Howard County Slighted By Veep Star (Baltimore, Columbia: 2013, houses, schools)

[adelphi_sky]

See? PG residents aren't the only ones who defend their county.

Read more: Comment from “Veep” star prompts Twitter campaign from Columbia residents - The Washington Post

It was an offhand comment about working in a warehouse-like sound stage, but it did not go over well in Columbia.
In an interview with Vulture, the pop culture Web site of New York Magazine, “Veep” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, appeared to slight Columbia, home of the sound stage where HBO films much of the show.
“Thank God the work’s good. Can you imagine if it wasn’t? It would be like a prison,” she is quoted as saying.

Adding context to her comment in the actual interview:

Columbia, Maryland, is neither here nor there, which is to say that it’s somewhere between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. As far as I can tell, it’s home to one of the dreariest American landscapes imaginable: office parks, chain malls, and a cluster of Northeast-corridor warehouses for Sears and the like. That it is also now home to the production back lots for highbrow East Coast television does nothing to ameliorate this aspect.


“Thank God the work’s good,” says Louis-Dreyfus, dressed in Selina’s *chocolate-brown trench and stilettos. “Can you imagine if it wasn’t? It would be like a prison.” She is sitting on a giant Coleman cooler on the set of Veep, waiting for a call from her 16-year-old son, Charlie, who is in L.A. with his father, the actor-writer-director Brad Hall, just waking up. Here in vast-and-drafty-warehouse-land, where there are painstaking reproductions of the West Wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, it is 10 a.m. This is where much of The Wire was filmed. In another empty warehouse turned soundstage, just up the highway, Netflix’s House of Cards has set up shop.

Read more: Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the Present Tense -- Vulture


Now there can be debate on what she meant by "it" when talking about a prison. And I think the slight actually came from the interviewer when they described Columbia. But when you think about it, someone coming from NYC or LA to Columbia, it looks like a bland uninspiring vanilla suburb to them. Props to Columbia for having high incomes and great schools, but it is a very unexciting place to live. Some people like that life. My wife LOVES Columbia. Yuck. I'm a city boy, I need the feel of urban-ism or at least be close to it.

Point is, slight someone's hometown, and you can cause a stir.

[macroy]

The Howard section of The Baltimore Sun mentioned this. The 'here nor there' description was from the interviewer. And Dreyfus later clarified (on Twitter?) that her 'prison' comment was directed at the sound stage/warehouse, and not Columbia. PR move or truth? You decide.

[Mr Beco]

Always cracks me up when people react to what a "movie star" says....Who cares

[AeroGuyDC]

Columbia is very bland. And as a "master planned community" of sorts, it is reaching the age to where the omnipresent 80's/early 90's architecture everywhere you look is about to relegate it to a "has been" of desirable communities. Columbia needs a major refresh.

[Mr Beco]

Originally Posted by AeroGuyDC

Columbia is very bland. And as a "master planned community" of sorts, it is reaching the age to where the omnipresent 80's/early 90's architecture everywhere you look is about to relegate it to a "has been" of desirable communities. Columbia needs a major refresh.

They're just about to start working on it, bringing it current. They know the issues there.