'The Holdovers': Here's why the director picked Worcester over Boston for a big scene

WORCESTER — If you see the critically acclaimed crowd-pleaser “The Holdovers” this holiday season, you might recognize a familiar face, as well as a familiar place.

The familiar face is that of versatile, Oscar-nominated character actor Paul Giamatti.

The familiar place is our very own Worcester Common oval.

Sporting a bushy moustache and tweed hat, Giamatti plays Paul Hunham, a feared and despised teacher of ancient history at a fictitious all-boys New England prep school, Barton Academy.

As the corduroy suit-wearing, pipe-smoking, Jim Beam-swigging, Roman Empire-referencing academic who regularly butts head with the prep school’s headmaster (a former student of his) and gleefully whistles Wagner’s “The Ride of the Valkyries“ while passing back failed final exams, Giamatti's Hunham makes John Houseman’s Professor Kingsfield in “The Paper Chase” look like a pushover.

In the movie, which takes place during Christmas break in 1970, Hunham finds himself alone with a smart but ill-tempered student Angus Tully (played by newcomer Dominic Sessa) and the school’s grief-stricken head cook Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who recently lost her son in Vietnam.

More: 'Letters to Santa': What to know about new Hallmark Channel Christmas movie shot in Worcester

After the three unlikely companions share Christmas dinner, Hunham and Angus set out on an impromptu field trip to Boston, which includes driving by factories on Route 110 in Clinton, seven minutes before the scene shot in Worcester.

While a majority of film was shot in the buildings and on the campus of St. Mark’s School in Southborough during the spring of 2022, Worcester is the spot for a crucial scene in which teacher and troubled student bond and a well-guarded secret about Hunham’s past is revealed.

In a scene lasting three minutes, Worcester takes center stage roughly around the movie's 90-minute mark.

As the acoustic guitar strains of Cat Stevens’ “The Wind” permeate the background, Angus is seen smiling as he skates on the Worcester Common Oval, which doubles for the Boston Common, though the viewer can clearly see Worcester City Hall in the background.

With a fresh bed of white snow courtesy of a snowstorm the day before, the production crew didn’t have to put artificial snow down as they did in 2021 for the downtown filming of “Dexter: New Blood.”

Overlooking the Oval was the city’s Christmas tree, covered with blue, red and green lights, which was put up especially for the shoot.

An estimated 100 extras, including skaters and walkers, wearing '70s-appropriate woolen coats or leather jackets, were used in the scene.

Filmed on Feb. 26. 2022, Worcester’s big scene in “The Holdovers” was originally intended for Boston, but Alexander Payne, the film’s director, liked what Worcester had to offer.

“The scene that we shot here in Worcester was actually scripted for Boston, but I preferred the look of the skating rink in Worcester to that of Boston,” Payne said to the Telegram & Gazette minutes after wrapping up the scene. “So, folks from Worcester and Boston will have to forgive us for cheating in the movie, but it’s just a movie.”

Walking together up the steps that lead to the back entrance of City Hall, Hunham and Angus (Sessa) run into one of Hunham’s old Harvard University classmates, Hugh Cavanaugh (Kelly AuCoin), and his wife, Karen (Colleen Clinton).

During the uncomfortable encounter, the four pause on the stairs and speak a few minutes before parting ways.

Over Cavanaugh’s shoulder you can see the old Telegram & Gazette building at 20 Franklin St. and the neon Worcester PopUP sign.

Over Hunham’s shoulder, you can see a long stretch of Franklin Street, including the intersection at Portland Street and the illuminated sign of Bay State Savings Bank at 28 Franklin St.

“The Holdovers” doesn’t mark the first time the Worcester Common has featured prominently in a film project, nor the first time the Worcester Common doubled for the Boston Common on film.

Despite taking place in Boston but primarily shot in Richmond, Virginia, the 2010 movie “A Christmas Kiss” from Princeton-based filmmaker John Stimpson — whose latest Christmas movie, “Letters to Santa,” made its debut on Black Friday on the Hallmark Channel — shot such a scene.

“We were pretending to be the Boston Common because Boston Common wouldn’t let us bring a horse and buggy into the Common, nor would we be able to navigate all the logistics and the permitting to get it done it Boston," Stimpson said. "So, we did it here in Worcester.”

The Common also prominently featured in Stimpson’s Lifetime TV movie “Christmas on Ice” from 2020.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: 'The Holdovers' Boston Common scene actually filmed in Worcester