Taglines: Welcome to the bank robbery capital of America.
There are over 300 bank robberies in Boston every year. And a one-square-mile neighborhood in Boston, called Charlestown, has produced more bank and armored car robbers than anywhere in the U.S. One of them is Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck), but he is not cut from the same cloth as his fellow thieves.
Unlike them, Doug had a chance at success, a chance to escape following in his father’s criminal footsteps. Instead he became the leader of a crew of ruthless bank robbers, who pride themselves on taking what they want and getting out clean. The only family Doug has are his partners in crime, especially Jem (Jeremy Renner), who, despite his dangerous, hair-trigger temper, is the closest thing Doug ever had to a brother.
However, everything changed on the gang’s last job when Jem briefly took a hostage: bank manager Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall). When they discover she lives in Charlestown, Jem gets nervous and wants to check out what she might have seen. Knowing what Jem is capable of, Doug takes charge. He seeks out Claire, who has no idea that their encounter is not by chance or that this charming stranger is one of the men who terrorized her only days before.
As his relationship with Claire deepens into a passionate romance, Doug wants out of this life and the town. But with the Feds, led by Agent Frawley (Jon Hamm), closing in and Jem questioning his loyalty, Doug realizes that getting out will not be easy and, worse, may put Claire in the line of fire. Any choices he once had have boiled down to one: betray his friends or lose the woman he loves.
Charlestown, Massachusetts: only one square mile in size but with a legacy larger than its geography. Its towering landmark, the Bunker Hill Monument, commemorates the famous Revolutionary War battle, but the town’s more recent wars have been between cops and robbers. It is against that backdrop that the motion picture “The Town” is set. Ben Affleck directed and co-wrote the film, in addition to starring in the central role of Doug MacRay.
He comments, “It’s interesting because, on the one hand, you have this outer shell of a heist movie, but, at its heart, the story is about a guy who’s dealing with being stuck in a place he doesn’t want to be and wants to change his life, which was much more compelling to me. It’s about how rooted you are in how you grew up and also about children paying for the sins of their parents. I think that’s something many people can identify with, even those of us who can’t necessarily relate to the criminal aspect.”
“The Town” is based on the novel Prince of Thieves, written by Chuck Hogan. Hailing from Massachusetts, Hogan situated the crime drama in Charlestown for a reason: the Boston neighborhood has produced more bank and armored car robbers than any other single square mile in the world. The seeds of that distinction were more than likely planted when Charlestown was the site of a maximum security prison, leading to a self-perpetuating criminal enclave. Affleck offers, “It served as a kind of revolving door. People would go to prison and their families would move there, and, as they got out and then went back in, a community developed around it. It was hypothesized in the book—and we included it in the film—that robbing banks became a trade that was passed down from fathers to sons.”
Jeremy Renner, who plays the role of Doug’s accomplice and best friend, Jem, adds, “In that very small, tight-knit community, they developed a strict code of silence. Everybody knew everything, but nobody talked, which made it easier to be successful in that line of work.”
Published in 2004, Prince of Thieves won the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers and caught the attention of producer Graham King. “The whole flavor of the book, with its criminals and cops, was right up my alley,” says King. “But I also loved the undercurrents of the story—the friendship of these guys hanging out and working together, regardless of their occupation. Then Doug falls for this woman they had taken hostage and now has hard decisions to make that will impact all of them. It’s an interesting mix.”
Rebecca Hall, who portrays Claire, the woman for whom Doug falls, notes, “It’s a proper thriller in the sense that it is very gripping and has all the action you want. And it also has a romantic angle that contains a few surprises. It’s just really good storytelling.”
Producer Basil Iwanyk agrees. “The story has so many layers. It has the relationship between these lifelong friends from Charlestown, who are inherently doing the wrong thing, yet you care about them. The men have a swagger and an energy that I was drawn to, but there is also an unlikely romance that immediately pulled me in.”
Screenwriter Peter Craig says that in adapting Hogan’s novel the interwoven relationships of “The Town” took precedence for him. “Every single relationship is complex. There is a love story at its core, but Doug also has connections to Jem, to his father, to Jem’s sister, and to the rest of his crew, that are all just as integral to the story. The goal in adapting the book was to maintain the history and the depth of those relationships.”
King sent Affleck an early draft of the script after seeing his directorial debut on “Gone Baby Gone.” “Ben did great work on ‘Gone Baby Gone,’ so we were happy that he gravitated to the material straight away,” King states. “Added to that, he’s from Boston and knows it like the back of his hand.”
Nevertheless, Affleck and fellow screenwriter Aaron Stockard soon discovered that, despite its proximity to their hometown, Charlestown was a world away. “Ben and I both grew up in Cambridge, which is a stone’s throw from Charlestown, but there was a lot about it that we didn’t really know,” says Stockard, who had also collaborated with Affleck on the screenplay for “Gone Baby Gone.” “We knew its reputation, but we assumed that most of it was overblown. It turned out that what we thought were mythical notions about Charlestown were actually true, which made the story even more appealing to us.”
Townies and Toonies
When we meet the character of Doug MacRay, he and his crew are in a van outside the Cambridge Merchant Bank, seconds away from their next robbery. In Affleck’s words, Doug is “banging against the walls of his own life, still doing the stuff he knows is bad for him but unable to change.”
Affleck continues, “He had a shot at a different future—he had a chance to play pro hockey—but he self-destructed. He got addicted to drugs and spun out, so instead of getting out, he came back and, in spite of himself, ended up even deeper in it. That’s where we find him. He’s cleaned up a bit, in terms of getting sober, and he wants to leave, but he can’t escape his circumstances.”
“That’s what was most intriguing about this guy,” Stockard asserts. “He is at a point in his life where he realizes if he doesn’t leave, he’s never going to change. It’s not just that he doesn’t want to go to prison or, worse, get killed, which is what will inevitably happen if he stays in Charlestown and continues to do this sort of work. What he wants more than anything is to be a different person.”
“Part of where he is in his life is a function of how and where he grew up,” Affleck relates. “His mother left; his father was in this life; and Doug wound up doing the same thing as the friends he grew up with. It doesn’t excuse it, but hopefully you see the shades of gray in the reasons he ended up where he is. It’s not just cut-and-dried.”
“Ben really understood Doug’s psychological and emotional journey,” King says, “so when he said he was interested in playing the role, we knew there was no one better,” says King. “I was blown away, not only by how Ben depicted the arc of the character but by the intensity of his performance.”
The arc of Doug’s life contrasts sharply with that of Jem, his closest friend and a kind of brother-in-arms, albeit on the wrong side of the law. Unlike Doug, Jem is resigned to the life he was essentially born to and has no compunctions about his criminal pursuits.
Jeremy Renner observes, “Given their upbringing, Jem and Doug had to lean on each other throughout their lives, so they are definitely more like brothers than friends. But now Doug is veering away from the only life Jem has ever known and Jem is trying to reel him back in, to knock some sense into him, as if to say, ‘We’re bank robbers. That’s what we do; that’s all we are.’ The conflict between them lies within that.”
“Doug and Jem have a complicated back story,” Affleck comments. “They’ve been best friends since they were kids, but they have become very different people…people who would not be friends if they met today. However, because they have this shared history of loyalty and love they are bound to each other, and that puts a lot of pressure on Doug. Jem is always on the verge of being out of control, and Doug is the only one who has been able to make sure he doesn’t go too far.”
Renner agrees that Jem is “a wildcard,” noting that his character’s propensity for violence added to the challenge of making him multidimensional. “He is not any one thing. He’s flawed—maybe more flawed than others, but there are moments when you see another side,” the actor contends. “It was important to me that Jem be a fully realized human being and not just some gun-toting thug. I understood that he could be a scary guy, but I also wanted to bring a sense of humor and heart to him.”
According to Iwanyk, Renner succeeded. “Jeremy was a revelation. He transformed Jem from being just a crazy menace to someone I was emotionally invested in. My heart broke for him, which is something I didn’t anticipate when I first read the script.”
“Jeremy captured the dichotomy of this guy who does things that might seem unforgivable, but, by the same token, you still like him,” Affleck affirms. “Jem is obviously damaged, but you can see why he is who he is because of what Jeremy brought to the role. He is a terrific actor and such a sweet guy, and that humanity bleeds through the pores of his performance.”
Renner says that Affleck—both as a director and as a castmate—made portraying the enduring friendship between Jem and Doug a natural. “I felt like I was working with one of my best friends. Ben empowered me to do whatever I thought was right, and if it worked, he got so excited. He set an amazing tone and made everyone feel relaxed and comfortable. It was great.”
The subtle rift that had begun between Doug and Jem is amplified when, during the Cambridge Merchant Bank job, Jem brutally beats the assistant bank manager and then, in a sudden and desperate move, takes the bank manager, Claire Keesey, hostage.
Though the gang quickly releases her, Jem, in particular, gets nervous when they discover that Claire lives in Charlestown, within blocks of them. What if she saw or heard something that could connect them to the robbery? Jem would rather not wait to find out, but, knowing what that might mean, Doug steps in. Affleck details, “In an effort to calm everybody down, Doug says he’ll deal with it. He starts following Claire around, which leads to an unexpected encounter. And that sets in motion a series of events that will change his life.”
In fact, another kind of “change” is the innocuous reason they meet, when Claire approaches Doug at the Laundromat asking if he has any spare quarters for the machine. Claire has no idea who Doug really is or that they already have a connection. Ironically, it’s that connection—the bank robbery and her being taken hostage—which becomes the catalyst for their romance.
Rebecca Hall explains, “It’s that thing that happens when relationships are fostered in extreme circumstances: the bonds are much closer. The fact that Claire meets Doug when she is crying and having a bit of a meltdown leads to an immediate spark between them—not necessarily because of any natural chemistry they have, but because she needs someone in that moment and then there he is, this stranger, smiling at her and making her laugh. In other circumstances maybe she wouldn’t have gone out with him, but she’s open and vulnerable and he appears slightly like a knight in shining armor.”
Affleck says he cast Hall as Claire not only because “she is beautiful and incredibly talented, but she has this way about her that feels real. That kind of honesty and normalcy was especially important for this role. You believe she is somebody who could work in a bank. She seems like she could be someone who just moved into this neighborhood.”
Hall remarks, “I thought it was fascinating that this sort of, for lack of a better word, ‘yuppie’ kind of woman—what the local Townies call a ‘Toonie’—is making her home there and going about her life even after what happens to her. I thought there had to be something strong and sassy about her, that she refuses to be victimized. It made her interesting to play.”
As the connection between Doug and Claire deepens, Affleck says, “She comes to represent the way in which he can finally change…the version of his life that could be different from what he’s known.”
The more Doug sees alternatives in his life, the greater a threat he is to his crew, as well as to Jem’s sister, Krista, though not for the same reasons. Blake Lively, who plays the role, offers, “All Krista wants is for Doug to love her and take her away from there. She’s grown up around these tough guys who are doing everything wrong, but they were her only role models. Now she’s a single mom who does what she has to do to get by.”
Lively adds that Krista’s mix of street smarts and fragility was what drew her to the role. “She has layers of darkness and vulnerability and toughness and desperation. Krista could easily appear to be not very redeemable, but I was chomping at the bit to play her because I knew she could be portrayed in a way that made her a sympathetic character, and you could understand her behavior.”
“When I met Blake,” Affleck recalls, “I said, ‘Here’s something you don’t hear much in Hollywood: we’re really looking for someone older and less attractive,’” he smiles. “But she was incredible. She spent time with people in Charlestown and really invested herself in understanding the character and the depths to which Krista goes to survive.”
“In many ways, Krista is her own worst enemy,” Lively confirms. “And she’s pretty good at dragging Doug down, too, without realizing that’s what she’s doing. When Claire comes into the picture, Krista isn’t even aware of her, but she feels Doug pulling away and she’s fighting against the waves so hard.”
Someone else who is unaware of the relationship between Doug and Claire is FBI Special Agent Frawley, who heads up a task force investigating bank robberies in Boston. “He doesn’t buy the whole idea of this being part of the culture in Charlestown,” says Affleck. “He just thinks they’re criminals and he’s determined to take them down.”
Cast as Frawley, Jon Hamm acknowledges, “He is an outsider. But although he is not from Boston, he has a lot of experience with these types of crimes and has been there awhile, so he knows all the players.”
This latest string of robberies is frustrating Frawley because he knows who the perpetrators are, but still hasn’t been able to nail them. “It creates an interesting dynamic between my character and Ben’s character,” Hamm says. “A fundamental element of a good heist movie is the interplay between the good guys and the bad guys. Who’s going to win? But here, the line between the good guys and the bad guys is less defined because you can empathize with both.”
“I’m a huge fan of Jon’s, so I felt really lucky to have him in the cast,” states Affleck. “When I met with the real FBI agents, I noticed that they projected a certain kind of power and intelligence, and Jon conveyed that. He’s acutely smart and there is something about him that innately commands respect. It would be hard to imagine an actor who was more right for this role.”
Unlike Frawley, Boston Police Detective Dino Ciampa is a Townie, born and raised. Titus Welliver, who worked with Affleck in “Gone Baby Gone,” plays the role. “Dino grew up in Charlestown, but chose a different line of work from Doug and Jem,” Welliver says. “Now he’s sort of an outcast among that group; we see in one scene that they consider him a ‘rat.’ They’ve laid down the gauntlet, and now it’s become personal. Dino is hell-bent to get these guys.”
Having grown up in the town, Dino knows how to make it personal when interrogating Doug: bringing up Doug’s father, who is serving time at the state’s maximum security prison in Walpole. Oscar® winner Chris Cooper appears as Stephen MacRay in a single scene shot on location in Walpole—the only movie scene ever filmed there. Affleck remembers, “I had worked with Chris in a movie we did just prior to ‘The Town,’ and I know he lives in Massachusetts, so I called him up and asked him to play Doug’s father. We ended up talking for about four hours on the phone, and he really got into our characters’ back story and relationship.”
Coincidentally, on the day Cooper filmed his scene Affleck’s own father was making a rare visit to the set. “I could see Chris was kind of observing him,” Affleck says. “My father has glasses, so Chris went and got similar glasses and did some other things that were actually intimidating to me, which was perfect for the scene. He became the character. All the real guards who were there that day said it looked like he’d been at Walpole for 10 years. We were all blown away by his performance.”
The cast and crew were equally impressed by another veteran actor. Pete Postlethwaite plays Fergie Colm, a florist whose business is a front for money laundering, drug dealing, and other criminal enterprises. Though not physically imposing, “it was important that Fergie still be a threatening presence,” Graham King notes. “Pete brought great authority to the role; even when he’s smiling, he can make you believe it would be dangerous to cross him, which is exactly what we needed.”
“Chris Cooper and Pete Postlethwaite both brought tremendous credibility to their roles,” Affleck adds. “It’s humbling to work alongside actors of their caliber, let alone to direct them.”
Postlethwaite, in turn, had high praise for his director, saying, “Ben’s ability to reflect the technique of acting in his direction is an actor’s dream. He knew when you felt you had gotten it wrong and would like to go again, but, better still, he knew when it felt right and there was no need. I’d leap at the chance to work with him again on his next film.”
The filmmakers rounded out the cast with a number of locals, some of whom had never stepped in front of a camera before “The Town.” Affleck says, “My goal was to immerse the audience in a sense of place, and having people who come from that milieu helped achieve that. As the character Gloansy says in the movie, it’s more ‘authenticious.’”
Boston native Slaine, who had made his acting debut in “Gone Baby Gone,” was cast in the part of Albert “Gloansy” Magloan, who teams with Doug and Jem in their robbery crew. Slaine says, “Ben knows the area so well. He really has his finger on the pulse of the people there, and that comes through in the movie.” In addition to his role, Slaine, who is also making his name as a recording artist, can be heard performing on the song “Run It” in the film.
Discovered at an open casting call in Charlestown, Owen Burke won the role of Desmond Elden, called Dez, the fourth member of the gang. Interestingly, Burke came into the movie with some inside knowledge of the story. “I’ve actually met a few bank robbers from Charlestown,” he reveals. “They were pretty open with me about some of the things they did, so I can say firsthand that a lot of the movie is realistic.”
Another local, Dennis McLaughlin, who makes his acting debut as Rusty, Fergie’s “muscle,” just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Affleck recounts, “We found him while scouting locations. I was walking through this apartment and there’s this huge guy, shirt off, sitting on the couch watching TV. He’s got a tattoo of Massachusetts on his arm with the colors of the Irish flag and the Charlestown zip code, and I thought, ‘This guy is spectacular.’ We asked him to come in to read and he ended up being perfect. Here’s someone who’d been in prison, got out and worked really hard to turn his whole life around. As Rusty, he’s naturally intimidating, but Dennis is really a sweetheart.”
Turnabout was also fair play in casting “The Town.” Several Townies who had had trouble with the law in the past were cast as cops, and worked alongside several real-life cops who served as extras in the film. “Talent-wise, we had an abundance of riches in Boston,” Affleck says.
Executive producer David Crockett affirms, “Many of the people you see in the movie are from Boston, and the majority of them are from Charlestown. During filming, some of those people would come up to Ben and tell him, ‘You know, I would actually say it this way,’ or ‘I might really do it that way,’ and Ben would immediately say, ‘Do that then. I want to see that.’ The bottom line for Ben is authenticity; the real deal trumps everything else because he believes that translates to the audience.”
Accents and Accuracy
The locally cast actors had one major advantage over their non-native colleagues: they didn’t have to learn to do a Boston accent—more specifically, Charlestown. Contrary to the popular stereotype, it’s not just about dropping your Rs. “It’s fairly nuanced, so the accent can be pretty hard to get,” Affleck says. Nevertheless, he recommended that his cast to do more listening than learning, so to speak.
“I was initially nervous about the accent,” Renner offers, “but when I mentioned getting a dialect coach, Ben didn’t want any of that. He told me, ‘Just listen to some of the guys here; you’ll get a feel for it.’ He didn’t want to go too heavy-handed. We just tried to layer it in as accurately as possible, without overdoing it.”
Despite the fact that Renner had followed the director’s own advice, Affleck admits, “I was amazed at how quickly Jeremy got the accent down and how natural he sounded. I don’t know how he did it; he was incredible.”
Blake Lively also spent time in Charlestown, picking up both the accent and the attitude of the Townie women. “I spent some time hanging out with them,” she relates, “but instead of asking questions or trying to imitate their accent, I ended up just being silent and taking it in. I realized that if I was talking, I wouldn’t be listening. I also watched how they connect with one another and how their speech changes, depending on who they’re talking to. It was interesting to watch how some of them balanced their sexuality with being tough, like, ‘Don’t mess with me.’”
Rebecca Hall, who hails from England rather than New England, did not have to tackle the Charlestown accent, as Claire Keesey comes from the coastal Massachusetts town of Marblehead. The actress says, “I listened to tapes of people from Marblehead and what I discovered was that many speak with more of a general east coast dialect. So, apart from doing an American accent, I tried to pick up on those distinct little things that set it apart, which is something I enjoy doing.”
There was a more physical learning curve for the actors portraying both criminals and cops, who were involved in the film’s extensive gunplay sequences. The men trained with property master and armorer Douglas Fox, as well as stunt coordinator Gary Hymes, to learn how to properly and safely handle a variety of firearms, ranging from automatic weapons to handguns to shotguns.
Jon Hamm also had the benefit of working directly with FBI consultant Thomas B. Devlin, who grew up in Charlestown and went on to spend twenty-four years in the Bureau, eight of those overseeing the SWAT program in Boston. “He was the go-to guy for any questions we had,” Hamm says. “It was extremely helpful to have him around. It was also amusing because a few of the guys we had working as extras or in bit parts were gentlemen Mr. Devlin had arrested in their previous careers. So it was always fun to see who Tom had a previous, um, ‘relationship’ with,” he grins.
Devlin’s years with SWAT enabled him to do double duty: as both the FBI consultant and a SWAT advisor. “It was a gift to have Tom on the set,” says Affleck. “He was very instructive about the inner workings of the agency, and, having come from Charlestown, he really knew the history of the place and the people. He is also emblematic of the fact that the town has produced some great people with strong values and a lot of integrity—something that doesn’t get showcased very much.”
A number of real police officers also participated in some of the action scenes, which brought added veracity to the proceedings. Crockett says, “The Boston Police, the local FBI office and other police departments in the vicinity really opened their doors to us. We had a lot of assistance from all levels of law enforcement.”
“The trickier part of our research,” Affleck allows, “was getting into the mindset of the Charlestown underworld, but we found people who were willing to speak to us. Although every conversation ended with, ‘Don’t tell anyone I talked to you,’” he laughs.
Basil Iwanyk elaborates, “We had a few unofficial consultants—trust me, very important consultants—who added a lot of specificity to the movie. Some of them were pretty tough customers, at least on paper, but they turned out to be some of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet.”
Covering the Bases
For the filmmakers, achieving realism also meant there was only one location to shoot “The Town.” Graham King asserts, “It had to be Boston: the houses, the streets, the people… And with Ben being from there and still so committed to his hometown, it was even more important that we film in Boston. There could be no substitute.” The movie was shot almost entirely in and around the city, including sites in Charlestown, Cambridge and the North End, as well as the home of the Red Sox nation, Fenway Park.
Principal photography began in the spot that inspired both the story and the title, which Iwanyk calls “a place in transition. Charlestown has been gentrified quite a bit in recent years. I could stand on a street corner and look one way and see gorgeous townhouses and beautiful trees; it looked like something out of a storybook. And, on the same corner, I could look in the other direction and would see the projects, just a few blocks away.”
Production designer Sharon Seymour says that she and Affleck wanted to capture that juxtaposition of the working-class houses and the newly renovated homes of the area’s more recent, and more affluent, arrivals. “Ben and I agreed that we really needed to define Charlestown, to give the audience a sense that this is a fractured community. You have the square and the beautiful architecture of the homes around Main Street. But there’s another side of Charlestown that consists of triple-decker, wood-frame houses, where generations of families have lived. The movie explores that, somewhat, in the relationship between Doug, who is from working-class Charlestown, and Claire, a bank manager who just moved into a lovely apartment on the square.”
Costume designer Susan Matheson also reflected that contrast in the costumes of Rebecca Hall and Blake Lively, as Claire and Krista, respectively. “We wanted them to be polar opposites,” she remarks. “Krista’s clothes are very colorful, and she wears a lot more jewelry: layered necklaces and multiple rings and large hoop earrings. But we tried to select things that might have personal meaning to her—like the Celtic cross she wears—to inform you about the character.”
On the other hand, “Claire’s wardrobe has simple silhouettes and very little embellishment,” Matheson describes. “She is a bank manager, so she dresses very professionally. Even away from work, her clothing still has very clean lines, especially compared to Krista.”
Perhaps the most distinctive costumes seen in “The Town” are the masks worn by Doug, Jem, Gloansy and Dez to hide their identities during two of the three heists that punctuate the action in the film.
The skeleton masks, seen in the opening bank robbery, were inspired by surveillance footage of an actual crime. Affleck recalls, “We were touring FBI headquarters and they had a big blow-up of a security camera image of a guy in a track suit wearing a skeleton mask. He was carrying an assault rifle, but it was the mask that made it creepy and scary.”
“It was so haunting,” adds Matheson, who also saw the photo during her research. “Ben and I were both struck by how terrifying it looked and agreed it would be the perfect opening image for the movie.”
The group dons the skeleton masks to take down the Cambridge Merchant Bank, which is also where Doug encounters Claire for the first time. While the visage of the mask terrorizes her character, Rebecca Hall admits it had almost the opposite effect on her. “That was the difference between Ben the actor and Ben the director. In the scene, Claire is completely intimidated by Doug, but when Ben tried to give me notes from behind the mask, I could barely keep a straight face,” Hall laughs.
The robbery was filmed on location at the Cambridge Savings Bank, which Seymour and her team transformed into the Cambridge Merchant Bank…maybe a little too well. She explains, “Everything inside and outside the bank had to be re-branded. I didn’t think many people would notice, but the bank told me that one customer came in, very irate, saying, ‘I’ve had my accounts here for 40 years. I can’t believe they changed over in one day.’ So that was a nice compliment.”
The gang’s next undertaking is an armored car heist on the streets of Boston’s North End, in broad daylight. And their disguise is equally brazen. Matheson says, “After the skeletons, I wanted something else that would be outside the norm. I started thinking about the fact that these four guys had grown up Irish Catholic, and it might be interesting to play on that. My first thought was to put them in full nuns’ habits, but Ben came up with the idea to have them in tactical gear from the neck down. It was quite an interesting combination: nun wimples with bulletproof vests.”
With the FBI and the police closing in, the armored car robbery leads to a breakneck car chase involving dozens of vehicles going in every direction. Filming the pursuit would have been difficult in any big city, but the narrow, winding streets of the historic neighborhood multiplied the challenge exponentially. “The North End is an incredibly tight space,” clarifies David Crockett. “The roads were originally laid out in the 1600s, so they were not built for cars, but that also made for a better action sequence. It’s great stuff.”
Affleck collaborated with Gary Hymes and second unit director Alexander Witt to plot out the chase, first with toy cars on a large map and then graduating to the real thing “once everyone knew exactly where every car would be and precisely what everyone was doing,” Witt says. “We were always looking for ways to make it more exciting, but with that many cars involved, we also needed it to be safe.”
In choreographing the chase, Hymes says he took his cues from the script. “It reads, ‘Gloansy drives, never touching the brakes.’ He’s just working the traffic. Right there, I knew it had to be fluid, but we also wanted to go all out. The gang sees the cops are everywhere and could be around any corner, so what do they have to lose?” “Gary and his team were definitely the most crucial elements of the North End sequence,” Affleck comments. “You can come up with anything you want, but if you don’t have drivers who can execute it, you can’t pull it off.”
To bring the audience right into the action, Affleck and cinematographer Robert Elswit primarily utilized a camera mounted low on the car with a wide lens. “We wanted it to feel almost claustrophobic—to make you feel like you’re with the guys in the car as they’re speeding down these narrow streets and things are rushing by,” the director states. “The cool thing is they’re wearing masks, so we didn’t have to worry about coming in close to the stunt drivers. We could really push the limits to make it more viscerally entertaining.”
The pursuit culminates with the closure of the Charlestown Bridge, which meant the production had to shut down one of the main arteries in and out of Charlestown for several hours. “That was huge,” Crockett emphasizes, “because we were only one of many activities happening in Boston that day. But the city was very accommodating; they really helped us get what we needed.”
The filmmakers especially appreciated the city’s cooperation in shooting the gang’s most ambitious and dangerous job—in Fergie’s words “taking down the Cathedral of Boston”—Fenway Park. The producers credit one person for their ability to gain access to the iconic stadium: “Mr. Ben Affleck,” King confirms, without hesitation. “His name carries a lot of weight in Boston. They know he is devoted to the Red Sox, so he was the key to us filming at Fenway.”
Shot in the middle of baseball season, all the Fenway scenes had to be completed in a specific timeframe, while the team was on the road. It would have been impossible to film a massive shootout—both in the stadium tunnels and on the surrounding streets—with players on the field and fans in the stands. Adding more pressure to the time constraints, the complex sequence required the coordination of many moving parts, including cast, stunt people and extras, as well as current and former members of Boston’s SWAT team who were, essentially, playing themselves.
Pressure notwithstanding, Basil Iwanyk says, “The experience of filming there was surreal. It was one of those rare moments in life when you have to stop what you’re doing to appreciate where you are.”
Jeremy Renner agrees. “It was pretty cool to be able to run around that field, which has so much history. I had an instant understanding of what Fenway means to the people of Boston. It’s got tremendous energy even with no one else there. It certainly made me want to be a Red Sox fan,” he smiles.
“It’s such a monumental landmark for any true baseball fan,” Graham King says. “It was incredible to stand out in left field by the famous ‘Green Monster,’” he adds, referring to the over-37-foot wall that has been the bane of many a batter. “That’s the part of moviemaking that truly is magic.”
Ben Affleck, who has been in the stands for his fair share of games, notes, “I am a huge Red Sox fan so it was a thrill and a privilege to be in the Park, especially during off-hours. I definitely had a sense of not wanting to let that opportunity down. “Making ‘The Town’ gave me a wealth of opportunities,” he reflects, “and I especially appreciated the chance to work with some extraordinary talents. It was a very collaborative process and the movie is the product of a lot of people who cared about the project and really gave it their all.”
The Town (2010)
Directed by: Ben Affleck
Starring by: Jeremy Renner, Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall, Blake Lively, Chris Cooper, Jon Hamm, Pete Postlethwaite, Brian Scannell, Corena Chase, Kerri Dunbar, Titus Welliver
Screenplay by: Chuck Hogan, Ben Affleck, Peter Craig
Production Design by: Sharon Seymour
Cinematography by: Robert Elswit
Film Editing byB Dylan Tichenor
Costume Design by: Susan Matheson
Set Decoration by: Maggie Martin
Art Direction by: Peter Borck
Music by: David Buckley, Harry Gregson-Williams
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence, pervasive language, some sexuality and drug use.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: September 17, 2010
