George Clooney returned to Boston on Wednesday to film scenes for his forthcoming directorial project “The Tender Bar.” The Amazon Studios film is adapted from a 2005 memoir of the same name by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer J.R. Moehringer.
“The Tender Bar” stars Ben Affleck as Uncle Charlie and Tye Sheridan as young J.R. Lily Rabe. The film tells the story of a young man without a father who bonds with his uncle and the regulars at his Long Island bar before heading off to Yale. Both Affleck and Sheridan were observed on set receiving direction from Clooney in the South End at several locations around the neighborhood.
The drama takes place in the ’80s and despite the production shooting throughout Boston, the film rather ironically is set in and around New York City. Accordingly, production designers have dressed up the local area with New York-specific imagery, including 1980s-era taxi cabs rolling around the block sporting New York license plates and NYC decals.
Since production first began in late February, “The Tender Bar” cast and crew has periodically gallivanted throughout the Boston metro area, filming in Cambridge, Lowell, Lynn, and Watertown. Production is slated to continue through March and into mid-April, heading to North Shore towns including Ipswich and Beverly.
In Beverly, crews have begun setting up shop at local watering hole Jacob’s Corner. The bar will serve as a stand in for Publicans, the Long Island suds spot from “The Tender Bar” where Affleck’s character works. In the memoir, Moehringer writes that his uncle’s bar was originally named Dickens, which is the name painted on the side of Jacob’s Corner earlier this week.
Along with Affleck and Sheridan, “The Tender Bar” stars Lily Rabe as Moehringer’s mother, Christopher Lloyd as his grandfather, with Sondra James, Max Martini, Max Casella, and newcomer Daniel Ranieri supporting.
