One-Woman Protest Dares Will Smith To Crap On His Own Damn Street
When it comes to location shooting, Angelenos endure an uneasy relationship: This is, after all, Hollywood, and if you don't work in the industry, chances are someone on either side of you does. But productions have a way of pushing their luck—say, for example, by pounding on the door of your Echo Park home at dawn, demanding you move your car so that Val Kilmer can take a dump. Well, Dresden Graham—a 65-year-old retiree and innocent victim of Will Smith and his Seven Pounds-crew's own dump-taking needs—is mad as hell, and she's not going to take this anymore! Reports THR.com:
The production is based at a house on Sierra Bonita, between Hollywood and Sunset boulevards, just three houses up from Graham's home, where she has lived since the mid-'80s....She doesn't like the fume-spewing trucks parked running in front of her house, where the production has placed portable toilets. She's not that keen on the planned night shoot that will go to 3 a.m., either, because it calls for bright lights, rain machines and Great Danes. [...]
Residents are grumbling, though, even though many work in the entertainment industry and are reluctant to speak out against a big star like Smith, the production companies (Overbrook and Escape Artists) and a studio (Columbia). They complained about noise and the loss of parking spaces, which force certain apartment residents to park at a nearby church and take a shuttle bus to their building.
The report goes on to note that Graham has since negotiated an "agreement" with the Seven Pounds production company, the terms of which she refuses to divulge. ("It's not about the money. It's about having the neighborhood stand up and say, 'This is too much.'") Her frustration is entirely understandable, perhaps only to those who have personally experienced the inconvenience of missing the once-per-evening St. Thomas the Apostle SuperShuttle, only to later find yourself doused by an artificial typhoon and attacked by Great Danes as you attempt to retrieve a Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer from your front porch.
[Photo Credit: THR]
