HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE - PRODUCTION NOTES

In Hollywood, when you're number one with a bullet, they call in the cops.

Revolution Studios presents Hollywood Homicide, a fast paced action comedy 
directed by Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump), starring Harrison 
Ford and Josh Hartnett. 

Harrison Ford portrays veteran detective Joe Gavilan, a weary but tenacious 
police veteran at the top of his game professionally, though his personal 
life is rapidly unraveling. His partner, K.C. Calden (Josh Hartnett), 
seems to be more interested in his side jobs as a yoga teacher and 
aspiring actor than in the high-profile gangland-style murder they 
are currently investigating.    
 
Welcome to the land of blue skies, palm trees and dead bodies.  

Revolution Studios Presents A Pitt/Shelton Production Hollywood 
Homicide starring Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett, a Columbia Pictures 
release. The film also stars Lena Olin, Bruce Greenwood, Isaiah Washington, 
Lolita Davidovich, Keith David, Master P and Lou Diamond Phillips with Dwight 
Yoakam and Martin Landau. 

Hollywood Homicide is directed by Ron Shelton and written by Robert Souza & 
Ron Shelton. Lou Pitt and Shelton are the producers. Joe Roth and David Lester 
serve as executive producers. Barry Peterson is the director of photography. 
Jim Bissell is the production designer. The film is edited by Paul Seydor, 
A.C.E. Bernie Pollack is the costume designer. The music is by Alex Wurman. 
The music supervision is by Dawn Solér and Kathy Nelson. 

Hollywood Homicide is rated PG-13 for Violence, Sexual Situations and Language 


Hollywood Homicide is a fast paced action comedy that provides a rare inside look 
at the professional and personal lives of two Los Angeles Police Department officers. 
Harrison Ford stars as Joe Gavilan, a hard-nosed veteran. He is paired with one of 
today's fastest rising young talents, Josh Hartnett, as his reluctant partner K.C. 
Calden, who is more interested in teaching yoga and pursuing an acting career than 
he is in detective work.  

Director, co-writer and producer Ron Shelton explores the practice of law enforcement 
in the glamour capital, scraping away the glitz to reveal what's underneath.  

"There is an absurdity to L.A. that I find attractive," says Shelton. "Los Angeles isn't 
really a city in the normal sense, and movies aren't really made in Hollywood. That is, 
if you can even find Hollywood."  

The other milieu Shelton explores is the driving and sometimes chaotic world of the 
recording industry, in particular the hip-hop music scene, where the killing of a 
fictitious rap music group seems culled from today's headlines.  
  
After hearing veteran homicide investigator Robert Souza's stories of his colorful 
career at the Hollywood division of the LAPD, Hollywood Homicide producer Lou Pitt 
was intrigued by the private side of a policeman's life, an environment movies 
rarely explore. "It was the personal stuff they have to deal with while they're 
trying to solve crimes that I found really compelling," says Pitt. "I wanted to 
know more about who these guys are and to make a film that showed their personal 
lives in a way we've never seen before. Like too many of us, they have to find a 
way to juggle the demands of their work and their lives."  

Souza says he was influenced by another ex-LAPD policeman turned author, Joseph 
Wambaugh (The Onion Field, The New Centurions), who also combined  his professional 
exploits as a detective with compelling personal stories. Like the central characters 
in Hollywood Homicide, Souza regularly had side jobs while he was serving with the 
LAPD. Where did he find the time? "When you're on an intense case, you rack up 
tremendous overtime, so you end up with a lot of time off and that creates 
opportunities for other activities," Souza explains. "Throughout my career, 
I worked at everything from real estate to private security to repossessing 
cars. And I worked with guys who were cabinet makers, certified public accountants 
and tennis pros."
 
The discussions between Souza and Pitt prompted Pitt to recall the time he came 
into contact with a police officer, who was also pursuing another vocation. 
"Once my home was burglarized and when the police investigator learned I was 
in the movie business, he wanted to know if I was an agent. I told him I was. 
He excused himself, went to his car and pulled a script out of the trunk of his 
car and asked me to read it. He said if I didn't like this draft he had several 
other versions," Pitt laughs. 
 
It's a much more common experience than most people realize, according to Souza, 
especially for cops on the beat in Hollywood. "I once had a partner who wanted to 
be an actor. He carried 8 x 10 glossy head shots around with him to hand out to 
entertainment industry people with whom he came into contact." 

Another aspect of Souza's experience that intrigued Pitt was his occasional clashes 
with the LAPD's Internal Affairs Division, an element that became a major plot 
thread in the screenplay Souza and Shelton eventually wrote. "Bob   headed a lot 
of high profile cases, and during his investigations, Internal Affairs was constantly 
looking over his shoulder," says Pitt. 

"I've had a controversial career, so I was ducking internal affairs on several occasions," 
Souza confesses. "It was never anything illegal, just simply things that didn't always 
conform precisely to department policy." 

Pitt introduced Souza to Shelton, who was also taken by the former policeman's 
stories, so much so he hired Souza as a technical consultant on Dark Blue, a gritty 
take on the LAPD based on a James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential) story. It was during 
production on Dark Blue that Shelton and Souza began to discuss Hollywood Homicide.  

In his interactions with Souza and other retired detectives, Shelton learned "that 
there's a whole comic side to the very serious jobs these people do. The genesis of 
Hollywood Homicide was born out of anecdotes from men and women who had spent their 
lives solving crimes in a land they described in shorthand as 'blue skies, palm trees 
and dead bodies.' "Many of the most absurd situations in the film actually come from 
their real experiences," Shelton avers. 

After production wrapped on Dark Blue, Shelton and Souza began concentrating on 
Hollywood Homicide. "We actually wrote it together, though not in the same room," 
says Souza. "Sometimes we were hundreds of miles apart, using faxes, e-mails and 
cell phones. Still, it was a total collaboration. Ron brought his magical touch to 
the story and the actors have helped us make it even richer." 

Shelton and Pitt took their idea to Joe Roth, founder of Revolution Studios and 
executive producer of Hollywood Homicide. ""Ron has an uncanny ability to make 
ordinary characters in everyday situations both memorable and relatable. Here was 
a story that was funny and dramatic, with tragic moments and tons of action. It was 
a very satisfying mixture of genres," says Roth, who had first worked with Shelton 
on White Men Can't Jump.  "I immediately suggested Harrison Ford for the role of Joe 
as well as Josh Hartnett, who had just done Black Hawk Down for us, for the part of 
K.C. Calden."  

"Joe's instinct to the casting of the principle talent was right on the money," 
says Pitt, "because it gave us an added dimension and the ability to appeal to 
the multigenerational design of the film and of the audience."

Ford was immediately intrigued by Shelton and Souza's offbeat tale. "Hollywood 
Homicide is the kind of story I'm always looking for but rarely find - a great 
blend of reality, action and humor. The film interweaves several thematic elements, 
bringing different threads together. The relationships between the characters have 
pop and sizzle to them."  

As played by Ford, Joe Gavilan is complex and multi-faceted, courageous, yet vulnerable, 
flexible at times, hard headed at others, very capable, but sometimes overwhelmed. 
Ford approached him as a "man who's better at work than he is at life. He's living 
on the edge, drinking a bit too much, staying up too late and in pretty desperate 
circumstances. He's got several hundred dollars worth of dry cleaning in hock. And 
to top it off, he's being investigated by his own department at the same time as 
he's on a major homicide investigation."

The character of K.C. Calden is a headache for Gavilan, a young detective who 
seems to be interested in everything but police work. Hartnett saw K.C. as an 
opportunity to create a fully rounded, reality-based character. While working 
as a cop, Calden busily pursues such avocations as teaching yoga and acting - 
though he keeps those sidelines secret. "Joe has no idea about K.C.'s alter ego 
as a yoga instructor," says Hartnett. "That part of him is really relaxed and 
cool, spiritual, though the women in his class often get in the way of his spiritual path."

As Shelton explained to his two leads, one of his intentions in Hollywood 
Homicide was to revisit the buddy/cop movie, "to serve the genre and, at the 
same time, bring something different to the dance. Joe and K.C. are both 
detectives, but they have completely different priorities. So you've got 
these multiple agendas going on while a major crime is being investigated 
and there's always some other distraction going on in the background.  
There's a madness, a sublime madness as the case and their lives start to 
spin out of control." 

To prepare for their roles, Ford and Hartnett visited the Los Angeles Police 
Academy firing range and observed the inner workings of LAPD's Hollywood 
division headquarters. On set, they barraged Souza and the other police 
consultants with questions about procedure as well as more personal questions 
regarding the balance between pursuing criminals and maintaining a life that 
is separate from their work. 

The generational and attitudinal differences between Gavilan and Calden are 
the focus of a great deal of comic friction in the film. "Our two characters 
don't really understand each other," says Hartnett, "and that's the source 
of a great deal of the humor."

Though Souza says that while there are elements of his personality in both 
the older and younger detective, Gavilan and Calden's stormy working relationship 
was definitely informed by his personal experiences. "When I was a young detective, 
I sometimes was impatient with older, less motivated detectives," he confesses. 
"Years later, as a senior investigator, I was sometimes put off by the younger, 
more impulsive guys. And I admit I wasn't always as patient with them as I could have been." 

Beyond the selection of the film's two leading men, Shelton was careful to cast 
the other roles with an eye toward accurately capturing the variety and vibrancy 
of the L.A. experience. "One of the aspects I find fascinating about Los Angeles 
is its incredible mix of societies, cultures, values, races, nationalities, 
neighborhoods, dreams and schemes," says Shelton. "Somehow they manage to co-exist, 
sometimes harmoniously, sometimes not. The city's diversity is one of L.A.'s 
greatest strengths."   

Shelton approached actress Lena Olin to portray Ruby, the successful, sexy radio 
psychic who gives personal and professional comfort to Ford's character.  An Oscar(r) 
nominated actress, who currently appears on the popular "Alias" television series, 
Olin prepared for the offbeat role by "catching all the radio psychics and even talk 
show hosts - everyone from the pet psychic to Dr. Phil - just to get a feel for how 
they talk and address issues."  

Bruce Greenwood, who convincingly portrayed President John F. Kennedy in the Cold 
War era drama Thirteen Days, portrays Bennie Macko, the head of Internal Affairs. 
He signed on because "The chance to work with good material and a strong cast under 
a talented director doesn't come along as often as you might think, and this project 
had all these ingredients," says Greenwood. "I've wanted to work with Harrison and 
Ron for a long time and to have the opportunity all at once was a real treat, I 
enjoyed every minute of it and I'd gladly go back for more."
 
Hollywood Homicide takes the audience behind the scenes in the music industry and 
one of its principal players is record company executive Antoine Sartain, played 
by actor Isaiah Washington, who describes his character as "dynamic, complicated, 
emotional, flawed and sometimes brilliant." Though his character could have been 
reduced to the standard bad guy, thanks to the film's precise writing and direction, 
Washington says he was able  "to hit beats that haven't been seen before. Sartain 
is a man who pokes fun at himself, even when he's under extreme duress. At the 
same time, his version of tough love can be murder." 

There's a reason why the villain is sometimes the most fascinating character 
in a film and for Washington it all comes down to the character's humanity. 
"Sartain's like J.R. Ewing on "Dallas," in that he really believes everything 
he does is right. That makes him both more human and more flawed." 

The depth and detail that Shelton and Souza brought to even the secondary 
characters in Hollywood Homicide is what drew country singer turned actor 
Dwight Yoakam to the project. Yoakam portrays Leroy Wasley, an ex-cop 
who works for Sartain. "The comedy in the film is sometimes crazy and 
ridiculous, but it always comes from a real place," says Yoakam. 

Lolita Davidovich was cast in the film's other key female role, Cleo. 
The actress, who has had starring roles in four previous Ron Shelton films, 
including her breakthrough performance in Blaze, describes Cleo as "a 
modern-day madam in Los Angeles, a city in which some consider it a worthy 
profession. She is in a rather desperate bind and needs Gavilan's help. 
And he needs hers. They are a match, similar in many ways, both strong, 
intelligent and possessing great survival instincts."

Oscar(r) winner Martin Landau plays the faded movie producer Jerry Duran, 
whose magnificent mansion may help Gavilan get out of his financial bind - 
if he can secure it as a real estate listing. The Hollywood veteran says he 
drew upon many real life producers in shaping his portrayal. "Duran's an 
extravagant Hollywood producer who has fallen on hard times," explains 
Landau.  "His day has passed, but he still has attitude.  I've been in 
Hollywood a long time, so I had countless role models for inspiration." 
 
Among Ford and Hartnett's police cronies is Lou Diamond Phillips (Courage 
Under Fire). When Shelton asked to meet with the actor about playing a 
vice squad officer, he told him "there's just one little catch," Phillips 
recalls. "Could you please show up in a skirt, hose and heels, wig and 
makeup? The character's called Wanda." With the help of his wife, a makeup 
artist, Phillips was transformed, and drove to the audition in drag, 
"praying all the way that my car didn't break down on the freeway," he 
laughs, "though I did look pretty good if I do say so myself." 

Since the world of popular music is a vital element in Hollywood Homicide, 
director Shelton instructed casting director Ed Johnston to scope the rock 
and hip-hop world for performers capable of handling straight acting roles. 
R&B legend Gladys Knight flew in from Las Vegas to audition for the role of 
Olivia Robidoux, the mother of K-RO (KURUPT) a young rap-song writer who is 
the only witness to the murders Gavilan and Calden are investigating. She 
says she was unsure whether she had a shot at the part, until Shelton 
said to her, "You're Gladys Knight!  I should be auditioning for you!"  
After her reading, he hired her on the spot.    

KURUPT, aka Ricardo Brown, had previously worked with Shelton on Dark 
Blue.  "I do a lot of running in this one," says the popular rapper. 
"K-RO's got the killers and the cops chasing him. Worst part for me was 
being chased through the Venice canals. Other than a bath, I'm not a big 
fan of water.  I don't even like standing in the rain," says KURUPT, who 
did many of his own stunts for the film.    

Another vital role was filled by "Master P." The highly regarded rapper 
and entrepreneur was cast as Julius Armas, owner of the club where the 
big murder takes place.  Master P, who also appeared in Dark Blue, says, 
"Julius is just another person to be interrogated until Gavilan learns 
I've got lots of extra cash and am in the market to buy a big mansion. 
Then I get some respect." 

Motown great Smokey Robinson, makes his acting debut as a cabbie whose 
vehicle is commandeered by Gavilan in the film's climactic chase up Hollywood 
Boulevard. Frank Sinatra, Jr. who has only acted in one other film during his 
career, was cast as attorney Marty Wheeler, who simultaneously represents 
both buyer and seller in the biggest real estate prospect of Gavilan's part-
time career. As Landau points out, this scenario is not that far-fetched in 
Hollywood. "It really happens in the movie business. The producer and the 
actor he's negotiating to hire can be represented by the same lawyer. I've 
never understood it, but I've seen it many times."

Other roles were filled by Andre Benjamin, aka Dre, of the innovative music 
group Outkast, and renowned rap music producer Kevin Law. The 504 Boyz, a 
rising rap group from Louisiana, play the musicians who are killed at the 
outset of the movie. The group is comprised of Aywood Johnson (Magic), 
Jason Thibeau (T-Bo), Michael Wilson (Krazy), and Darwin Turner (Choppa).

Shelton also managed to entice Hollywood veteran star Robert Wagner and former 
Monty Python founding member Eric Idle to make cameo appearances. Several of 
the usual suspects from Shelton's unofficial repertory company also make 
appearances, including Jamison Jones, Gregg Daniel, Eloy Casados, Dennis 
Burkley, Tom Todoroff, Will Utay, Darrell Foster and Fred Lewis.


 Hollywood Homicide is an irreverent homage to tinsel town. According to 
 executive producer David Lester, the movie was a "rare opportunity to 
 film Los Angeles as itself."

"Years ago - to save money - L.A. stood in for lots of other places. And 
you had to be careful not to shoot a palm tree," Lester continues.  "Too 
often these days, economics have forced films to be shot in Canada or 
Eastern Europe. It was a real treat to be able to create a 'postcard of 
L.A.' while telling a very L.A. story. As Ron's emphasis is always on 
character, ultimately everything else is just background. Yet it's great 
to say 'This is Hollywood' with such authenticity."   

Shelton has always been intrigued by Los Angeles. Hollywood Homicide is 
his way of sharing his interest with the audience, he says. "I grew up in 
Southern California, and though I've lived all over the country, I love 
this place. It's a complicated city and largely misunderstood. It's 
culturally and ethnically varied and has some serious problems, yet it's 
a triumphant place as well." 
 
Production designer Jim Bissell tried to include as many recognizable locations
 in Hollywood and its environs as possible in the film. "We shot key scenes at 
 Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, the famous corner of 
 Hollywood and Vine, and the historic Pantages Theater.

Additionally, Harrison Ford's character resides in a classic California 
Spanish-style bungalow in the Los Feliz area (just east of Hollywood). 
Josh Hartnett's character lives in a quintessential Silverlake (which is 
right next to Los Feliz) bachelor pad. 

Sartain (Isaiah Washington), the music mogul, lives in a modern mansion on 
Sunset Plaza Drive in the Hollywood Hills (just west of Hollywood). 

While he used actual locations, Bissell took great care to heighten that 
reality to fit the mood of the story. "All the locales are a bit exaggerated, 
a bit theatrical," says Bissell. "Nonetheless, audiences will get a taste of 
what Hollywood living is all about. The film accurately captures both the 
more glamorous aspects and the seamier underbelly of the town."

It was a welcome challenge for director of photography Barry Peterson to 
"capture Hollywood as a stylized, exciting place," he says, "especially 
considering that the film contains a great deal of action and many scenes 
photographed inside cars. In addition, we shot in some very large spaces 
with throngs of extras, but we always had to maintain the focus on our 
principal characters." 

Dark Blue, the most recent film on which Peterson collaborated with 
Shelton, is also set in Los Angeles, but required a gritty, urban look. 
"Hollywood Homicide was just the opposite," Peterson explains. "We were 
after a more polished, sophisticated tone. The attempt was to create the 
look and feel of a classic Hollywood movie," to which he quickly adds, 
"the Hollywood people see in their minds based on their film going experiences."  	

The locations Shelton used covered a wide swath of Los Angeles, showing 
off the city's diversity and style. Included are such familiar places 
as Santa Monica beach, the Los Angeles Harbor and the city's recently 
constructed Metro system. Also included were such rarely used locales as 
LAPD's Parker Center, the actual Hollywood division Police Station, as well 
as Beverly Hills' trendy Rodeo Drive.      

One of Shelton's favorite locations is the Venice canals, which is part of 
Southern California's history, yet largely unknown outside of L.A. "It was 
built by Abbot Kinney in the early part of the 20th century and is pretty 
much all that's left of his vision. It was quite remarkable. It had grand 
canals, gondolas and an opera house. What's left is several square blocks 
on the canals with some beautiful homes. I thought it was a view of L.A. 
we haven't seen before and it would be a great place for an old-fashioned chase."  

In addition to her normal responsibilities, music supervisor Dawn Solér was 
commissioned with the task of finding music personalities for acting roles 
in Hollywood Homicide. Finding musicians, who were appropriate, was difficult 
according to Solér. "Things got a bit complicated," she says. "So often, 
artists are either on tour or rehearsing to go on the road and many of them 
live far away."  

However, Solér's primary responsibility was the music in Hollywood Homicide. 
She says, "This film is real in musical culture. Like Motown, which stemmed 
from earlier music, hip-hop also sprang from previous sounds. Both were once 
considered alternative music that then crossed over.  Rap, despite what some 
may think, is now a generational thing and not defined by race. The soundtrack 
balances both those sounds and mirrors the multi-generational mix of the 
characters in the movie."