What Happens When Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Lioness’ Comes to Your Neighborhood
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It all began quietly enough, about a year ago. Whispers. Rumors. Neighborhood gossip. Once large trucks lined up and stationed themselves on blocked side streets, that confirmed it for me that Ryan Place was indeed a location for Taylor Sheridan’s Paramount Plus series “Lioness.”
Suddenly, my neighbors and I found ourselves on a film lot on our own street. I thought, “Well that’s kind of cool,”d and that was that. Or was it?
The Ryan Place location was the house of Terri West’s mother, fortuitously empty at the time and slated to be sold. West, a successful property rehabber and flipper has been featured on these pages.
“It was really kind of random,” Terri told me. “I saw someone looking in the windows of the house, and he turned out to be a location manager for Paramount. I think the place was chosen mainly because it was vacant.”
After some negotiation, the property was rented for four months at market rate. When filming, neighbors were compensated with a daily “inconvenience fee.”
Terri was permitted to watch some of the shoots.
“It’s astonishing to see the amount of equipment and personnel involved in filming. One room was full of makeup and wardrobe staff mostly idle, on call, just in case.”
On one occasion, West witnessed the show’s star, Nicole Kidman being hustled off the set, shielded by staff holding umbrellas.
“Don’t look at her,” a Paramount exec admonished.
“So four months rental, three scenes maybe, how much screen time did your house get?” I asked.
“Maybe six minutes,” Terri replied.
The house wasn’t actually meant to be a Washington D. C. location, but was intended to be a “safe house” in south Texas, parts unknown.
Season 3 is still filming, has a host of Fort Worth locations in Near Southside locations, including Ryan Place, Berkley Place, and Downtown. This Berkley Place home is rumored to be a DC Burb stand-in for Arlington, Virginia.
The historic Hotel Texas, now owned by Hilton — where John Kennedy spent his last night — will double for Washington’s Hay Adams Hotel. Even Fort Worth’s crown jewel, the Kimball, was the site of filming.
The choice of Fort Worth shouldn’t be all that surprising. Sheridan is a Pascal High School graduate and owns the fabled, 350,000-acre, 6666 ranch in King County (not to be confused with King Ranch in South Texas) and another spread near Weatherford.
Bafflingly, street signs were altered (couldn’t that have been a studio post-production thing?) which involved notifying city services of their temporary names in case of emergency. Brian Rey, key assistant location manager praised locals, stating in a letter,
“The film community continues to thrive in Texas because of the hospitality of its citizens and the diverse nature of its locations.”
Perhaps the greatest incident of friction was the production company’s request that Halloween decorations not be put up on Elizabeth Boulevard or Ryan Place Drive until after Oct. 14, according to a notice sent to homeowners, irritatingly followed by a “never mind” notice ten days later. Ryan Place residents and Elizabeth Boulevard residents in particular, take Halloween very seriously and pass out candy to over one thousand children.
And, apparently, this is just the beginning of what is likely to become a major national filming hub. Sheridan is building a campus at Hillwood’s Alliance Texas outside of Fort Worth, that will be home to the largest production studio in Texas and, according to the Fort Worth Economic Development Partnership, will create 30,000 jobs supported by State of Texas funding totaling 1.5 billion dollars over ten years.
