Little pain, little gain for fans on Miami film set

I read online just days before our Spring Break trip to Miami that Mark Wahlberg was in Miami filming scenes for “Pain and Gain,” a new Paramount film directed by Michael Bay. Then before the trip my brother called me to say he had driven past the Biscayne Boulevard building one day and has seen them filming. As if I wasn’t excited enough already, he had to make it worse. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a BIG celeb hound. I knew that once I was in town, a little stalking would be in order, especially after doing a little research and learning the film also stars The Rock, Tony Shaloub, Ed Harris, and Rob Corddry.

My brother (hoping to see The Rock) and I headed briefly to the set at 81^st Street and Biscayne on the Saturday morning Before Easter. I got excited as we drove up and I could see the “Sun Gym” signs that I had seen in photographs online. It was true! I was here! No longer staring at the building on my computer screen, the 3-story building was now before me. We parked and got out. Security guards everywhere. But no sign of anyone else.

We must have circled the building a half-dozen times as I shot photos from all angles of anything that looked interesting: The Paramount Pictures 18-wheelers, the lighting crane, the garbage cans (I had seen Wahlberg jumping out of one in a photo online), and I snapped a photo through the glass doors of a makeshift gym façade they had made up to look like a GNC counter.

We approached a friendly-looking security guard and started talking to her. “Toni” told us that she had met a few of the actor and they were all so nice. She told us about meeting The Rock and she also told us that they were not filming anything over the weekend and we should come back on Monday.

When we came back on Monday I expected there to be a mob of fans being held back by police tape across the street. There was no such thing … and no sign of Toni. We did see two paparazzo with huge wide angle lenses across the street. And on the roof of the building we could see filming going on. But you couldn’t see it unless you stood across the street and even then, even with my camera zoom maxed out I could not make out the people or get much of the scene.

We noticed a stairway on a building across the street and climbed them. The angle didn’t reveal much of anything and I could no longer see the scene. I did see an extra walking down the street so I took a photo. Turns out it was fitness expert Jennifer Nicole Lee who spotted us easily from up there. With not much to see from up there except a few equipment trucks, we soon went back down.

Again we walked around the building a few times. Started talking to a lively guy at catering and he eventually invited us in to the catering room. In front was just those silver buffets set up but in the back of the room, a bunch of extras were sitting around. We got to talking and eventually he walked us through the room, into another room that was hair/makeup and wardrobe and out a back door that led us right out to where the filming was taking place!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No one so much as batted an eyelash that we were there. Catering guy, who shall remain nameless to protect his identity, said just be inconspicuous (which meant I was somehow going to have to find a way to hide the camera that had been hanging from my neck the entire time). He said just blend in and you’ll be OK. He was right. Until we walked right past where they were filming a shot, we had been invisible. I glanced into the parking garage and just saw a lot of bodybuilder-looking extras standing around and more of those white-balance boards. My eyes were trying to adjust from the brightness outside to the darkness inside the garage where the scene was. When they did adjust I finally saw what I think was Mark Wahlberg in a light blue Sun Gym tank punching at something (for the scene). The only photo I could snap quickly:

 It was too late. It happened too fast. The next thing I knew the worker who had been standing outside asked us to move, asked us what we were doing. We told him and somehow we ended up outside the scene, walking around the outside of the set again. Back at square one. We mulled about a little bit longer. Catering guy, who told us he kept calling Tony Shaloub “The Monk” every time he came in there to eat and shared an odd story with us about the Black Dahlia, told us where “base camp” was so we walked over there and saw a fenced-in, security guarded lot full of cars of all kinds, more equipment trucks, trailers and transportation vehicles. I took a few photos and then we headed back. We had been hoping for a glimpse of someone famous but after about two hours it was finally time to go. We went back and said goodbye to “Catering guy” and we left. “More than we expected but less than we wanted” is how my brother summed it up. It was a pretty eventful day, getting to go where we did. I kept thinking “suck it paparazzo” while you were across the street snapping photos with your fancy cameras, I was ON the set, talking to the people who actually experienced it, getting insider photographs and making my own memories.

"Pain and Gain" comes out next year. The low-budget film is based on the true story of Daniel Lugo (played by Wahlberg), a bodybuilder who gets caught up in an extortion ring and a kidnapping scheme that go terribly wrong.


(BTW: My brother went back to the set after I left Miami. They had moved locations much further down Biscayne and of course, now that I was not there, he saw The Rock (and met actor Larry Hankin.)