. Nelson playing Andrew’s dad Joe–love him):

The Staircase in the Entry Hall:

Again, we get brief glances at the main hall when people walk through it–great banister and railings:

The Guest Bedroom:

More time is spent in this room of the house than any other in the movie.

Did you know that Julia Roberts was originally supposed to play Margaret? When she bowed out, Sandra Bullock took it on.

The house has 3 stories, but the top 2 were off-limits to the film crew. All of the homeowners’ things were moved upstairs, and they stayed in the guest house during filming.

You can read about the Kanebs–the lucky family that really lives in this house–in this interesting NYT article.

Needless to say, if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want the ending spoiled for you, you might want to stop reading now.

Guest Bath:

Barn:

The barn really exists on the property behind the house, so they decided to use it, both for a place where they’re confronted by the INS agent (played by Denis O’Hare, who is deliciously evil as the Mississippi King of Vampires on “True Blood”) and for Margaret and Andrew’s impromptu wedding.

The script originally called for the wedding to happen outside on the lawn.

They filmed an ending that had Margaret’s plane turning around, followed by a happy ending on the tarmac. It also featured a cameo with Niecy Nash as a wacky flight attendant.

They didn’t think that version worked, though, and filmed a new ending in the Colden Books office where Margaret and Andrew worked.

They used an empty, gutted building in Boston for the earlier office scenes, but the entire set, including Margaret’s & Bob’s offices, had to be completely rebuilt and replicated at Disney Studios in Burbank, CA for the rewritten ending.

The family’s puppy Kevin was played by four American Eskimo puppies named Flurry, Sitka, Nanu and Winter.

One thing producers weren’t crazy about: the outdoor pool. They covered it during filming because they didn’t think a house in Alaska was likely to have one. You can see it in this overhead view of the house on Bing Maps (thanks to Kim for finding this!):

You can read how Rockport, MA, was transformed into the town of Sitka in an article onZimbio.

I love Sandra Bullock and her romantic comedies. Did you see my post about the New Orleans Victorian home she just moved into with her new baby?

Go to TV/Movie Houses to see more, including the houses from other Sandra Bullock movies like The Blind Side and Hope Floats.

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