Locals spill the secrets of filming 'One Battle After Another' in NorCal

"Cassandra Hesseltine was on one end of the walkie. A police officer was on the other side, hiding behind a tree. And Leonardo DiCaprio was on the distant horizon, running across Arcata's pedestrian bridge as a horde of locals began to crowd the freeway in his wake, threatening to ruin the shot. "I had to radio over to her and say, 'You have to stop them,'""

"the film commissioner for the Humboldt-Del Norte Film Commission told SFGATE. But the officer in question was trying to avoid interfering with the take herself. "We were laughing our butts off. It was one of the more daring scenes we did." Hesseltine had been tight-lipped about the production, known at the time as BC Project. But when she had to shut down the on-ramp across from Cal Poly Humboldt for the heart-pounding sequence, it seemed as if everyone in town showed up to see what would unfold."

""They knew these very public scenes were going to draw a crowd," Hesseltine said. "They figured, may as well include them instead of making them go away. People were thrilled." On an otherwise unremarkable afternoon in January 2024, the quiet, redwood-lined area of Northern California was transformed into the fictional Baktan Cross for what may be the biggest blockbuster of the year: Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another," which premieres in theaters nationwide on Friday and is already generating Oscar buzz."

A high-energy sequence for Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another turned Arcata and the Cal Poly Humboldt area into a major film location. Leonardo DiCaprio ran across a pedestrian bridge while locals swarmed a nearby freeway on-ramp. Film commissioner Cassandra Hesseltine coordinated with police to manage the crowd and preserve the take. The production adapted by recruiting onlookers as extras rather than dispersing them. The film departs from the director's usual period pieces to focus on contemporary America and opens with a sequence at an immigration detention center involving an underground revolutionary group.

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