Boston Herald, Inside Track
By Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa
May 22, 2009
WELLFLEET – Richard Dreyfuss plays a woman-hating Cape Codder in his new flick “The Lightkeepers,” and while the Hollywood heavy has nothing against the fairer sex, he says he can sort of relate to the role!
“In the past there were groups of men who called themselves ‘Woman Haters,’ ” Dreyfuss told the Track. “Not because they were gay, but more because they were shy and, you know, women are from another planet.”
Dreyfuss, Blythe Danner, Mamie Gummer (Meryl Streep’s daughter) and Tom Wisdom of “300” fame, are on the Outer Cape this week filming scenes for their 1912-set comedy. Dreyfuss and Wisdom play a pair of lighthouse tenders who have sworn off ladies, until a free-spirited Boston society gal (Gummer) and her housekeeper (Danner) rent a nearby cottage for the summer.
The cast and crew have shot scenes at the two lighthouses in Provincetown and currently are filming at Cook’s Camp, a 100-plus-year-old cottage colony overlooking the ocean at LeCount’s Hollow Beach in Wellfleet.
“I was inspired by the short stories of Joseph Lincoln and some Cape Cod folklore that I cobbled together,” said writer-director Dan Adams, who is making a trilogy of Cape films “as a homage to the place where I grew up.”
Adams’ first Cape flick, “The Golden Boys,” was also based on a Joseph Lincoln book, and Danner said that flick is one of the reasons she decided to do “The Lightkeepers.”
“It was such a charming film,” said Gwyneth Paltrow’s mum. “And I love Dan, I loved the project and this is a wonderful role. At my age there aren’t very many romantic, complicated women’s roles. And, of course, it was a chance to work with Richard.”
For his part, Dreyfuss said he liked the role of the crusty ex-sea captain because “I’d never done anything like it.”
But while Dreyfuss has never made a movie on the Cape before, he did do one on the Vineyard – a little thriller called “Jaws.”
“Every once in a while something comes along like that,” he said. “I’ll never forget it.”
Gummer, the spitting image of her legendary mom, plays Ruth, a bohemian Bostonian and suffragette who decides to go back to nature by spending a summer on the Cape.
“I do my finest work in a corset,” joked Gummer, who played John and Abigail Adams’ daughter-in-law Sallie in the HBO miniseries “John Adams.”
Mamie said she’s having a blast with the film – and the great old summer frocks she wears in it.
“I feel like I’m in a painting,” she said. “But I’m drawn to period pieces like this. It’s a chance to time travel.”
File Under: Cape Escape.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view.bg?articleid=1173974