Actors and aspiring actors turned out by the thousands last Thursday for the casting call for “Loving,” a major motion picture to be shot in Virginia. (CP photo by Greg Glassner)
For a few hot hours on Thursday afternoon, Bowling Green’s population nearly doubled as film hopefuls from near and far gathered at the Town Hall for the first casting call for the upcoming major motion picture “Loving.”
“I thought I’d put my straw in the hat,” said living history interpreter James G. “Jay” Harrison III of Fredericksburg.
He wasn’t the only one. Between 2 and 8 p.m., more than 1,000 men, women and children of all ages and backgrounds stepped in front of 12 crew members of the film’s casting team to try their luck at snatching a few seconds of fame on the silver screen. Some, like Harrison, who has appeared in a variety of museum and film settings over the past 28 years, including HBO’s 2008 “John Adams” miniseries, were old hands at the casting call process, while others turned out on the spur of the moment or out of curiosity.
“I just learned about it 10 minutes ago,” said Shawnte Wyche, who with her three children aged 2 to 10 waited in the hot sun, craning their necks to assess their progress in the slow-moving lines that snaked out of the front door of Town Hall in two directions almost as far as the eye could see.
“Loving,” which tells the story of Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 Supreme Court decision that toppled state laws prohibiting interracial marriage, is a special story for Caroline. It was here that in 1958 the case’s plaintiffs, Mildred Jeter Loving and Richard Loving, were arrested in the middle of the night for violating Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924 and here that the case began in Caroline’s Circuit Court, only yards away from Town Hall.
“Even though all of the history leading up to the Loving case isn’t positive, the end result certainly was,” said Bowling Green Events Coordinator Jo-Elsa Jordan. “And Caroline County served as the platform for love.”
“It was a poignant moment in race relations,” said Harrison. “This is a story that should be told.”
That story was the draw for many who turned out for the call Thursday, including LaTonya Parker, the wife of incoming superintendent George Parker. Although she had virtually no acting experience, Parker said she wanted to seize “the opportunity to be in a film about something that changed the landscape” of the nation.
“It’s a local story. The people are known locally,” said Mitchell Bush of Ruther Glen, a member of the Onondaga tribe who has appeared in films such as 2005’s “The New World.”
Although Richard Loving died in 1975 after a car accident and Mildred Loving in 2008, members of the family still live in Caroline. Several turned out for the casting call, said Jordan, while other attendees, such as Lois Seal Taylor, have known the family their whole lives.
“They were nice people,” said Taylor. “They were poor people, as so many of us were in those days.”
Still, she said, in 1958, “all [many people] knew was, it’s two races.”
Interest in the casting call, said Jordan, was greater than expected: people began arriving at Town Hall as early as 9 a.m., and the building’s main room was packed by 10 a.m.
As the northernmost location of the three calls that were held, the Bowling Green site attracted a significant number of hopefuls from Washington, D.C., Maryland and even states as far away as New Jersey. By 3 p.m., the Town Hall parking lot was full, and Bowling Green Police Chief Steve Hoskins and several deputies were out directing traffic.
But although the day was hot and the lines were long, people remained cheerful, swapping stories of acquaintances and film-related experiences as they waited to hand in their information and maybe get the chance to read a few lines on camera.
“You can tell by the turnout,” said Bush, “that it intrigued them.”