Sofia Vergara – IAMNOTASTALKER

January 12, 2015January 11, 2015

Big Red Sun from “Chef”

Spoiler alert! If you have not yet seen Chef (and if not, what’s the hold up? I told y’all on Friday that it was one of my favorite movies of 2014!), you might not want to read today’s post as I will definitely be spoiling the ending. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Anyhow, at the conclusion of Chef, Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) is approached by his food critic nemesis, Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt), who informs him that he would like to financially back him in the opening of a new restaurant. Ramsey says that he has already secured a space for the venture on “Rose Avenue in Venice.” The movie then flashes six months into the future to a scene in which Carl is show re-marrying his ex-wife, Inez (Sofia Vergara), inside of his new eatery named El Jefe. Well, once I managed to track down Inez’s house from the flick, I immediately set about finding El Jefe. Thankfully, it was not that difficult of an undertaking.

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Because Ramsey had mentioned Rose Avenue when talking to Carl about the restaurant, I decided to begin my search there and, sure enough, found the El Jefe space at 560 Rose, just a few blocks west of Lincoln Boulevard. In real life, the space does not house an eatery, but a gift shop named Big Red Sun.

Actually to call the place a gift shop would be oversimplifying. In reality, Big Red Sun is a boutique, a nursery and a special events venue all rolled into one. The store was originally founded by landscape artist Selena Souders in 2008. Selena had first opened a Big Red Sun in Austin, Texas in 1994. She would often travel to Los Angeles to purchase succulent plants and other goods to sell there and soon was dreaming of opening a West Coast outpost. She acquired an adorable little cottage in 2007, painted it royal blue and repurposed it into a retail space. Big Red Sun: Venice was opened the following year. (The Texas outpost is still in operation, as well.) Because the site is so unique, Selena also decided to offer it up to host special events. You can check out some photographs of a wedding held on the premises here. (Notice the pics of David Foster at the top of the page! Loves it!)

I fell in love with Big Red Sun upon first glance. The shop sells some of the most unique items for the home that I have ever seen. I ended up purchasing the really cool coconut shell-looking planter pictured below to put in the Grim Cheaper’s advent calendar. (He is a major green thumb.) The site sells many nursery-type materials, but also stocks specialty gifts and home décor items. Had I had more time to spend there, I am sure I would have purchased countless other goodies.

I so wanted to come home with the amazing succulent garden pictured below, but I am pretty sure the GC would have killed me.

Chef made extensive use of the Big Red Sun property . . .

. . . and featured several areas of the store, including the front exterior.

In the movie, the El Jefe sign was placed where the Big Red Sun signage is in real life.

The interior was also used in Chef. For the shoot, all of the shop’s shelving and display pieces were removed to make the space look more like a restaurant. Despite that fact, though, it is still very recognizable from its onscreen appearance. I did not take any photos of the inside of the store as a large shipment of products had just been delivered and there were countless boxes scattered about the center of the room. Wish I could have stuck around to peruse what was in those boxes, because, as I said, the merchandise I did see was amazing. You can check out some photographs of the inside of Big Red Sun on Apartment Therapy here.

The store’s gorgeous backyard was also featured in the movie.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Big Red Sun, aka El Jefe restaurant from Chef, is located at 560 Rose Avenue in Venice. You can visit the shop’s official website here.

January 9, 2015January 8, 2015

Inez’s House from “Chef”

My favorite movie of 2014 was, hands down, The Other Woman. Running a close second was Chef, which I am guessing many of you have not heard of. Sadly, it was a bit of a sleeper. Take my word for it, though, the flick is fabulous. As are its locations! But more on that in a minute. The Grim Cheaper and I first heard about Chef thanks to Carson Daly who talked about it on his morning radio show on 97.1 FM a couple of months back. Carson had just watched the movie the night prior and was mesmerized by it. He even mentioned that it made him cry. So when the GC and I came across the title when perusing the Instant Video selections on Amazon a couple of weeks back while spending the night at my parents’ house, we decided to watch it. And we all had much the same reaction as Carson. Chef is heartwarming, funny and feel-good. We absolutely loved it! One thing that had us debating during our viewing and repeatedly pausing the movie (much to the GC’s chagrin), though, was the real life location of Inez’s (Sofia Vergara) onscreen house.

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Because of its Spanish-style architecture, my mom and the GC were convinced that the residence was located in Pasadena. I had my doubts, though. If a place of that massive size and spectacular beauty was actually located in the Crown City, I figured I most likely would have come across it during my ten-plus years of living there. As it turns out, my instincts were right. After some digging, I ended up finding the pad in Brentwood.

Chef centers around Carl Casper (Jon Favreau, who produced, wrote, directed and starred in the movie), a high-end chef who loses his job after getting into a Twitter war with a food critic. Following the advice of his ex-wife, Inez, Carl winds up purchasing an old food truck in Miami and refurbishing it, before driving it back to Los Angeles, selling his fare along the way. His son, Percy (Emjay Anthony), accompanies him on the journey and their adventure is nothing short of magical. Inez’s house in the flick is quite magical, as well.

In real life, the residence, which was built in 1926, features five bedrooms, three baths and 6,430 square feet of living space.

The dwelling looks just as spectacular in person as it did onscreen.

The real life interior of the house, which you can see photographs of here, was also used in the flick.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Los Angeles magazine online.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Inez’s house from Chef is located at 250 South Bristol Avenue in Brentwood.

March 8, 2010March 7, 2010

Oscar Weekend 2010

The celebrity sightings during Oscar Weekend 2010 started a bit early for me this year when Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I accidentally stumbled upon the filming of CSI: Miami in Altadena on Friday morning. But I’ll save that story for tomorrow’s blog post. Today, it’s strictly all about Oscar, Oscar, Oscar! And, let me tell you, it was another amazing Oscar Weekend for me. Man, I love awards season!!!! 🙂

Anyway, after hanging out on the CSI: Miami set for a few hours this past Friday, Mike and I made our way over to the Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood to check out the Academy Awards preparations at the Kodak Theatre and to take a little walk on the most famous carpet in the entire world. My fiancé and I usually hit up the Kodak Theatre each year on the Saturday morning before the Oscar ceremony is held and, amazingly enough, the place is usually not all that crowded. But when Mike and I showed up early Friday afternoon, the Hollywood & Highland Center was absolutely JAM PACKED. So much so that they actually had to CLOSE the parking garage there as it was completely full! If you’ve ever been to that parking garage, you know what I mean when I say it is absolutely GINOURMOUS, so the fact that it was FULL was mind-boggling to me! Even with all the traffic and throngs of people, though, we finally managed to make it to the Kodak. And I can’t even tell you how exciting it was to be standing there in the middle of it all! Being that this was my fourth year stalking the Oscars, you would think that I’d be at least a little tired of it by now. But nothing could be further from the truth. I was absolutely ESCTATIC to be seeing it all in person once again. I still have to pinch myself every time I am there. Unbelievably, this was actually Mike’s very first Oscar stalk, though! For whatever reason, even though he grew up in the Los Angeles area, he had yet to ever visit the Academy Awards red carpet in person, so it was extremely exciting for me to be sharing that experience with him. And it got the Grim Cheaper off the hook of having to take me there on Saturday morning. So, it was definitely a win-win situation for all of us. 😉

I have to say that it was very cool to be stalking the Oscars a day earlier than usual, as Mike and I got to see quite a bit of the red carpet set-up taking place, including one of the Oscar statuettes being brought into the theater on a golf cart . . .

. . . and part of the red carpet being rolled out.

Thanks to the massive rain-storms that have been plaguing Southern California as of late, many of the Oscars were actually covered over with plastic tarps;

and there was also a rain tent set up over the red carpet. Which got me to thinking, why does it always seem to rain on Oscar Night?

As usual, the actual carpet was also covered over in tarping to prevent the awards crew from trampling on it pre-show.

And, even with the tarping, I, of course, just had to get a picture of myself standing on it. 🙂

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For those who have never visited the Kodak Theatre, it is located inside of the Hollywood & Highland Center, which is, for all intents and purposes, a mall. So, when the stars walk down the red carpet on Oscar Night, they are actually walking right through a bunch of shops. It’s pretty hard to imagine, I know, but you can kind of see the set-up in the above photographs. The windows to the right and left of the carpet area are actually stores. Whenever I take out-of-towners to the Kodak Theatre and explain that it is where the Oscar Ceremony is held each year, I invariably hear the following sentence, “But this is a mall!” LOL Anyway, the red carpet goes right through a stretch of the mall which houses such stores as MAC, Louis Vuitton (sigh!), Sanrio, Sun’s Up sunglasses store, the Gateway Newstand, and Kelly’s Coffee & Fudge. I swear, if I was an actor walking the red carpet, I would so be tempted to stop into Kelly’s Coffee for a quick latte before making my way into the theatre. 😉 To prevent this, though, the stores are actually required to close during Oscar Weekend, beginning on the Friday evening before the ceremony. Mike and I happened to stop into one of the stores on the red carpet to do some shopping while we were there and the clerk told us that she was getting ready to close for the next few days and that security was just about to do their final check of the premises, along with their bomb-sniffing dogs who roam each store to make sure that no explosive devices have been left inside. How crazy is that?

EXTREMELY bright (like absolutely BLINDINGLY so) lights were set up all along the perimeter of the red carpet. One is pictured above and even via photograph you can tell how darn bright it is.

Some of the Oscar statues are unbelievably HUGE, especially the one located at the corner of Highland Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard, which is where the red carpet begins. As you can see in the above photograph, even the base of that statue is taller than me!

I was just itching to jump up on the above pictured press stage to snap a quick picture, but the security guard standing in that vicinity did not look at all friendly so I didn’t want to risk it. He probably would have ended up banning me from the Hollywood & Highland Center for life. 😉

While hanging out on the red carpet on Friday, Mike and I ran into this enterprising young woman who was holding up a homemade sign asking Matt Damon to be her date to the Oscars. 😉 Love it!

While walking around Hollywood, we also spotted this gigantic movie poster for Sex and the City 2 on the side of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and I just had to snap a pic of it! Love it! Love it! Love it!

As much fun as Mike and I had on Friday, I must say that there was even more fun in store for me on Saturday. Beginning early Saturday morning and ending very late Saturday night, I dragged my fiancé from one end of Los Angeles to the other to do some major star-gazing. Sadly, though, due to the rain and the Independent Spirit Awards’ change in venue (while they are usually held on the beach in Santa Monica each Saturday before the Oscars, this year they took place on Friday evening at the much less accessible Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in Downtown Los Angeles), my celeb sightings weren’t as numerous this year as they were last, but I still managed to have an ABSOLUTE BLAST. In fact, I am still pinching myself this morning. I even got to meet up with one of my readers, a super sweet fellow stalker named Kendall, at one point during the evening. And while I didn’t spot my girl Jen or crooner Michael Buble (whose sightings were the highlights of my Oscar Weekend last year), I did manage to stalk quite a few celebs. But because hotel security is very tight during Oscar Weekend, I, unfortunately, didn’t get to snap any pictures of them. 🙁

So, without further ado, here is “The List” of celebrity sightings from Oscar Weekend 2010.

1. Jerry Ferris – from Jen Schefft’s season of The Bachelorette

2. Jamie Foxx

3. Lenny Kravitz

4. Aaron Eckhart

5. Benjamin McKenzie – At one point in the evening, I noticed Ben standing next to my fiancé at a valet stand, so I leaned over and said “Hi, Ben!” He looked over expecting me to be someone he knew, got a blank expression on his face, and then smiled a big smile when he realized I was just a fan and said “Hey, how are you doing?” SIGH!

6. Elizabeth Banks

7. Dennis Haysbert (from 24)

8. Ben Stiller

9. J.J. Abrams (the producer of Lost)

10. will.i.am (from the Black Eyed Peas) – He seemed super nice and waved at us.

11. Ed Westwick

12. Jessica Szohr

13. Jake Gyllenhaal

14. Maggie Gyllenhaal – She is extremely taaaaaaaaall in person.

15. Rashida Jones

16. Katie Couric

17. Zachary Quinto

18. Morgan Freeman

19. Jason Reitman

20. Steven Spielberg

21. David Spade

22. Leonardo DiCaprio

23. Halle Berry

24. B.J. Novak

25. Kevin Connolly

26. Sofia Vergara (Gloria from Modern Family)

27. Jesse James

28. Sandra Bullock

29. Ryan Reynolds

30. Ryan Seacrest – He is so not as short as everyone makes him out to be.

31. Jon Hamm

32. Jennifer Westfeldt

33. Jimmy Kimmel

34. Anna Kendrick

35. Christian Slater – Was super friendly and waved at us. 🙂

36. Meg Ryan

37. Ron Livingston

38. Jemaine Clement (from The Flight of the Conchords)

39. Colin Firth

40. Taylor Lautner – He looks VERY young in person, but is VERY cute.

41. Fred Savage

42. Kristin Davis

43. Kate Beckinsale

44. Eddie Murphy

45. Matt Damon

46. Luciana Barrosa

47. Tina Fey

48. Jeanne Tripplehorn

49. Gina Gershon

50. Stanley Tucci

51. Robert Downey Jr.

52. Susan Downey (Robert’s wife, who is a big time producer)

53. Jeff Bridges

54. Winona Ryder

55. Mariska Hargitay – She is STRIKINGLY beautiful in person!

56. Rich Ross – The new chairman of Walt Disney Studios, who I actually served on jury duty with once. 😉

57. Julie Bowen (Claire from Modern Family)

58. Ty Burrell (Phil from Modern Family)

59. Elton John – We ate dinner just a few tables away from him and in what was an absolutely surreal moment, the musician working at the restaurant started playing Elton’s 1970 hit “Your Song” with him sitting just a few feet away.

60. George Takei and his husband Brad Altman – My fiancé said he was actually star struck for what was probably the first time in his life over seeing the two of them, not because he is a Trekkie, but because he is a fan of “The Howard Stern Show” on which George is a frequent announcer.

61. Carrie Underwood

62. Eric Nies

63. Brian Grazer

64. Felicity Huffman

65. Eric McCormack from Will and Grace

66. Jeff Prettyman

67. Dianna Agron (Quinn from Glee)

68. Mark Salling (Puck from Glee) – He is SUPER cute in person and also waved to us.

69. Vera Farmiga

70. Amy Adams

71. Carey Mulligan

72. Peter Sarsgaard

But the highlight of the evening for me had to be when I got to see my latest celebrity crush, Mr. Schuester himself, Matthew Morrison from Glee! Sigh! Ironically, earlier in the day, I had told my fiancé that of all the people I was hoping to see this Oscar Weekend, Matthew Morrison was number 1! And then it happened! I got to see him – and better yet, he even did a little Glee-style spin and turn in front of us when he walked by. SIGH! I literally almost had a heart attack right there on the spot! Truth be told, though, I was SO completely starstruck over seeing him in person that I didn’t even notice his little dance routine. I must have blacked out from excitement or something, but it wasn’t until fellow stalker Kendall mentioned something about it that I even realized he had done it. LOL Anyway, Oscar Weekend 2010 was INCREDIBLY exciting and I CANNOT wait to do it all again next year!!!!! But for now, I am absolutely exhausted, so I am going to go park myself on the couch and spend the next few hours recuperating. 😉

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: I stalked so many hotels and bars this Oscar Weekend, that there are far too many to name here. For a detailed list of places to go to see movie stars on Oscar Weekend – or any weekend, for that matter – check out this blog post that I wrote last year.