Miss Congeniality 2 Production Notes

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Production Information

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous catches up with FBI Agent Gracie Hart (SANDRA BULLOCK) shortly after she successfully disarmed a threat against the Miss United States Pageant while working undercover as a contestant in Miss Congeniality and became an overnight media sensation.
Things haven’t been going so well for her lately. Reeling from a broken romance and frustrated to find her newfound fame is jeopardizing the undercover work she loves, Gracie reluctantly lets her boss, Agent McDonald (ERNIE HUDSON), talk her into serving the Bureau in the only way now possible: coifed and styled for the talk show circuit as “the face of the FBI.” Capitalizing on the greatest PR coup in agency history, the FBI presses their new poster girl into a whirl of photo ops where she re-enacts her pageant exploits to an adoring public, with the help of personal stylist Joel (DIEDRICH BADER) to smooth her rougher edges.
Though resistant at first, Gracie soon warms to the attention and it’s not long before she’s getting into her new role a little too much. Her new partner Sam Fuller (REGINA KING), a tough, ambitious agent who is clearly not her biggest fan, is the first to point out that the pampered Bureau star is turning into FBI Barbie.

But when Gracie’s best friends, pageant winner Cheryl Frazier and emcee Stan Fields (HEATHER BURNS and WILLIAM SHATNER, reprising their Miss Congeniality roles) are kidnapped in Las Vegas, Gracie’s crime-fighting instincts kick back in.
Not wanting to risk losing their high-profile mascot, the FBI top brass sideline her to press conference duty in Las Vegas and send Sam along as her bodyguard, leaving local FBI supervisor Collins (TREAT WILLIAMS) to spearhead the rescue effort while junior agent Jeff Foreman (ENRIQUE MURCIANO) tries to keep Gracie and her entourage safely out of the way till its all over.
But when Collins seems to be leading the investigation in the wrong direction, Gracie must prove once again that appearances are deceiving and that when it comes to breaking a tough case or helping her friends there’s nothing she won’t do.

Castle Rock Entertainment presents, in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, a Fortis Films Production: Sandra Bullock stars in Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, also starring Regina King, Enrique Murciano, William Shatner, Ernie Hudson, Heather Burns, Diedrich Bader, Treat Williams. Directed by John Pasquin, the film is produced by Sandra Bullock. Produced and written by Marc Lawrence. Mary McLaglen, John Kirby and Bruce Berman are the executive producers. Gesine Bullock-Prado is co-producer. Director of photography is Peter Menzies, Jr., A.C.S.; production designer is Maher Ahmad; and editor, Garth Craven. Music supervisor is John Houlihan. Costumes designed by Deena Appel. Soundtrack album on Warner Sunset Records.
Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, and in select territories by Village Roadshow Pictures.
It is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for “sex-related humor.”
www.armedandfabulous.com / AOL: Miss Congeniality 2

She’s Back…
Audiences around the world enthusiastically embraced the 2000 hit comedy Miss Congeniality, starring Sandra Bullock as fashion-challenged FBI Agent Gracie Hart, who goes undercover as a contestant to investigate a plot against the Miss United States beauty pageant. Gracie not only learns how to walk in high heels for the first time in her life, but she saves the day in heroic style, disarms a bomb, places in the pageant and becomes an overnight media sensation and the FBI’s most famous face.
Bullock, who produced the original film and produces again on Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, and Marc Lawrence, a writer and executive producer on the first film and now writer and producer for the story’s current chapter, regard their earnest if somewhat unpolished and accident-prone heroine with genuine affection.
“The reason for a sequel,” says Bullock, whose portrayal of the irrepressible agent earned a Golden Globe nomination and a Blockbuster Entertainment Award, “is that Marc and I found ourselves on numerous occasions imagining what Gracie would have gone on to do after her big triumph at the pageant and how all the media attention would have affected her. We’ve talked about how the close friendships she formed at the pageant might change her life, or at least her perspective. There were so many scenarios. I wanted to finish the story we had begun.”
“The first movie was all about character,” adds Lawrence, noting that, “essentially, the charm and humor of the film were in the indelible characters – not only Gracie but her pageant buddy Cheryl, who comes from nowhere to win the crown and Stan, the classic emcee, and the way they all sparked off one another. I believe a lot of people would be as interested as we were in seeing how Gracie has grown. What is she up to now?”
Bullock and Lawrence share an enviable creative rapport which began when screenwriter Lawrence met the high-wattage star of his 1999 romantic comedy Forces of Nature. They next worked together on Miss Congeniality and subsequently on the 2002 romantic comedy Two Weeks Notice, for which Lawrence also directed and Bullock produced. Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous marks their fourth collaboration. Typical of the vein of humor that keeps the two in sync, Lawrence, when recently asked about their relationship, quipped, “it’s entirely based upon food. I bring it to the set and she eats it, because, regardless of whatever nutrition plan she’s currently on, no matter how specific, she feels she’s not violating it if she eats my food. And I always oblige. I think that’s what she really likes about me.
“Actually,” he continues, “we have a shorthand with each other. I know what makes her laugh and most things she does make me laugh. She’s an extraordinarily natural physical comedienne. You either give Sandy some physical business or she’ll make it up on her own, and that provides a balance to the dialogue. Plus she has the gift of being absolutely credible, which gives me license to take the material further out. She’s a great barometer of what’s real and what isn’t, and she’ll tell you if it doesn’t feel right. We’re truly opposites in many ways. She’s an incredibly optimistic, energetic and positive person and I’m, well…not.”
One thing the two agreed on was asking Emmy-nominated director John Pasquin to guide Gracie Hart’s new adventure. Citing Pasquin’s theatre background, as well as television credits that include some of the most acclaimed shows of a generation (Growing Pains, thirtysomething, L.A. Law, Roseanne, Home Improvement), Lawrence says, “he’s sensitive to actors and motivation and the truth of a scene. You don’t often find that in combination with someone who knows the camera so well and can give you a wonderful visual.”
Pasquin’s attraction to the project was threefold. Foremost, he says, was “the opportunity to work with Sandy Bullock,” whom he met while producing and directing episodes of ABC’s hit comedy George Lopez, a series Bullock executive produces through her company, Fortis Films. “I find her fearless, which is a director’s dream. There aren’t many classic, world-class beautiful actresses who are unafraid to make a fool of themselves on screen. And she definitely does that here. Also, I would be collaborating again with Marc Lawrence, whom I have known almost 20 years, since Family Ties, when he was a writer/producer and I was a director. He’s a wonderful writer.”
Most of all, it was the story that sold Pasquin. He was looking forward to “taking it into a new direction, a bit off center, that doesn’t necessarily follow everything that was in the original but keeps its integrity and heart so people who loved it won’t be disappointed.”
Along those lines, and undeniably “off-center,” is to throw Gracie not only a new life-or-death case but the equally volatile challenge of a bracing, hostile new partner (Regina King as Agent Sam Fuller) with palpable anger issues who is in some ways a lot like Gracie used to be. These two women have a lot to learn from each other, if only they were on speaking terms.
The Sam character was Bullock’s idea. “In thinking about what I wanted to see in the new movie, one thing kept coming up for me: a partner – and specifically a female partner. Why should all the buddy movies be about guys? Why should they always get to do these great comedy pairings? We need to see women in these roles again. Plus, one of the themes is about friendship, and how friends can appear in the most unexpected and unlikely packages. They’re not always the people who initially make a good first impression. Sometimes you want to kill them and they end up being your best friends.”
Addressing the Gracie/Sam dynamic, Pasquin concurs, “This is partly a female buddy movie. In this case we’re dealing with a combustible relationship not between opposites, as you so often see, but between two strong and highly competitive women who are very much alike. We were lucky to find Regina King, who really responded to Sandy, and their chemistry keeps the movie charged and the humor sharp. Their developing relationship is the heart of the story.”
Like the first film, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous is about transformations, some positive and others doomed to backfire. The underlying message, says Bullock “is that it’s always best to follow your own instincts in spite of what people tell you to be or do. When you get away from that is when you veer into trouble. Fortunately for us and the audience, getting through that trouble is where all the fun is.”
For fans concerned that Gracie’s emerging self-awareness will make her more calm, sweet-tempered and, well, soft, fear not.
Some things never change.

"I just went through a beauty pageant. I am done playing dress-up!"

Regardless of Gracie Hart’s resounding success on the pageant case, not to mention the friends she made there and the fact that she proved a knockout on the runway, the truth is that she had to be coaxed, coached and downright threatened into doing it. Now that she figures her 15 minutes of fame are up and the ordeal of posing onstage in high heels and an evening gown is forever past, she’s grateful to return to her standard FBI suit and the job she loves; back to stakeouts, shootouts, and hanging out with the guys. Back to, hopefully, some nice quiet time with her sort-of boyfriend who’s been kind of scarce lately. Back to normal.
Even Bullock admits, “it was a relief to put on that blue suit again, the men’s button-down, the orthopedic shoes; to stand like a guy and pick your teeth if you feel like it. It’s really liberating. That’s one of the things I like about Gracie – she doesn’t care what people think.”
Unfortunately, what people think is about to make a huge difference in her life.
Far from being over, Gracie’s post-pageant fame continues to grow. Even dressed down, she is recognized all over town and finds, to her frustration, that she can’t even go on stakeouts. When a tense bank robbery scenario nearly ends in disaster because of an ecstatic fan tipping off the suspects to her presence, Gracie has to face the fact that she’s become a liability to the team and cannot do the job she loves anymore.
At home, she faces more devastating news. The romance she believed was developing between her and former colleague Eric Matthews is suddenly over before it even began: a cancelled date, an awkward phone call and the awful realization that she’s been a fool.
“It’s only because these things make her feel there’s suddenly nothing left in her life,” Bullock explains, that Gracie even considers the crazy idea the Bureau proposes next – to become their official mascot.
As annoying as her fame is to Gracie, it has done wonders for the FBI and her bosses couldn’t be happier. Recruitment is up and their usually battered image has never been brighter, and it’s all due to her. The public loves her. Bags of fan mail arrive daily from women who claim Gracie’s heroics has inspired them to learn self-defense and take charge of their own lives. Since she can’t perform her old job anymore, supervisor McDonald (Ernie Hudson) points out, why not take advantage of her celebrity status by becoming the Bureau star spokesperson, the “new face of the FBI?” With the help of personal stylist Joel (Diedrich Bader) to be sure the public gets the Gracie Hart they want to see – polished, coifed, glammed up and camera ready – they want to send her on an extended publicity tour.
Why not, indeed? It lets her keep the only job she ever wanted, being an FBI agent, and it might take her mind off her disastrous personal life. Plus, Gracie has to admit, some of the fan letters are genuinely touching and it really lifts her spirits to know she’s helping people. Though still not thrilled with the idea, she decides to give it a shot.
But her new persona soon takes on a life of its own.
Armed with a slick ghost-written autobiography about her brilliant crime-fighting career, “From Misdemeanors to Miss Congeniality,” Gracie is propelled into an endless round of talk shows and photo ops, to raves from fans (not to mention the growing resentment of her former colleagues). It’s not long before she finds herself enjoying the attention and taking the role too seriously. “It becomes a way out for her, from her recent disappointments, to become the new face of the FBI,” suggests Lawrence, “and she embraces it the way someone embraces a newfound religion. The next time we see her she appears absolutely transformed. But underneath, it’s not really who she is.”
Soon Gracie has mastered the art of accessorizing, has a manicurist on speed dial and travels by limo. The whirlwind of adoration and first-class treatment is easy to get used to. “The hard part,” Bullock cautions, “is learning how to hold on to yourself when fame clouds the way you look at the world and yourself. That, and knowing who your true friends are.” These vital challenges, with their potential pitfalls, are just as much a theme of the story as are the pratfalls, frantic chases and hilarious confrontations that make up a day’s work.
Gracie’s first wakeup call arrives in the form of Agent Sam Fuller, a recent transfer with “anger issues,” played with fearsome intensity by Regina King. Still receiving accolades for her starring role in last year’s acclaimed drama Ray, King is equally well known for her range of characterizations in such films as Legally Blonde 2 and Jerry Maguire. Sam bristles with by-the-book efficiency from her trim hairdo and crisply pressed collar to her polished shoes. Bright, tough and highly motivated, she is fully focused on her career. Unimpressed with Gracie’s superstar image, she thinks the famous agent has turned into FBI Barbie and tells her so.
As King sees her character, “Sam is someone who has likely always been in situations where she had to prove she could handle herself, so she’s very defensive and has the walls up immediately. From her first scene, you get a taste of not only how aggressive she is but how much she must be holding back. She’s completely disgusted with Gracie, thinks she’s lost her touch and that she’s not strong anymore. When she looks Gracie over you know she’s thinking, ‘I’m a better than you, I’m a better FBI agent than you are.’ Of course, Gracie is simultaneously thinking ‘oh no, you’re not.’”
“Sam has a hair trigger,” offers Pasquin. “Installed as Gracie’s bodyguard on her various public appearances, she proceeds to overextend herself physically in every situation.”
The inside joke, as Lawrence explains, is that “Sam is basically a lot like Gracie was in the first movie. She’s tough. She’s a social misfit. When she goes to the bar with the other agents she sits alone. She doesn’t have a lot of social grace and tries to solve every dilemma in her life with her fists, much like Gracie would have done a year prior. In some ways it was like the Gracie character split in two and charging against herself, head-on. It was an interesting juxtaposition of personalities on paper and then in Sandy’s and Regina’s hands it took on so much more electricity.”
One day, at a meet-and-greet book signing, Gracie is stunned to hear that Miss United States – her best friend Cheryl Frazier (Heather Burns) – and pageant escort Stan Fields (William Shatner), have been kidnapped in Las Vegas on a goodwill visit. Suddenly, says Lawrence, “every protective instinct that she has, both as a friend and an FBI agent, kicks in. She knows she has to go out there and save them.”
Her bosses, terrified of any harm coming to their hot new media rep, restrict Gracie to press conference duty in Las Vegas and, considering her reputation for doing things her own way, send Sam to keep her in line. For Sam, this is her big chance to shine, and she’s not going to let Gracie’s freewheeling approach to law enforcement ruin it for her – no matter what.
Local agent Collins (Treat Williams), heading up the Las Vegas investigation, has a similar point of view. Although outwardly cordial, Collins is wary of having the celebrity agent on his turf. Ambitious and unyielding, the last thing he wants is interference – or worse, the possibility of the famous Gracie Hart grabbing all the good publicity and stealing his thunder.
Collins assigns his subordinate, the affable and eager but marginally competent Agent Foreman (Enrique Murciano), to keep the visiting agents busy with shows and parties, see them through the press conferences and get them back on a plane to New York as soon as possible. Collins can’t stand the sight of Foreman anyway, so this ought to conveniently get rid of the three of them.
Gracie doesn’t mean to steal his thunder. Honestly. She just wants to help. But when Collins disregards her input, ignores the clues she unearths and appears to steer the investigation into what Gracie thinks is entirely the wrong direction, well, it’s clear there’s only one thing she can do: solve this case and save her friends.
And everybody had better get out of her way.

Casting: Welcoming Familiar Favorites and Some Brand New Roles

Joining Sandra Bullock and Regina King in Las Vegas is Enrique Murciano as well-meaning but ineffectual agent Jeff Foreman. Murciano, who earned a 2002 Screen Actors Guild nomination as part of the Without a Trace cast, admits that “Jeff Foreman is probably the sweetest character I’ve ever played in my life. I usually get cast as the rough, rugged guy who dies for his country in the end, and here I got to be goofy and vulnerable, really endearing.” “People who look like Enrique aren’t supposed to be funny,” jokes Bullock. “God doesn’t work that way. He gives you something and he holds back in another department. But not in Enrique’s case – God just gaveth and gaveth.”
Gracie takes a special interest in Foreman, Bullock explains, “not only because she and Sam completely take advantage of him and run him ragged, but because she sees the potential in him and really wants to help. He reminds her of how she used to be, with talent and confidence she didn’t know how to tap into, and knows he just needs that extra push to discover it.”
Reprising his starring role as pageant emcee Stan Fields from Miss Congeniality is Emmy, Golden Globe and Saturn Award-winner William Shatner, who manages to give the cowardly and disingenuous character a measure of charm. Stan enters the story this time as a hostage, so immediately finds himself in a situation where the marginal talent he uses to slide through life is utterly useless. Unimpressed with his recitation of various dinner theater appearances, his captors brush aside his offer to perform on their ransom video.
“I don’t feel the public realize how brilliantly funny William Shatner is,” offers Bullock, whose pet name for the actor on set was Bubba. “He’s like the goof in all of us. He plays Stan with such finesse, even if it means making himself look like a blubbering idiot. It takes a very smart person to do that, truly; dumb people cannot play dumb.”
Ernie Hudson returns as supervisor McDonald, who, under pressure from higher-ups, persuades Gracie to parlay her recent celebrity into a public role as an FBI spokesperson.
Hudson, a 25-year veteran of stage, screen and television, blends and brings McDonalds’ concerns to the fore, managing to look both commanding and beleaguered at the same time. This is a man who probably understands Gracie better than anyone, walks the line between boss and confidant, disciplinarian and friend. Clearly, when Gracie does well, he’s proud of her and when she screws up, you can see how much he wishes he could have stopped her. When Gracie and Sam nearly come to blows within seconds of meeting in the FBI gym, it’s McDonald who gamely steps between them.
Also returning is the versatile Heather Burns as Cheryl Frazier, after having won the Miss United States crown and become Gracie’s best friend in Miss Congeniality. “The audience identified with the Cheryl character,” Bullock recalls the first film. “She was the underdog, the one with the big heart but not the likeliest contestant, and she ended up winning, which was really a nice thing to see. Here’s someone you would actually want to win, a person who seems a bit like yourself or at least someone you could emulate without it being an unbelievable reach.”
“Cheryl is a great foil for the Gracie character,” Burns believes. “Gracie is tough and street-smart and Cheryl is extraordinarily innocent. She comes across as a very positive, very sweet woman who may not seem like the brightest candle in the church but I think there’s an intelligence hidden there that sometimes comes out and surprises people.”
“Heather has a unique comic delivery that catches you by surprise,” says Bullock, who teams here with Burns for the third time, following Miss Congeniality and Two Weeks Notice. “Often you have no idea she’s being funny until after she makes a statement and you realize she’s just said the most absurd thing in the most serious way.”
Another actor renowned for his comic delivery is Diedrich Bader, best known as incorrigible goofball Oswald on TV’s long-running hit comedy The Drew Carey Show, who stars as Gracie’s Bureau-appointed stylist Joel. “Not only does he get a tremendous amount of humor from the role,” says Bullock, “he also gives it a level of compassion.”
Agreeing with Bullock that this kind of humor “needs to come from an honest place,” Bader plays the part “very broad, to the extent it’s hard to believe a person like Joel would really exist. When you take on a character you have to think the way that character would think, and as long as you’re doing that honestly you can go as far as you want and audiences will go with you because they feel you’re just a kook.”
On a personal note, Bader says his nieces see Gracie Hart as an example of a woman who excels in her career and handles herself in a way that is unique to her and therefore smart. “It’s about how women are stronger, in the workforce and in general, if they don’t let others dictate how they’re perceived.”
One of Bader’s biggest fans on set was Treat Williams, who claims, “I couldn’t be in the same room with him or I’d laugh.” That could be a problem, as Williams’ character, Collins, is a remarkably ambitious and hard-nosed man, solely focused on the fame he expects to gain by breaking this kidnapping case, while trying to suppress any help from the already-too-famous Gracie Hart.
Williams, an Emmy, multiple Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominee, was immediately attracted to the role, saying, “I’ve always had fun playing these suit types, trying to give them a subtle bit of a twist. That, plus the fact that, like every other male in America, I’ve had a crush on Sandra Bullock for 10 years, were good reasons for me to sign on.”

Even in Las Vegas, a Woman Running Through Rush Hour Traffic in Stiletto Heels and a 3-Foot Feather Headdress is a Little Strange

Considering the standard set by Miss Congeniality, with its visually extravagant beauty pageant backdrop and all the natural insanity and excess that goes along with that, there was only one place the new story could go: Las Vegas. “The only way we could one-up ourselves was to take it to Vegas,” says Bullock candidly. “Where else can you find where everything is artificial and you have billions of dollars’ worth of sparkle and lights, pirate ships and Venetian canals and all the glitz you can possibly imagine? There is nowhere else where you can find that kind of outrageous extravagance, and the people there were great in facilitating every wild idea we had. If we asked to blow up the east wing of a hotel they’d say, ‘well, maybe just blow up the west wing because the east is at full occupancy.’”
Lawrence, who pointedly avoided repeating the pageant theme, explored a wealth of unique new settings in Las Vegas, including a riotous scene that takes place in a smoky karaoke drag club for which, he jokes, “Sandra forced me to go to numerous drag clubs for research.”
Wanting to “take advantage of the music and lights and energy that is uniquely Las Vegas,” as Lawrence says, not to mention the eclectic architecture and spectacle that typifies the city, the production incorporated footage shot on site at two of The Strip’s premiere hotels: The Venetian and Treasure Island. Hotel guests visiting from around the world were happy to find that their trip to Las Vegas included a front row spot from which to watch some of their favorite Hollywood stars at work on key scenes from the film.
Production infiltrated a portion of The Venetian’s Venizia lobby with a comic action sequence that spilled out onto the hotel’s St. Mark’s Square. This footage, along with shots of the presidential suite mark the first time a feature film crew has photographed the building’s interior. Footage at Treasure Island includes extensive coverage of the main casino floor where Gracie and Sam mix it up with the bad guys across a couple of game tables as chips – and people – go flying. Outside, the action takes place in, around, under and through the property’s signature street-side attraction, “The Sirens,” featuring two rival pirate ships waging war in a lagoon.
Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous also takes a trip downtown to capture Gracie and Sam, undercover in garish showgirl costumes, commandeering a car near the well-known intersection bounded by The Four Queens, The Golden Nugget, The Fremont and other famous casinos, in a last-minute gamble to rescue Cheryl and Stan. Police cordoned off a portion of Las Vegas Boulevard in front of The Mirage to continue the scene as the two frantic agents abandon their car in traffic and hoof it down the street in full regalia.
Some 20 miles south of the glow of casino lights, production also filmed scenes in the small town of Jean, Nevada, where a sandy bluff provided the perfectly desolate setting for the lonely shack where the kidnappers hole up with Stan and Miss United States. Other locations included surrounding communities in the greater Las Vegas area, with the glittering lights of the sleepless city illuminating the background of every frame within miles.
After wrapping in Nevada, the production moved to Los Angeles for several weeks of practical and stage shoots before ending in New York City, Gracie’s home base.

Production Design: From the Opulent Oasis Club Drag Show to
a Sunburned Shack in the Middle of Nowhere

When asked for a sampling of the sets featured in Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, Pasquin takes an appropriate stream of consciousness approach: “We’re in a number of Las Vegas hotels, we’re at Fremont Street, which is downtown and a whole different atmosphere from The Strip. We’re in the desert. We’re underwater. We’re on a pirate ship, in a shack, in various FBI offices. We’re at the airport and in cars all over Vegas and New York. What have I left out? Oh yes, the drag club.”
Oh yes. The drag club…
Christened The Oasis Club, the fictitious nightspot was created by production designer Maher Ahmad, “completely out of my imagination,” on a studio soundstage. A balance of ambiance and precise functionality, the lavish set piece was designed for a crucial scene in which Gracie and Sam must pose as performers to gain access to a key witness backstage. Although never intending to perform, the women are suddenly forced onstage in the chaos of events and find themselves nervously belting out a song to the packed house of boisterous fans in order to protect their cover.
Ahmad’s assessment of the project as a “labor intensive and materials intensive set” seems an understatement. “It’s one of those sets that’s not only about how it looks but how it works,” he says. “It has nooks and crannies, hallways and stairs and dressing rooms that communicate with each other for maximum circulation flow because the action involves people chasing around, finding and losing each other.” The scene also requires a performance runway with a grand staircase leading to the main floor and bar, where additional action occurs simultaneously with the show, all of which has to accommodate lighting and camera traffic. “A side platform,” Maher points out, “wheels out in about a minute with the release of only three screws, to allow access for a camera crane. The whole thing is as user-friendly as possible.”
In keeping with the club’s moniker, décor took a distinctly exotic, Moroccan flavor. Lamps manufactured in North Africa complemented several grand chandeliers, crystal mixing with fabric canopies and richly detailed upholstery, and wallpaper designed and printed exclusively for the production. “The cocktail tables are made of fiberglass with glass tops so they could be under-lit, which is an idea I borrowed from a 1940s movie musical,” reveals Ahmad.
Although the overall effect is smoky and intimate, he estimates, “There are probably about five thousand lights all told in the club, including the practicals and all these decoratives that blink and flash, plus rope lights and theater lights.”
Ahmad also ventured into the sunshine to scout locations for another key set, the kidnappers’ ramshackle hideout where Stan and Miss United States are held. “The script called for ‘a desert shack in the middle of nowhere,’” he recalls, “so it had to be absolutely isolated.” Working within parameters set by the Bureau of Land Management, to preserve the largely untouched natural landscape, Ahmad found a spot in Jean, Nevada – a flat stretch set off by two small hillocks, with remnants of a deserted dirt road and a dry lakebed in the distance.
Having found the perfect setting, it would be too much to ask that it have the right broken-down structure already on it. That had to be imported. Built in Los Angeles from a basic plan devised by Ahmad and Pasquin, the shack was then taken apart and trucked to Jean, where it was re-assembled on site. Once exteriors were shot, it traveled back the same way and was planted on a soundstage for interior scenes.

Costumes: Tina Turner and Big Bird Take to the Stage

The first time audiences met Gracie Hart, in Miss Congeniality, “she had a temporary makeover,” states costume designer Deena Appel, nominated for the Costume Designers Guild Award for her work on 1999’s Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. “It wasn’t something that changed her internally, it was just another undercover disguise. She’s still an FBI agent at heart,” and as soon as the pageant is over, in Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous she’s back in her Bureau blue suit, wrinkled white shirt and sensible shoes, with her hair pulled into a ponytail from which errant strands of hair fly out in every direction. “It was important to Sandy,” Appel explains, “that we start with the nature of her character, the place where she is most comfortable. After surviving the beauty pageant she’s eager to get back to the old Gracie.”
Unfortunately for Gracie, her comfort is short-lived. Before she can enjoy having both feet firmly back on the ground, she gets pulled into a very public role that requires what her boss sees as “smoothing out some rough edges” and what she contemptuously calls “playing dress-up.” Enter stylist Joel, hired by the department to advise Gracie about hair, makeup, clothes, poise and, dare we say, accessorizing for her new image as the FBI’s most famous face.
Behind the fictional Joel’s every wardrobe selection was Appel, applying the logic and designing the costumes. “We took the uniform of the FBI, which mandates professional attire, and looked at ways in which to turn their dress code upside down by degrees, so that when she walks into a room you see the metamorphosis and how it progresses from just irritating to way off the deep end,” she says. “So, if it had to be ‘suits,’ initially it was about pushing the envelope toward fabrics that were inappropriate with shine and sparkle, heels that were a little too high, a sherbert color palette dominated by pink, coral and yellow; and then loading her up with pearls, pocket handkerchiefs and details like earrings that are too big or a scarf that’s always in the way, all of which further alienates her from the rest of her colleagues.
“In one scene,” the designer continues, “she marches into the Las Vegas FBI office to meet the head of the local Bureau and she’s wearing a bright yellow satin trench coat that makes her stand out like a sore thumb, which was very much the intention. She doesn’t even realize that she’s become this kind of creature.”
Buoyed by the adoration of her fans and eager to give them what they want, which is the glamorous Gracie Hart they fell in love with, Gracie begins to embrace the new look and get more comfortable with it. Says Pasquin, “cut to nine months later, she’s completely made over and has become the sort of FBI Barbie character she swore she’d never be. Now she travels with a matching set of Fendi luggage complete with makeup case. Ultimately she realizes that maybe this has been a mistake and she needs to get back to who she really is.”
“Dressing Gracie to the nines” was just the prelude to Appel’s real challenge and the most fun she had on the project – designing for the drag club scene, in which Gracie and Sam go undercover as performers (as a fully plumed Vegas showgirl and Tina Turner lookalike, respectively) to locate an important witness on the bill. Of course Joel gets dressed up too and goes along for the ride. Just because he needs a night out.
Sandra Bullock’s showgirl costume not only had to look great, says Appel, it had to serve several story points as well, including a stage show and an underwater scene. As a sight gag, it has a tall and cumbersome headpiece and a set of tail feathers that makes getting in and out of cars nearly impossible. Appel’s preparation included visits to the long-running Las Vegas shows Jubilee and La Cage Aux Folles. Ultimately she crafted a canary yellow costume she calls “an extravaganza of parts: a skirt made of Swarovski crystals, eight-ply ostrich feathers dyed pink and tipped with yellow, a faux diamond necklace built on nude mesh and a sparkled and dyed Lycra bodice with a nude inset designed to give the illusion that the entire costume is suspended without any straps. The goal was the perfect marriage of comedy and design.”
“The costume was a funny idea when we came up with it,” says Bullock. “It’s not so funny after five days of shooting. I looked like Big Bird. Let’s just say it’s not something I’m taking home for date night.”
Appel also fashioned a Tina Turner costume for Regina King’s character, Sam, complete with wig and sky-high heels, and a duplicate “big bird” outfit for Diedrich Bader as Joel, who deadpans, “The whole drag club scene is nothing new to me. I go pretty much every other week. Really, the waxing is not as painful as you might think.”
Waxing was the least of their concerns. “Sandy had to carry the weight of that headdress around while she was dancing to ‘Proud Mary,’ so she had a headache for pretty much five days straight,” says Pasquin. Additionally, the form-fitting nature of the fabric could be unforgiving, to say the least. “The costumes were designed like real Las Vegas stage costumes,” says Bullock. “They were very flashy and a little restricting. Plus, we really had to move in them. Regina and I had to make sure they fit the same way every day for the length of the shoot so we had to watch what we ate. We had it timed down to the last day and then I dove back into the doughnuts. Of course, then there were re-shoots…and a lot of deep breath-holding once I realized I had to get back into that thing again.”
Additional costumes created for the film included a feisty senior citizen disguise for Gracie’s incognito visit to a local retirement home in pursuit of information. Dubbed “slot machine granny” by Bullock and Appel, the outlandishly accessorized outfit was admittedly another guilty pleasure for the versatile actress.
On the opposite end of the scale, FBI technical consultant Sgt. Tom Fletcher was on hand to be sure the wardrobe and equipment donned by those playing Bureau staffers looked right, although “looked” was as far as they could realistically go with it. “Everything is a lot lighter in the movie,” Fletcher admits. “Our gear typically weighs between 75 to 90 pounds depending on what people carry. What we have here is more like 20, 25 pounds. All the guns are plastic.”

How Long Can You Hold Your Breath Underwater?
Submerged At the Treasure Island Pirate Show

The film’s showpiece stunt is set at Treasure Island’s Siren show, where hundreds of tourists assemble daily for the live outdoor performance of battling pirate crews and a defeated ship that sinks into the lagoon.
Some footage was captured on site, with cast and crew swimming in the cold water or clambering around the sides of the sculpted tank for a number of key shots, but the larger part of essential and underwater filming was done with a meticulously constructed scale replica on Warner Bros. Studios’ Stage 16 in Burbank. Here, Pasquin had control over the elements (a sudden windstorm in Las Vegas can whip the Treasure Island lagoon into something resembling the inside of a blender) and myriad safety concerns as well as the mechanics of raising and lowering the vessel on cue.
Stage 16 boasts one of the deepest soundstage water tanks in the world. Originally a shallower pool where the studio shot the Spencer Tracy classic The Old Man and the Sea, among other films, the tank was re-excavated and expanded from eight to 22 feet deep to accommodate director Wolfgang Petersen’s needs for the 2000 seafaring epic The Perfect Storm. Now, with dimensions of 95’ x 100’ x 22’, it provided Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous adequate space for the 52-foot by 14-foot replica portion of the pirate ship as well as the hydraulics system required to move its bulk above and below the waterline.
“We knew from the beginning it would be impossible to film the interior of the actual Treasure Island ship,” says art director Andrew Cahn, who re-teams here with production designer Ahmad following their recent collaboration on the comedy Dodgeball: An Underdog Story. “The inside is basically an open hull, full of mechanics and hydraulics; it’s a very cramped space and has no floor, which people cannot see from the street. We needed to show the mechanics but also a fictitious galley with space to allow for a whole dramatic sequence.”
Based on Pasquin’s perspective and director of photography Peter Menzies Jr.’s specific camera needs, as well as photographs and measurements of nearly every inch of the existing model, the 52-foot section of ship was designed. Made of steel and fiberglass, it was built in 8 sections in a lot in West Hollywood, then transported to the stage on trucks and reconstructed – a procedure spanning eight weeks.
In addition to duplicating the look of the original, special effects coordinator Burt Dalton explains how the production strove to simulate the rate, speed and angle of the ship-sinking as it occurs in the Las Vegas show through the use of three powerful 10-foot hydraulic cylinders. “We’re duplicating the action at Treasure Island; that ship doesn’t sink straight down, it tilts on an angle. Three huge steel jacks support our ship and platform. When the beams underneath are activated by the hydraulics the platform pivots and lowers to push the ship completely underwater, so we can show the actors inside as it’s beginning to fill. You’ll see leaks first and then the water will start flooding in until the actors and the whole set are completely underwater. Each time they want another take, we clear the actors out, bring the ship up to position one and dry it. The actors get dry, put on new makeup, get back in position and we do it all again.”
To raise the ship set, all 50,000 pounds of it, the procedure is reversed, with a drainage system to get the water out. Everything is controlled by computer, to ensure smooth and precise motion and to monitor pressure, balance and possible safety hazards on a second-by-second basis. As high-tech as all of it is, Dalton jokes that his #1 foolproof contingency plan leans more toward the traditional: “Disconnect everything and get a really big crane.”

About the Miss Congeniality 2 Cast

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Sandra Bullock
Regina King
Enrique Murciano
William Shatner
Ernie Hudson
Heather Burns
Treat Williams
Diedrich Bader

About the Miss Congeniality 2 Filmmakers

John Pasquin

SANDRA BULLOCK (Producer) Please see Cast Bio

Marc Lawrence

MARY McLAGLEN (Executive Producer) joins Sandra Bullock for the fifth time, having also executive produced the films Two Weeks Notice, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Practical Magic and Hope Floats. McLaglen’s next project will be Il Mare for Warner Bros. Pictures, in which Bullock co-stars with Keanu Reeves.
McLaglen’s other recent credits as executive producer include Dodgeball, Envy and Pay It Forward. Her credits as co-producer include One Fine Day, Sgt. Bilko, Moonlight and Valentino, The Client and Sommersby.
No stranger to the entertainment industry, McLaglen was born into a talented showbiz family. Her grandfather is renowned actor Victor McLaglen; her father is director Andrew V. McLaglen; and her brother, Josh McLaglen, is a first assistant director.

JOHN KIRBY (Executive Producer) holds a Bachelor of Economics and is a Certified Practicing Accountant with over 30 years experience in the industry. He was Deputy Chairman, Village Roadshow Limited from 1994 to 1998, and from May 2002. He was Chairman, Village Roadshow Limited from 1990 to 1994, and from 1999 to 2002.
Kirby was the original founding director of radio station 2DayFM. Currently, he is Director, Austereo Group Limited, Sea World Management Limited and Chairman of Village Roadshow Corporation Limited.
Educated at Bennington College and the California Institute of the Arts Film School, BRUCE BERMAN (Executive Producer) graduated Magna Cum Laude from UCLA in 1975 with a major in history. He went on to graduate from Georgetown Law School 1978, and was admitted to the California Bar that same year.
Berman got his start in the motion picture business with Jack Valenti at the MPAA in Washington, D.C., working as his assistant while in law school. After graduating, he returned to Los Angeles and started working as Peter Gruber’s assistant at Casablanca Filmworks in September of 1978. He went on to work as assistant to Sean Daniel and Joel Silver at Universal Pictures in July 1979, becoming a production Vice President at Universal in 1982.
In 1984, Berman came to Warner Bros. Pictures as a Production VP and was promoted to Senior VP of Production in 1988. He was appointed President of Theatrical Production in September 1989, and then President of Worldwide Theatrical Production in 1991, where he served through May, 1996. Under his aegis, Warner Bros. Pictures produced and distributed the following: Presumes Innocent, Goodfellas, Robin Hood, Driving Miss Daisy, Batman Forever, Under Siege, Malcolm X, The Bodyguard, JFK, The Fugitive, Dave, Disclosure, The Pelican Brief, Outbreak, The Client, A Time to Kill and Twister.
In May of 1996, Berman started Plan B Entertainment, an independent motion picture production company at Warner Bros. Pictures.
Berman was appointed Chairman and CEO of Village Roadshow Pictures in February, 1998. Village Roadshow Pictures will make 60 theatrical features as a joint venture partner with Warner Bros. Pictures through 2007. The initial slate of films included Practical Magic, starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman; Analyze This, starring Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal; The Matrix, starring Keanu Reaves and Laurence Fishburne; Deep Blue Sea, starring Samuel L. Jackson; Three Kings, starring George Clooney; Space Cowboys, starring Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones; Miss Congeniality, starring Sandra Bullock and Benjamin Bratt; and Cats & Dogs. Subsequent releases included Training Day, starring Academy Award-winning Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke; Ocean’s Eleven, starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Julia Roberts; Analyze That, Two Weeks Notice, starring Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant; The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Mystic River, Ocean’s Twelve and Constantine. Upcoming is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, starring Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton.

PETER MENZIES, JR., A.C.S. (Director of Photography) most recently worked on the films Cheer Up, The Great Raid and Kangaroo Jack.
His credits as cinematographer include Tomb Raider, The Kid, Bless The Child, The General’s Daughter, The Thirteenth Warrior, Hard Rain, A Time to Kill, Die Hard With a Vengeance, The Getaway, Posse and White Sands. Menzies is also credited as director of photography on numerous commercials.

MAHER AHMAD (Production Designer) was born in northeastern Pennsylvania and while in high school he worked on stage crews for the local community theater. He attended Northwestern University where he graduated with honors, and went on to receive a Masters of Fine Arts in theater scene and lighting design from the same university. After teaching theater design in college for two years, Ahmad then worked as a professional theater set and lighting designer in the “first wave” of Chicago theater renaissance and was a resident set and lighting designer at the North Light Theater for five seasons. He designed well over 100 theater projects for Chicago theaters including St. Nicholas, Organic, Victory Gardens, Goodman and many others, and was nominated six times for Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson award.
Ahmad credits his early theater design experiences and training as contributing greatly to the craft and skills he possesses now. He was hired one day by happenstance to be the local art director in a film that was shooting in Chicago, and from then on worked exclusively in film.
Ahmad moved from Chicago to New York and worked there on many features including Goodfellas and Married to the Mob. Among his additional film credits are Dodgeball, Mr. 3000, Holes, Paid in Full, Gun Shy, US Marshals, Chain Reaction, That Night, The Cemetery Club, Miami Blues, Above the Law, The Fugitive and Angel Heart.
Ahmad lectures occasionally to film schools, and is a bibliophile with a collection well over 10,000 books on art, architecture, design, technology and other related subjects.

GARTH CRAVEN (Editor) most recently worked on fantasy film Peter Pan as well as the hit comedy Legally Blonde.
The veteran editor began his career as a sound editor and moved into the editor’s chair in 1973 on Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. His films credits include I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Convoy, Educating Rita, Turner & Hootch, Soapdish, Restoration, One Fine Day, My Best Friend’s Wedding, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Outfitters, Return to Me and What’s the Worst That Could Happen?

JOHN HOULIHAN (Music Supervisor) has helped shape the music for more than 27 feature films, and almost as many soundtrack albums. His credits highlight music supervision work on all three Austin Powers films and their accompanying soundtracks: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Powers in Goldmember.
Previously, Houlihan supervised music for the acclaimed drama Training Day, which earned Denzel Washington the Academy Award for Best Actor, and then Freddy Got Fingered. He has also music supervised Charlie’s Angels and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Lui. In the past year, Houlihan has worked on the romantic comedy 13 Going On 30, starring Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo; New York Minute, starring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen; and Assault on Precinct 13, starring Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne.

DEENA APPEL (Costume Designer) has explored a diverse range of time, style and fashion in the varied costumes she has designed for both feature films and television.
Appel received numerous accolades and set many trends in motion with her original designs for each of the three Austin Powers films: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Powers in Goldmember. She also collaborated with Powers’ director Jay Roach on Mystery, Alaska, starring Russell Crowe.
Appel also had the unique challenge of designing for conjoined twins Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear in the Farrelly brothers’ comedy, Stuck on You, as well as the multifaceted remake of Bedazzled for director Harold Ramis. For the retelling of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Appel created the historical period costumes for all of the 1899 sequences. In Now and Then, she focused on the innocence of a small town in 1970. A Hutterite colony was the backdrop for Holy Matrimony; rodeo was the arena for John Avildsen's 8 Seconds; and contemporary style was key for Mother’s Boys and He Said, She Said.
Her television credits include HBO’s Weapons of Mass Distraction, A Mother’s Instinct, A Kiss to Die For and Diane Keaton’s directorial debut, the 1930's-era drama, Wildflower.

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TM & © 2005 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved

Miss Congeniality 2 : Armed and Fabulous will be in cinemas March 24th!