When we had to fake the Oscars for In&Out, the superb Production Designer Ken Adam used a chunk of Lincoln Center for the exterior red carpet, as seen in the photo above, and a college theater up in Purchase, NY, for the ceremony itself. The film clips from To Serve and Protect, the movie Matt Dillon’s character is nominated for, were also filmed in New York, with a beach in Queens substituting for a Vietnam battlefield, with the addition of some palm trees and a lot of smoke. Many of the scenes set in the fictional town of Greenleaf, Indiana were shot in Northport, Long Island, where the cameras had to be careful not to include glimpses of the Atlantic Ocean. The high school sections were shot in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, and the scenes at Matt’s Malibu estate were filmed in the luxurious beachfront community of Deal, New Jersey – I grew up in NJ and I’d never heard of Deal, which is staggeringly deluxe. Kevin Kline lent his own Academy Award, which he’d won for A Fish Called Wanda, for use in the movie.
I’ve never been to the real Oscars but it was a treat to recreate them, especially with one of those whirling, abstract sets and the gracious presence of Glenn Close and Whoopi Goldberg as Hollywood royalty.
