NBC’s “Smash” will be filming at Cafe Orlin on St. Marks Place today. This morning the show’s crew was spotted bringing equipment into a closed set on Lafayette Street, between East Fourth Street and Astor Place; a spokesperson for the locations department confirmed that filming will move to the cafe between First and Second Avenues this afternoon. The show filmed at Orlin in September and has been seen around the neighborhood a few times since then. If a sign on a trailer is any indicator, Anjelica Huston will make an appearance today as her character Eileen.
Update | 4:30 p.m. No sign of Anjelica Huston, but as you can see in our spy footage above, Katharine McPhee, who plays Karen on the show, and Jack Davenport (Derek) were on site.
Who’s this walking south on First Avenue, just one face among thousands enjoying the East Village on a crisp fall evening? Here’s a hint: The native New Yorker (recently seen at Café Orlin) got her start as an actress at La MaMa before going on to achieve global fame alongside Matt Damon in the Bourne trilogy. Global fame or not, Julia Stiles went largely unnoticed as she waited at a traffic light on 12th Street and First Avenue at about 8:30 p.m. on Saturday night.
Stephen Rex Brown Cafe Orlin at 41 St. Marks Place.Ajay Naidu isn’t the only celebrity who enjoys Cafe Orlin. A reader spotted Julia Stiles lounging with a friend in the terrace of the restaurant on St. Marks Place at around 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday. “Why couldn’t she be alone?” our reader joked. “Why wasn’t she seated there in mournful solitude with an expectant look on her face? I guess it’s because… she’s a movie star!”
He added that the star of “The Bourne Ultimatum” and “10 Things I Hate About You” did have a certain aura about her. “She looks like the girl next door. The wholesome farmer’s daughter who, thankfully, didn’t have the gap between her teeth fixed.”
Courtesy Ajay NaiduAjay Naidu.To some, he’ll always be Samir, one of the disgruntled heroes of “Office Space,” or more recently, Vikram from HBO’s “Bored to Death.”
They know him by his real name, however, in the East Village, the neighborhood that actor/writer/director Ajay Naidu has called home for over 16 years. Back in the day, he was a self-described “club kid,” and though he still frequents the neighborhood’s live music venues, he’s just as likely to be found on set these days as he is on the scene. Naidu has several notable projects in the pipeline, including Sacha Baron Cohen’s upcoming “The Dictator” (about which he’s been sworn to secrecy) and his own directorial debut, “Ashes”, a 10-year labor of love that has been touring the festival circuit (catch it next month at the New York International Latino Film Festival).
Naidu took a timeout to share some of his favorite places with his fellow Villagers.
Best Location for People-Watching
“My fire escape on Saint Mark’s. It has the perfect angle because it’s just above the crowd and you can watch everyone and hear everything.”
Best Live Music Venue
“That’s a really tough one because I go out a lot to music. The best place to go hear music right now is Santos Party House and has been for a while.”
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