Kurt Sutter gives Rippin-Kitten a personal tour of the Sons of Anarchy set
I’m 15 minutes late. I’m sweating. And there’s not a soul in sight. I’m in a large parking lot of an innocuous looking industrial building with a line of trailers to my right. I recognize the names on those trailers: Opie, Chibs, Bobby.
*Sigh* Looks like I’m going to have to call him. When he answers the phone I tell him I’m roaming around outside. He says, “ok, darlin’ I’ll come and get you.”
What bizzarro world am I in that I’m in N. Hollywood, standing on the set of Sons of Anarchy and calling Kurt Sutter from my cellphone on a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon?
He comes strolling out in baggy shorts, t-shirt and sandals with the cutest French Bulldog happily running beside him. A polite hello & friendly cheek to cheek kiss. We exchange pleasantries and I learn the little dog’s name is Lumpy. I’m instantly smitten (Lumpy? or Kurt Sutter? I’m not tellin’!).
It’s very difficult to not appear as a smarmy ass-kiss when you meet someone “famous”-especially when you’re juggling an iPhone, professional DSLR and a Flip video camera. But I didn’t have a photographer with me or videographer at my disposal to document this meeting, so I had to suck it up.
We launch into small talk about my weekend trip to California, discuss the demo ride for Honda and how that experience was. He then starts to tell me about the set that we’re on and how the exterior shots will match up to some of the interior shots that he’s about to show me. We head into the office area where all the writing and production work happens. There are a bunch of desks that belong some of the writing staff and I instantly recognize it as the Charming police station.
Then we head into his office and just as we get there he stops in his tracks. “You lost your dog, didn’t you?” I ask. “Yup, be right back.”
I AM STANDING ALONE INSIDE KURT SUTTER’S OFFICE.
Hmm, what can I touch?
There is his desk. There are posters on the wall and family photos, mostly of his lovely wife and baby daughter. I’d better just sit down.
Lumpy comes bounding in the room and showers me with doggy kisses before eventually jumping into Kurt’s lap. Lots of chit-chat about the show, it’s history. He says that he generally doesn’t like people but is so appreciative of the support fans give to him and the show. We are about 10 minutes into the conversation before it dawns on me that I’m a one-man band here and I’d better start taking some pictures and videos. But how do I without looking like an asshole? There’s no way around it.
this is Lumpy
After a few minutes of talking about the show, fan interaction on Twitter and Facebook and the success of season two, we start going through the maze of sets. Some of the sets, like Jax’s apartment, are locked because there was some equipment in there. And Clay & Gemma’s place was not set up at the time. But then we came up a familiar set: the hospital and the hospital chapel, that only had the window in place.
Then there was the clubhouse. This particular set was probably the largest set in the building. He tells me: “We create these actual functioning spaces so that you can put the camera anywhere. As long as you don’t point it up, you’re fine.”
It’s amazing to see how intricately decorated it is. And if I didn’t see all of the lighting equipment above me I’d swear it could have been a real clubhouse. Only it didn’t smell like stale beer and cigarettes!
I start taking photos, there’s so much to see! I take a few of Kurt, but he never really looks directly at the camera even when I tell him I’m taking his picture. He just keeps on talking. I spot The Table and immediately run over to it. It is a gigantic table with that enormous reaper carved into it. I mention that I’ve seen the artist’s website of all his carvings. He says they almost didn’t get that table because they gave the artist (Carver Doug) some ridiculous time line, like two days, to get the table done. But he did it and it’s made of real redwood.
We head off to see some of the other sets. In the space that was set aside for Cara Cara they built some additional hospital space and right next to it a home set for the Ireland storyline in season three. That’s right, an unseen home set!
Rippin-Kitten season 3 sons of anarchy exclusive!
These first photos are obviously of a small store and the following two are interiors of someone’s lovely Irish home.
And because I’m me, not even Kurt Sutter can escape my ball-busting. I think I’m being a smart-ass by asking: “You mean they didn’t send you to Ireland to film all the stuff in Belfast?” He gave me a straight-up answer: “We’re sending two second units to film in Belfast. We’re sending Billy Gierhart, who was my first cameraman on the Shield and has directed two episodes [of Sons of Anarchy] for me now, to film the second unit stuff.”
Here’s more from the Man Himself (sorry for the shaky video footage!):
If the embedded video doesn’t play go here.
I never asked too many questions about the show itself for two reasons: I don’t want to appear pushy trying to get info about the upcoming season and honestly, as a fan of the show I don’t want to know too many details about what’s going to happen! But I do ask about the fate of one particular character: Otto!
If the embedded video doesn’t play go here.
The tour is winding down because we’re running out of sets to look at. We head back outside to look at the exterior set where the Teller-Morrow garage is. “The exterior of that lot we play all the time, which since we’re in the asshole of the Valley here, you know, it’s fucking N. Hollywood. It’s brutal when we’re filming in July and August. It’s like 110 degrees out there and these poor guys are on these Harleys and they’re dressed in leathers…” he chuckles and I interject, “And they hate you cuz those things are hot!”
By this point we’ve made it full circle. He kindly walks me back out to the street where my rent-a-wreck is. I humbly thank him for the taking the time out of his day to hang out with me. He is gracious and wishes me safe travel back to the east coast.
I get into my car and sigh with relief. This was the cherry that topped an incredible, whirlwind weekend trip to California.