Star-struck kibitzers mob first-day ‘Bourne’ shoot

THE ‘CONSTANT’ STAR Actress Rachel Weisz, with foreign and local staff, walks toward the site for the first day of the 45-day shooting of the Hollywood film “The Bourne Legacy” on Leveriza Street, Manila. LYN RILLON

“I heard Rachel Weisz couldn’t believe people in the Philippines knew her,” Venus Reinoso, who is from Quezon City, said. “Is she kidding? I’m her No. 1 fan!”

Reinoso found Weisz quite tall at five feet eight inches and “really, really beautiful in person.” Of course the starry-eyed young woman wanted to take snapshots of her idol with a phone camera, like a few intrepid others had quickly done. But when her turn came, Reinoso said, a crew member had stopped her.

Reinoso, 22, said she felt shivers up her spine upon seeing Academy Award-winning actress Weisz in the flesh Wednesday morning, right in the middle of San Andres Public Market in Manila’s Malate district.

The British actress arrived in Manila on Sunday night to work on the Hollywood spy-thriller, “The Bourne Legacy.”

On Wednesday, Weisz was sighted at 9 a.m., in a black tank top and blue jeans. She walked a total of seven minutes from her van—which was parked at the nearby San Andres Complex—to the actors’ holding area in Barangay (village) 705.

It was quite a walk, since a large part of the area had been cordoned off for traffic and crowd control. Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) personnel kept onlookers at bay. Given the occasional shrieks and mild scuffles, the fans were generally cooperative and mostly just curious.

In the holding area, Weisz met up with the filmmaker Tony Gilroy, who was just as casually clad, in denims and a white button-down shirt.

Climax plus

Wednesday was the first of the movie’s 45-day shoot in the country.

Other locations on the production schedule are the Navotas fish port, Marikina public market, Jones Bridge, Ramon Magsaysay Boulevard, Ayala Avenue and Pasay-Taft Rotunda. A few parts will be filmed in scenic El Nido, Palawan province.

Manila will be the setting of the film’s climax, or the last 20 to 25 minutes. In a previous interview, Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) chairman Briccio Santos said Manila was an integral part of the story and that it would be filmed “as Manila, not as any other city in the world.”

The scene shot Wednesday had  Weisz buying medicine from a local drug store in Purok Singko (Zone 5), followed by a short chase on foot to a chapel on Asuncion Street, about 25 meters away.

This was according to a source who requested anonymity (media men, mostly TV crews, had to keep distance).

Nearby, the source added, a “major actor”—believed to be Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner (for “The Hurt Locker”)—was rehearsing his jump from a three-story building to a two-story house. The scene would be filmed Thursday, said the source.

Renner, who arrived in Manila late last week, plays the lead character, agent Aaron Cross, in this fourth installment of the popular spy-thriller franchise.

(On Tuesday  night, a third  major actor, Edward Norton—Academy Award nominee for best supporting actor (“Primal Fear” in 1996 and “American History X” in 1998) planed in and joined the “Bourne” cast and crew billeted at the Hotel Peninsula Manila in Makati City.)

‘It was him’

Toteng Picados, who has lived in the area of Wednesday’s shoot for six years, claimed he saw Renner on Monday. “Maybe he wanted to see for himself how big the leap would be,” Picados said.

Asked to verify this, “Bourne” Philippine producer, Lope Juban Jr., declared this highly unlikely. “It must have been one of the American stunt men rehearsing,” Juban said.

Picados was undaunted. “It was him. I’ve been up since 6 a.m.,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer. I’m very excited by all this.”

Far from thrilled, bike shop owner Sonia Prieto was frustrated. She said business had been severely affected by the road blocks.

“My clients are complaining,” Prieto said. “They can’t come near the store. Look at this truck here! And I heard this would go on for four more days.”

Indeed, parked on narrow Leveriza Street were 10 trailer trucks, some marked “Sound and Video,” “Grip,” “Lighting and Effects” and “Props.” On standby were an ambulance, an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) and yet another truck carrying power generators.

Some 25 MMDA personnel had been deployed in the area since 4 a.m. “There’s still no word from the office as to what time we can pull out,” Rogelio Nuiz told the Inquirer at 12 noon.

More exterior shots

A Philippine National Police team and the local producer, Philippine Film Studio Inc. (PFSI), took charge of crowd control.

“All in all, the first shooting day went well. We filmed mostly day scenes and interior shots,” Juban said, adding that today, there would be more exterior shots  “more or less in the same area.”

So on Thursday, Picados would do well to keep his eyes open for Renner on the rooftops.