![]() Plenty of Good Will Hunting’s backdrops are still around. People come down here because they want to see a real neighbourhood.” “We had a guy from San Francisco come in, yelling lines from the movie. “We still get a lot of foot traffic from the movie,” said Kevin Conroy, a retired postman and part-time bartender at the L Street Tavern. It did so again when Damon and Affleck won their first Academy Award for Best Screenplay and thanked “everyone in Boston”. When Robin Williams won his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and thanked “the people of South Boston”, the neighbourhood rejoiced. ![]() The L Street Tavern hosted a black-tie block party and shut down some of Southie’s streets. It also includes mementos from one particularly memorable night.īostonians love underdogs, so when Good Will Hunting was nominated for nine Academy Awards in 1998, the city held its breath. The owners’ scrapbook shows carefully organized and lovingly detailed photos and newspaper clippings related to the film. And during filming, he frequently stepped behind the tavern’s bar to goof around. Before he died, the actor came back often to visit friends, including those at the L Street Tavern (658 East 8th Street, South Boston (617) 268-4335). Williams is beloved in Boston, a city generally unfazed by celebrities. Today, you can still see movie quotes and messages scrawled on the wooden seat. In fact, after Williams committed suicide in August 2014, fans transformed it into a makeshift memorial, adding flowers, candles and other tributes. The scene resonated with moviegoers so strongly that this bench, which is identical to every other bench in the park, became known as “The Good Will Hunting Bench”. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling seen that.”Īnd that was just the beginning. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. “So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. While overlooking the pond, Sean deftly puts Will in his place: In his initial meeting with Maguire, Will makes several comments about the therapist’s deceased wife, wrongly assuming that she’d left him. One of the film’s most memorable scenes takes place on an unassuming bench in the Boston Public Garden, the country’s first public botanical garden. ![]() ![]() The most mundane, everyday locations evoked a powerful sense of place. This is the beauty – and the genius – of Good Will Hunting’s scenery: Boston got to speak for itself. ![]() But when Grafft took director Gus Van Sant through South Boston to scout locations, Van Sant was immediately drawn to several local spots, including the L Street Tavern – and no sound stage in Toronto could do them justice. “You could really tell Boston locals wrote it.”įilming in Massachusetts in the 1990s, before officials began offering film-credit incentives, was both challenging and expensive. “Good Will Hunting had one of the top three scripts I’ve ever read,” said Tim Grafft, the head of locations for the Massachusetts Film Office. And the city is still home to characters like those in the film – from bohemian students and Harvard professors to young fans clad head-to-toe in Boston sports apparel. Boston is a city of neighbourhoods, each with a distinct personality and proud residents. The 1997 film resonated with audiences worldwide and is still beloved, thanks in part to its filming location. But after yet another brush with the law, Will is released into the custody of the professor that found him, and soon sits down with therapist Sean Maguire (played by Robin Williams). Working as a night janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Will’s discovered while solving nearly impossible equations on classroom chalkboards. Written by two friends from Cambridge (then-unknowns Ben Affleck and Matt Damon), the movie tells the coming-of-age story of a troubled teen from Southie (Will, played by Damon), who possesses a rare mathematical genius. ![]()
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