Natalie Portman’s upcoming limited series Lady in the Lake was forced to halt production due to a group in Baltimore threatening the production.
A group of locals confronted a driver for the production on Friday and said they would only “allow” filming to continue if they were paid $50,000, as first reported by the Baltimore Banner over the weekend. The driver refused to pay and the group threatened to “come back later this evening [and] shoot someone” if production continued, according to the Baltimore Police Department.
“The leaders of the production decided to err on the side of caution and reschedule the shoot after they found another location,” a department spokesperson said.
In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, the production’s studio, Endeavor Content, wrote, “Friday afternoon, on the Baltimore set of our production Lady in the Lake, prior to the arrival of the cast and crew … a driver on our production crew was confronted by two men, one of whom brandished a gun directed at our driver, and then they fled the location. We are working with the Baltimore Police Department as the investigation is ongoing. The safety and security of our crew, cast and all who work across our productions is our highest priority, and we are thankful no one was injured. Production will resume with increased security measures going forward. It has been a privilege filming Lady in the Lake in Baltimore, working with its vibrant community across many areas.”
Lady in the Lake is based on the best-selling novel of the same title by Laura Lippman. The story is set in Baltimore in the 1960s, where an unsolved murder pushes housewife and mother Maddie Schwartz (Portman) to reinvent herself as an investigative reporter. Her new calling puts her on a collision course with Cleo Sherwood (Ingram Moses, who replaced a previously announced Lupita Nyong’o in the production), who juggles motherhood, several jobs and a commitment to the city’s Black progressive agenda.
The move follows FX’s Justified: City Primeval having to shut down its filming in Chicago in July after two cars whose occupants were firing weapons at each other crashed through the production’s barricades.
