Monster-in-Law: Jane Fonda, Jennifer Lopez & Their Houses

by HOOKEDONHOUSES on MARCH 1, 2010

Did you see the romantic comedy Monster-in-Law, starring Jane Fonda and Jennifer Lopez? It had some pretty funny moments, but the sets are what really held my attention. There were four different homes featured in the movie–Charlie’s apartment, Kevin’s Craftsman, and Viola’s two lavish residences. They were created with an amazing attention to detail by the talented production designer Missy Stewart and I thought they deserved a closer look.

Charlie’s Venice Beach Apartment:

Lopez is sweet and likable as Charlie, a temp who spends her days walking dogs and answering phones but dreams of being an artist. She doesn’t know what she’s getting into when she agrees to marry Kevin (Michael Vartan).

If only I could live in a charming apartment near the beach with a courtyard like this on a dog-walker’s salary!

At the beginning of the movie, the camera pans down onto this apartment complex, and looks inside that covered porch (second story, far left). Inside we see Charlie (Jennifer Lopez) sketching:

Charlie’s bedroom:

Her living room shows us that this is a woman with a million creative projects percolating at once. When Kevin sees it for the first time, he asks, “Oh, did you just move in?” No, she says–she’s lived there for years.

Kevin’s Craftsman-Style House:

Kevin is a doctor. He’s young and handsome and thoughtful. Best of all, he lives here, in this beautiful Craftsman-style home, and asks her to move in with him. He really does seem like the perfect man. But then–as the movie’s tagline goes–she meets his mother. Dun-dun-dunnnn.

In a deleted scene, we get a look at the front porch, not seen close up in the final cut of the movie:

Charlie moves into Kevin’s house:

Actor Mark Ruffalo was reportedly asked to play the part of Kevin, but he declined.

Fonda is hilarious as Kevin’s mother Viola, who lends the movie its title. In this shot, we can briefly see the staircase behind her:

The living room, during the rehearsal dinner:

In the DVD special features, we get a look behind the scenes and are treated to a couple of close-ups of the beautiful fireplace and the built-in shelves on either side of it:

Looking from the living room into the dining room and kitchen:

In the dining room for the rehearsal dinner:

Looking into the kitchen:

Wanda Sykes, as Viola’s acerbic assistant Ruby:

This was Fonda’s first film in 15 years. She has said that she based her character on her ex-husband, Ted Turner.

Charlie decides to add some of her own style to the house by painting a wall in the breakfast nook:

We never get to see how it turns out in the movie, but I spied it here in the Behind-the-Scenes featurette on the DVD:

The bedroom:

The master bathroom (Viola bursts in and rips the phone out of Charlie’s hand so she can talk to her son, who is on a business trip):

The real house used for the exterior shots is in Pasadena. The interiors were created on a soundstage. Here are the sets being built:

Iamnotastalker did some excellent sleuth work and found the actual house that they used in Pasadena. Here’s what she says about it:

In real life, the Monster-in-Law house is known as the Ross House and it was designed in 1911 by Alfred and Arthur Heineman, the same architectural team who was responsible for giving us Dylan’s house from Beverly Hills, 90210 and the Eppes house from the television series Numb3rs.

The Heineman brothers built the residence, which features Craftsman, Asian, and Neo-Classical design elements, for a rancher named Winslow Ross at a cost of $8,000. The house, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, boasts Batchelder tile work, a hand-painted mural, four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a whopping 4,657 square feet of living space.

Check out her post for more photos and information.

UPDATE: The owner of this Craftsman contacted me and sent me some of his personal photos of the house. You can see them here.

Viola’s Country Home in Montecito:

We don’t see much of the exterior in the movie except for in this brief shot below. The photo above is from the Special Features of the DVD, which gives us a better idea of how big that wraparound porch really is.

UPDATE: This house was also used on “Gilmore Girls” as the Independence Inn. See photos of ithere.

Viola sends Charlie to this bedroom where she has a dress waiting for her to wear to the black-tie party already in swing. Too bad it’s about three sizes too small:

Viola’s Estate in Pasadena:

According to the LA Times:

When location manager Timothy Hillman needed a house that would make a statement about the Barbara Walters-type mother Jane Fonda portrays in the upcoming film “Monster-in-Law,” he settled on a majestic 1927 Wallace Neff home in Pasadena as the character’s home.

“We wanted to show that she oozed class,” Hillman says, “so we picked this gated estate with fountains in front and grand windows into the living room.”

The fireplace is huge. See all of those framed photos on the right? We see Viola with famous people like Oprah and Gloria Steinem. They’re all real photos from Fonda’s collection.

The staircase decorated for the wedding:

Viola’s bedroom:

After Kevin makes a surprise proposal to Charlie on the porch, Viola runs to her bedroom to meditate and calm down. In this shot you get a glimpse of the connecting bathroom behind her:

In the DVD Special Features, we are shown a close-up of Viola’s bed that we didn’t get in the movie:

The clothes for the movie were just as much fun to look at as the sets. They were all specially designed for the characters by Kym Barrett, the costume designer–including this white gown that Viola wears to her son’s wedding:

Charlie gets ready for her wedding in Viola’s room. Notice how they hung curtains in the arched doorway and blocked the view of the bathroom in this scene with a screen:

Viola’s garden, where the wedding was held:

Visit my TV/Movie Houses page for links to all the others I’ve featured, fromFather of the Bride to Something’s Gotta Give.

You might also like:

A Peek Inside the Historic Craftsman from “Monster-in-Law”

Jane Fonda’s Loft For Sale in Atlanta

Jennifer Lopez’s Brownstone in “The Back-up Plan”

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“Gilmore Girls:” Dragonfly Inn and Scenes from Stars Hollow

by HOOKEDONHOUSES on MAY 16, 2010

It would probably be an understatement to say that I’m a fan of the “Gilmore Girls.” I became obsessed with the show after I rented Season One last year (that’s right, last year–I was really late to this party!). It sucked me right into the world of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, and I never wanted to leave.

There were a lot of fun sets featured in this show, so for starters, I thought we’d take a look at the Dragonfly Inn that Lorelai and her best friend Sookie owned. Then we’ll visit some other scenes from around town.

Does the inn look familiar? I was surprised to learn that this was originally used asThe Waltons’ family home. (Photo via Cynthia’s Waltons page.) Here’s how it looked when it belonged to them:

2/11 UPDATE: Steve tells me: “This house was not the original Waltons house (which burned down in late 1991) but a reconstruction on the Warner Ranch (the first one had been on the Burbank backlot), and was used for the three 1990s Waltons reunion movies. One of the few shows to use the Waltons house (after TW had ended) was “Dukes of Hazzard” in 1985 – after all the house was ‘typecast’ by then!” Thanks, Steve!

You may recall when Lorelai and Sookie first went to look at the house to consider buying it (in Season Two), it looked pretty much like this, with the same white siding, screen door, and front porch. They added some (falling down) shutters and wrecked everything up a little, though:

It was fun to watch the story of the inn unfold on the show. First we saw them looking at the abandoned old house. Then we followed along as they bought it and construction began. Finally, we saw the results of the renovated inn.

It played out in “real time.” There were several years between the episode when they first went to see the place and when they opened for business. But it was worth the wait!

Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator, writer and co-producer of “Gilmore Girls,” had the idea for the show after visiting a small town in Connecticut calledWashington Depot.

She says she and her husband Daniel (who co-produced and wrote the show with her) went into a coffee shop at Washington Depot where everyone knew each other, and customers were going behind the counter to pour their own coffee. It inspired her to start jotting down dialogue for what would become “Gilmore Girls.”

The Dragonfly’s Front Desk:

Rory Gilmore, played by Alexis Bledel (above), was putting herself through college at NYU when they began casting for the show. She wasn’t really interested in being Rory and had to be talked into auditioning at all. Then she had to leave the audition early to make another appointment. She got the role anyway.

I wish I could eat all the junk food that Lorelai and Rory wolf down on the show and still look as great as they do. Lauren Graham mentioned in an interview that people ask her all the time if they really eat like that. Her answer: “Um, no.”

The Stairs That Lead to the Guest Rooms:

I grabbed a (fuzzy) screenshot of the foyer set during the behind-the-scenes tour on the DVD. You can see that the stairs don’t actually go anywhere:

The Living Room:

The old jukebox in the otherwise-traditional living room seems like a perfect expression of Lorelai’s quirky personality–and her love of music.

How the Dragonfly’s living room set looks when the cameras aren’t rolling:

The Dragonfly Dining Room:

Lorelai has lunch with Christopher, Rory’s father, in the dining room:

You can see through the doorway behind Christopher and Lorelai (and Christopher’s daughter Gigi) the inn’s library.

Behind the Scenes: The Dining Room Set

The Library:

I loved the library with the black painted moldings and bookshelves. Few scenes were shot in this room, though.

The Kitchen:

Sookie was originally played by Alex Borstein in a pilot that never aired. They had to recast the role because Borstein couldn’t get out of another contract, but she ended up playing some smaller parts in the show now and then, like the harp-playing Drella at the Independence Inn.

Now it’s hard to imagine anyone but the fabulous Melissa McCarthy as Sookie. I loved her as Christina Applegate’s friend Dena in “Samantha Who,” too. I was excited to hear she’s been cast in a new sitcom, so we’ll be seeing her on TV again soon.

In this shot of the Dragonfly kitchen you can see the big message board, the shelves lined with cookbooks, and the doorway into the pantry:

Behind the Scenes: The Kitchen Set

In the DVD Special Features, Melissa McCarthy (Sookie) gives us a behind-the-scenes tour of the sets. Here she shows us what the kitchen looks like from above:

Sookie makes herself at home in one of the Guest Rooms:

Scenes from Stars Hollow:

The pilot for “Gilmore Girls” was shot in a small town in Toronto (Historic Unionville). When the show was picked up, they reproduced the look of the interiors from the pilot on soundstages in Burbank, California.

For the exteriors, they filmed on a Warner Bros. backlot that had been built decades earlier for movies like The Music Man and used by shows like The Dukes of Hazzard(Stars Hollow High School, for instance, was the Hazzard County Courthouse).

Luke’s Diner was actually a hardware store in Canada. They left the hardware sign up and wrote it into the story (that Luke’s dad had run a hardware store in that spot).

Inside Luke’s Diner:

Luke was originally written as a woman named Daisy who ran the diner.Because there were so many female characters in the script, they decided to cast a man (Scott Patterson) instead.

They had no intentions of pairing him with Lorelai–the relationship just evolved. Viewers clamored for the show to bring them together. When they finally did, ratings soared.

Remember when Luke’s troubled nephew Jess (Milo Ventimiglia, who went on to star in “Heroes”) traveled to California to meet his estranged dad (Rob Estes) and his dad’s new wife (Sherilynn Fenn)? I thought that episode was so strange. Turns out it was supposed to become a spin-off called “Windward Circle,” but the WB didn’t pick it up.

Amy Sherman loved Sherilynn Fenn so much that she wrote a new character for her on the show, as Luke’s ex-girlfriend Anna. She was intended to get in the way of Luke’s relationship with Lorelai, but after Sherman left the show, the new writers took things in a different direction.

The Independence Inn:

When the series began, and before she opened the Dragonfly, Lorelai worked at the localIndependence Inn.

Trivia alert! This exterior was also used in the movie Monster-in-Law as Jane Fonda’s country home. (You can see that post here.)

Yanic Truesdale, who played the acerbic Frenchman Michel (shown above), is Canadian. He doesn’t really have that heavy French accent.

The Independence Inn was much more traditional and masculine looking than the Dragonfly Inn.

The Independence Inn’s Dining Room (during the Mother-Daughter fashion show Lorelai organized for Chilton):

Mrs. Kim’s Antiques:

Rory’s best friend was Lane Kim (played by Keiko Agena), who lived in the town’s antiques store with her mother. Lane was based on Amy Sherman’s real-life best friend Helen, who had a similar upbringing (strict, Korean, religious).

Sookie’s House:

Sookie’s house is warm and colorful like she is.

There’s a wonderful website that features locations for various movies and TV shows, including this one. Check out the page for “Gilmore Girls:” It’s Filmed There.

Amy Sherman explained her fascination with the small Connecticut townthat would become Stars Hollow onscreen:

“Now, I’ve never been there in winter, when you’re snowed in and you can’t go anywhere, and you and your husband want to kill each other because you can’t go to a movie. But at the time I was there, it was beautiful, it was magical, and it was feeling of warmth and small-town camaraderie. . . . There was a longing for that in my own life, and I thought — that’s something that I would really love to put out there.”

Aren’t we glad she did?

Are you a “Gilmore Girls” fan? Then be sure to come back next Monday to see photos of Lorelai’s house (above), along with Richard and Emily Gilmore’s mansion and the pool house that Rory lived in for awhile. There was just too much good stuff to fit into one post!

UPDATE: You can see Lorelai’s house, the Gilmore mansion, and Rory’s pool househere.

Visit my TV/Movie Houses page for links to more shows I’ve featured, from Bewitched to Brothers and Sisters.

You might also like:

“Gilmore Girls:” Lorelai’s House & the Gilmore Mansion

“Newhart:” Checking Into the Stratford Inn

The Inn from “Nights in Rodanthe:” Rescued and Renovated

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