Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Breaking News - Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow & Jude Law at My Work Today!

Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow will be visiting my work today, as it will serve as a set for their newest movie Contagion. On that occasion our building got renamed to "Mendel Hall" :)

I feel motivated to stay longer at work, even though I'm sick... :) I just wished I had a camera with me...

Update: I have not seen anybody famous, but my coworkers have spotted Matt Damon and Jude Law. Apparently they were only involved in a short scene taking place inside one of the labs, and they came by inconspicuous cars. But in the movie there should be some other scenes as well featuring Genentech Hall and Bakar Gym, so if you watch it, you might recognize the following:

Genentech Hall - for the purpose of the movie renamed to "Mendel Hall":

One of the corridors in the Genentech Hall:

Extras waiting for their five seconds of fame:

Genentech Hall at night (I'm sure some of the scenes will take place outside, after sundown):

My gym - Bakar Center - was nicely lit tonight, which makes me think that it will also be used as a set for the movie:





Yet another potential target for the movie set:

At the very least you have to admit that my workplace is very photogenic :)

We (a group of around 6-7 people under the command of a French postdoc from my lab) tried to get to the closed set were the movie was shot by using one of the last year's Nobel Prize Laureates as a bait. Our attempts failed, as our Nobel Prize Winner shied away from completing the mission :)

Update part 2: I just learned that "Contagion" was also shot two blocks away from my house... I saw piles of trash here and there, and I was wondering what were they doing in my hood, but I just did not put things together...