On account of the movie shooting literally right outside my workplace today, I finally had my first official streets of New York star sighting. (The Veronica Mars thing doesn't count because it was an organized publicity thing and I went there on purpose.) I stood there in the cold on my way to lunch and watched Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant have a conversation in front of the used bookstore, which is honestly the only thing on our block interesting enough to film (especially since there is scaffolding all over the Angelika at the moment). So well done, location scouts. Drew looked very cute, but I bet she was freezing, since they'd put her in a little blazer and cotton skirt, though she did at least have a scarf and boots. Lala is in love with Hugh Grant (when she came with me to get lunch that was her third trip down); I thought he looked like he's not aging all that well, even from across the street and with film makeup on. But Lala has seen Love, Actually and About a Boy about thirty times each, so to say her starry-eyes are impacting her vision is a bit of an understatement.

When we came back, they were preparing to film the scene from the other side (the part I saw, the camera was set up to focus on Drew's face, I assume they were going for the reverse angle as well). This angle put the door to our building in the immediate background, so they'd sent a PA over to try and persuade our security guard to let them control the doors for a few minutes. She was not cooperative. I can see a few enterprising students trying to use that as an excuse for being late, though. "No, really, Professor, I was late for the test because of Hugh Grant! Honest!" I do hope someone told the director when the class breaks were, because those are just chaos on a normal day. PA or no PA, students are going to wind up in the shot, either on purpose or from their usual obliviousness.

Oddly enough, Drew Barrymore has been a character in two stories I've read for Pindeldyboz. One of them I even accepted. I suppose she makes a better literary muse than Hugh Grant. Don't tell Lala.