HOLLYWOOD – The warehouse interior filled with a seemingly random collection of industrial-looking equipment and cables abruptly gives way to what looks like a penthouse apartment – a study, then a sitting room, leading to a great room culminating in a boutique kitchen.
But it’s in the middle of a warehouse, and the windows don’t look out on a panoramic cityscape; rather, they look out on a giant photograph of a panoramic cityscape. And the cool, underlit Plexiglas stairway doesn’t wind its way up to some fabulous loft bedroom but to an unlit, unfinished space behind a wall with a couple more mounds of cables.
“That’s the magic of Hollywood for you,” says Nathan Fillion, the actor who plays writer Richard Castle in the ABC series, Castle. This fake penthouse is the home of the fake best-selling author. “It’s a stairway to nowhere.”
The nation’s television critics were invited to roam about the penthouse set of Castle during this summer’s annual press tour of network briefings on the fall season.
It’s hard not to be impressed by the painstaking attention to detail that goes into choosing the accessories that appoint a fictitious character’s make-believe apartment.
Richard Castle is a successful and well-traveled man, so there is a basket of antique globes. He’s a man’s man, so there is a collection of sabers and rapiers in the corner and a giant photo of a lion hanging on a wall. He’s a writer, so, of course, there are lots and lots of books. But he’s a mystery writer, which explains the collection of antique locks.
Given all the character-enhancing thought that has been given to the furnishings, there’s got to be a reason why an ancient Underwood typewriter stands next to a sleek Epson printer. Sure enough, there is.
“Richard has a foot in both worlds,” says show creator Andrew W. Marlowe. “He’s an old-fashioned writer, but he’s also a gadget guy. He loves his iPhone.”
Don’t tell me he Twitters. Of course he does.
“He’s discovered what a great storytelling device Twitter can be, so he set up an account, ‘writerCastle.’ He’s in the Hamptons for the summer, and while he was walking on the beach, he found a foot. So he’s writing eight to 10 posts a day about what he’s finding out about that foot and what happened to the person who lost it.”
Credit: dallasnews.com