MovieChat Forums > The Goodbye Girl (1977) Discussion > Elliot got a movie role in... Seattle??

Elliot got a movie role in... Seattle??


I had to do a double take in the part where Elliot said he got a role in a movie that would be filming in Seattle, Washington. Ten years after TGG, Richard Dreyfuss made "Stakeout," which took place in Seattle (though actually the filming was not in Seattle, but a bit farther north, in Vancouver, B.C. — However, "Another Stakeout," from 1993, in which RD starred, WAS filmed partly in Seattle).




"It was a woman who drove me to drink, and I didn't even have the courtesy to thank her." — W. C. Fields

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The really stunning thing about the "role in Seattle" is that Elliot doesn't have to read for it, or even have a chat with the famous-director-who-is-clearly-a-Mike-Nichols-clone about the film's story or the character he's to play.

I mean, come on. Getting cast in a major movie that easily is itself a work of science fiction.

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The amazing thing to me is how fast things went.

Elliot got the job and was scheduled to start filming the next day? The only way that could happen is if the original actor (exactly same size and coloring) literally died the same afternoon Oliver Fry offered him the job. How else could everything be ready to go so quickly?



No two persons ever watch the same movie.

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Happens all the time. An actor breaks a leg. A director can't get along with an actor and him fired. And just like that, a film needs an actor to step in and take over asap.

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We don't see the time frame between when he speaks to the director backstage and then Mason and her daughter walking back home (like they do at the beginning of the film). It was like history repeating itself, only this time he's going to come back.

Also totally normal for people who do stage work to be discovered by a director at the show. It's made clear the production has been out a while. And that Dreyfuss was already infamous for the Richard the III performance, hence why he said he was cast in the Improv group. Filming on location is also fitting. Seattle is close to Los Angeles anyways.

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