Usually when people cause this much of a fuss at 26th and California, they're getting placed into handcuffs or escorted out of a courtroom. But that's not how it goes if you’re Wolverine or James Bond.
International movie stars Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig recently paid a visit to the illustrious Cook County Criminal Courthouse at 26th and California in preparation for upcoming roles, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The pair showed up at the courthouse without any warning Thursday to get some face time with real Chicago cops. The actors are set to star across from each other in an upcoming Broadway staging of A Steady Rain, a Chicago cop drama.
A Steady Rain has been staged in front of an audience before, and the show was hailed by Trib theater critic Chris Jones as being "gritty, rich, thick, poetic." He noted the actors' realistic portrayals of Chicago cops helped make the play what it was.
Craig and Jackman hail from Chester, England and Sydney, Australia, respectively, and if you're having trouble finding those cities on a Chicago map, then don't worry, you're not missing anything. It's probably a good guess that actors in Australia don’t usually have lots of interaction with Chicago cops, so the visit to meet the real deal couldn't hurt that much.
If you're a stickler for authenticity, though, before you get all bothered that there's an Aussie and an English guy playing two Chicago cops, something kind of like this has happened before with great results.
1997's period piece cop drama L.A. Confidential featured Australian actor Russell Crowe, and Guy Pearce, a Brit who was raised in Australia, playing archetypical American cops. The film was one of the biggest hits of the year and even got an Oscar nomination for Best Picture without too many people complaining about traces of foreign accents seeping into the rough L.A being portrayed.
A Steady Rain is scheduled to begin a preview run on September 10.
