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When Mickey met IVAN
Hurricane Evacuation livened up Disney Channel's New Orleans movie shoot
Friday, January 14, 2005
Dave Walker
For anybody who wonders how much of the true local color that location-shooting Hollywood types get to experience while they're among us, consider the mid-September experience of the lead actors in the new Disney Channel movie "Now You See It . . ."
Thanks to Hurricane Ivan, they, like many of us, spent most of a day and night stuck in traffic between here and Baton Rouge.
Now that, as Frank Davis might say, is naturally N'Awlins.
"We had to get packed up really quick, literally in an hour," said Alyson Michalka, who plays an aspiring television producer in the magic-minded film, which premieres at 7 tonight on cable. " 'The hurricane's coming. We've got to leave.' I was freaked out."
To their credit, the visiting cast members and production officials forced to evacuate turned their ordeal into a party. (It helped that they were aboard a spacious charter bus.)
"It was like a big field trip," said Johnny Pacar, who plays a young magician in the movie. "Kind of like a ski trip in high school, except with a little more urgency.
"We just kind of had fun. We pulled out the guitar and sang songs and ate a lot of food."
The evacuees eventually made it to Houston, then flew on to Los Angeles.
"It was a crazy adventure," said Michalka. "It was a good experience and a bad experience."
Interviewed on the Central Business District set of "Now You See It . . ." a few days after their return to town, both actors seemed fully recovered from their sudden hiatus.
No surprise. They're both troupers from way back.
Michalka, acting since age 5, is co-star of the Disney Channel series "Phil of the Future." Now 15 (and capable of playing at least a half-decade older), Michalka and her sister, A.J., have a pop album due to drop any day.
Pacar, age 23 but playing more than a half-decade younger in the film, has done guest spots on "American Dreams" and "Boston Public," and has a role in the upcoming indie film "Combustion."
For Disney, they play characters who find each other inside a magic castle created out of multiple New Orleans locations, including a CBD bank lobby.
They're ostensibly there to participate in a reality-TV quest to determine the world's greatest kid magician, one of whom is played by local pixie Amanda Shaw.
Other local actors to look for (from a roster and character descriptions supplied by Disney) include Spike Spencer (as the character Paul), Pat Hazell (Danny's father), Deneen D. Tyler (Mrs. Alister), Blake W. Gilliam ("strait jacket kid"), Lauren Carreras ("exceedingly cheery girl"), Devyn A. Tyler ("nervous kid"), Andrea Ragsdale (Danny's mother), Patty French (Madam Sylvia), Stocker Fontelieu (Professor Maas) and Don Brady (Dr. French).
Frank Langella (very cool in the new HBO series "Unscripted") plays a master magician overseeing the competition, which reveals that Pacar's character possesses more than a knack for sleight-of-hand.
He's got supernatural talents that understandably intrigue Michalka's budding TV producer.
"She's real energetic and in-your-face," Michalka said. " 'We're going to this, we're going to do that.'
"He has weird powers.
"Through their difficulties, they come together."
As might passengers on a long, slow bus ride.
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TV columnist Dave Walker can be reached at dwalker@timespicayune.com or at (504) 826-3429.