During a time when many other filmmakers have opted to shoot in Canada, SOMEONE LIKE YOU producer Lynda Obst and director Tony Goldwyn insisted on shooting in the Big Apple. "I thought New York should be a character in the movie," says Goldwyn. "There is a kind of pressure on people's lives in New York both to find success and to find love, and the stakes tend to be higher."
"We wanted a real look, that doesn't look like a TV movie," adds Obst. "We had to sell the idea that we could shoot the movie like a studio independent movie and use practical locations. We wanted this movie to be mainstream downtown New York."
In fact, SOMEONE LIKE YOU shot almost exclusively below 14th Street: in Greenwich Village, Little Italy, Tribeca, and Soho. Production designer Dan Leigh, who had designed Goldwyn's "A Walk on the Moon" and many other New York-based movies, found locations that were rarely seen on film. "We wanted to show New York in a landmark way, like the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center, but from new views and angles so that it became an insider New York story," Leigh explains.
For example, Jane's apartment, a small studio with no real view, was located in a rarely photographed part of Chinatown. While the interior was built in the rehearsal space of the Ohio Theater in Soho, the exterior was shot east of the area of Chinatown that tourists frequent, on Catherine Street. When Jane and Ray fall in love and decide to move in together, they find a beautiful apartment with a huge terrace in Greenwich Village.
"When she meets Ray, not only does she find who she perceives to be Mr. Right, but she's also found the ultimate New York apartment," explains Leigh. "So when Ray is not interested in her any longer, not only does she lose the guy, but she loses this incredible apartment." A true New York story.
When Ray breaks up with her, Jane is left with nowhere to live, so she reluctantly moves in with her co-worker Eddie. "She ends up with Mr. Wrong in this horrible loft in the meatpacking district," says Leigh. Eddie's apartment was filmed in a real loft just down the street from the bar Hogs & Heifers, a famed institution for hard-drinking New York City cowgirls and cowboys, where Eddie spends much of his free time. The production also shot in the actual bar, where Hugh Jackman did some of his research into the life of a New York bachelor.
"Of course I had to go to Hogs & Heifers," says Jackman. "I'm not a confirmed bachelor myself, but I was here in New York a few nights on my own when I was doing some research and I told my wife, it's been five years we've been married, and I'm out of touch, and she said, 'Sure, you get back on the next plane."'
The production also filmed in such popular downtown New York restaurants as Old Homestead Steakhouse, Anglers and Writers, and Cafe Habana. In fact, Goldwyn arranged for much of the extensive rehearsal time to take place in the actual locations where the film was to be shot, something that he himself would have enjoyed as an actor. "Tony said that he just thought to himself, ~Well, what would my perfect world be like as an actor on the set?" says Marisa Tomei. "And he did just that. And it paid off for us.
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