Movie Magic: Filming at David's House!

Crew members film The Judge in David's driveway.
Image credit: Bella English/Globe Staff

With yesterday's article in the Boston Globe, it appears the cat is out of the bag: for the past few weeks, David's home in Milton has been one of the filming locations for The Judge, a new movie starring Robert Downey, Jr., and Robert Duvall (among others)! That's right – the house that Robert Duvall's character lives in in the movie is in fact David Godine's house in real life.

"How did this happen?!" you might ask. Essentially, people connected to the film were scouting locations around Massachusetts and happened to come across David's house. They liked it, so they asked if they could use it in a movie – it didn't take a whole lot of convincing for David and his wife Sara to say yes.

The movie will be released in 2014, and the synopsis, according to the Internet Movie Database, is:

A successful lawyer [Downey, Jr.] returns to his hometown for his mother's funeral only to discover that his estranged father [Robert Duvall], the town's judge, is suspected of murder.

I got to visit the set myself, and witness firsthand the craziness that comes along with filming at a residential location. The morning I was there, they spent hours filming a single scene that will probably only be about 30 seconds long in the final movie (assuming it is not cut). They made sure to film every angle imaginable - a close up on Robert Downey, Jr., focused on him but from a little further away, over his shoulder looking at his neighbor, a close up of the neighbor, etc. (I can't give away details about the scene, though, sorry!) They ran each shot at least 3 to 4 times, and RDJ seemed to be improvising variations of his lines in a few of the takes.

L to R: Stunt coordinator Keith Campbell, David, and David's wife, Sara Eisenman
Image credit: Bella English/Globe Staff

At one point during the morning, David and I were in his kitchen when one of the movie's Production Assistants came in to see if David would let them use some of his mugs – apparently the ones they had planned to use were no longer making the cut. The PA looked through David's cabinets and picked out a few options. She remarked that she couldn't use most of the mugs because they had logos or images on them that they would have to receive permission to use and David steered her toward a mug with the David R. Godine, Publisher name and logo on it. "I'm in charge of permissions," I told her, "and I can officially grant permission for you to use the mug with our logo." She laughed, but she took it as one of three options – "we'll see which one Robert Downey, Jr., picks" – and that was that. Rumor has it that RDJ actually did pick the Godine mug, so keep your eyes peeled when you see The Judge in theaters next year!

If you missed the article in yesterday's Globe, you can read it online here.