Nicolas Cage flick latest film to recruit Hub oarsmen

Boston Herald Features Reporter
Tenley Woodman is a feature writer for the Boston Herald. She concentrates on teen issues and general entertainment.
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What would a movie set in Boston be without an iconic shot of rowers on the Charles?

A River Wild, Good Will Hunting, Harvard Man, Mona Lisa Smile and 21 all have tapped local oarsmen and women to traverse the river for background scenes.

Rowers, foliage and Harvard Square. When middle America thinks of Boston this is what comes to mind, said Angela Peri, owner of Boston Casting.

More than 100 athletes responded to Peris casting call for Nicolas Cages Hub-based film Knowing, which will shoot its rowing scenes today.

When it comes to finding top-notch rowing talent, filmmakers have it made in Boston.

We are a proud rowing community, said Tom Darling, a member of the 1980, 84 and 88 U.S. mens Olympic crew team.

Recent Olympic silver medalist Michelle Guerette trained on the Charles in the weeks leading up to the Beijing games, and Radcliffe womens crew coach Liz OLeary, an Olympian herself, was Meryl Streeps body double in sculling scenes for A River Wild.

Darling is organizing todays shoot. He has worked on similar scenes for the Harvard-set movie With Honors and Francis Ford Coppolas film Wind.

When I was working on With Honors, they came in March and the river was frozen. I said I cant part the waters, its going to be hard for me to get the ice to leave. There is a tier system with movies. All he wanted me to say is yes, Darling said. We changed the scene with (actress Moira Kelly) running over the (Weeks footbridge) with the rowers.

Natasha Strom, a member of Cambridge Boat Club, applied to this casting call.

The Charlestown resident was in one of the river scenes for Good Will Hunting.

Filmmakers rounded up members of Community Rowing Inc., of which Strom was a member at the time, and Riverside Boat Club for that shoot. The boats are visible in the distance as Matt Damon sits along the Cambridge shore of the Charles.

It was such a distant shot you could barely see it. Its nice to get snippets of Boston in there, Strom said.

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