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Big Easy ready for its close-up

Casting production assistant Nicole LaBranche photographs Katherine Dorman, 10, of New Orleans during a casting call in Metairie, La., on Saturday for a new Jerry Bruckheimer-produced thriller. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Stacy Plaisance Associated Press
Casting production assistant Nicole LaBranche photographs Katherine Dorman, 10, of New Orleans during a casting call in Metairie, La., on Saturday for a new Jerry Bruckheimer-produced thriller. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

METAIRIE, La. – With roughly two-thirds of New Orleans residents still living elsewhere, casting directors weren’t sure what kind of turnout to expect for the first major casting call since Hurricane Katrina hit almost five months ago.

But as casting directors for the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced thriller “Deja Vu” began setting up registration tables at a suburban New Orleans mall Saturday morning, people were already waiting for their chance at stardom.

The film stars Oscar-winner Denzel Washington, who will play a time-traveling FBI agent who tries to save a woman from being murdered, and Jim Caviezel, who portrayed Jesus in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”

“I need thousands and thousands of people,” casting director Judy Bouley told a crowd of potential extras as dozens of others waited in a corridor near the mall’s food court.

Before 1 p.m., hundreds had already been measured, registered and had their pictures taken. Parents brought their children, and because film producers announced the need for men, particularly those in the military, several showed up in uniform, including Nathan Cowall, a U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant.

“I figured I’d stick out,” said Cowall, who moved to New Orleans from Maryland a month before Hurricane Katrina hit.

Colleen Thomas drove more than 100 miles from her evacuation site in Lafayette, west of New Orleans, to attend the casting call with her 11-year-old and 6-month-old daughters. She said her family already had plans to gut their flooded Chalmette home this weekend, but she wanted to do something fun with her children.

“When I heard they were doing it, I was so excited. I know this is important for the city’s comeback, and it’s good for building everything back,” Thomas said.

Shooting for “Deja Vu” is scheduled to begin in February. Though several videos and documentaries have been filmed here since Katrina, among them a video by New Orleans rap artist Juvenile and a Katrina documentary by filmmaker Spike Lee, “Deja Vu” is the first major motion picture to do so.

“It’s an important project,” Alex Schott, director of the governor’s film and television office, said in a recent phone interview. “Everyone will be watching and waiting to see how production goes.”