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."

"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. That wasn't a problem for the crew, which made a last-minute call to bring them into the shot as extras. "They knew these very public scenes were going to draw a crowd," Hesseltine said."

"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. Rise and shine The live wire of a film veers away from the auteur's usual penchant for"

Cassandra Hesseltine coordinated on-location logistics as a high-profile production shut down an on-ramp and managed crowds in Arcata, Northern California. Leonardo DiCaprio ran across a pedestrian bridge while locals streamed onto the freeway, prompting police involvement and last-minute decisions to include bystanders as extras. The production transformed a redwood-lined area into the fictional Baktan Cross for Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, a modern-set film generating Oscar buzz. The movie departs from the director's typical period pieces and opens with an intense sequence at an immigration detention center on the U.S.-Mexico border, setting a contemporary, unflinching tone.

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