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Art Department at Mississippi College Loans Supplies to Movie Filmed in Jackson


Some of the Mississippi College Art Department pieces loaded on a truck and sent to the set of a movie being filmed in metro Jackson in late October and early November.

Movie stars like Jon Voight, Renee Zellweger and Greg Kinnear will appear in a new film featuring a small role for the Mississippi College Art Department.

Mississippi College loaned easels covered with paints, stacks of art magazines, old brushes, palettes and other small studio furnishings to be part of the set of the film “Same Kind of Different As Me.”

The art supplies only had to travel about ten miles on a truck to reach Mississippi’s capital city. The Paramount movie is being filmed in metro Jackson.

The movie is based on a nonfiction book telling the story of an unlikely friendship between an international art dealer played by Kinnear and a homeless former Louisiana sharecropper. At the same time, the art dealer tries to save his struggling marriage. Zellweger plays the man’s wife. Voight is the art dealer’s father.

Makers of the movie directed by Michael Carney needed to borrow art supplies for seven to ten days, so Mississippi College’s Art Department on the Clinton campus promptly came to the rescue. Oil paintings by professors like Albert Smathers, sponges, rags, and other studio supplies were used for a few scenes.

“Everything was brilliant – we just wrapped that set,” says movie set decorator Marthe Pineau. The actors and others associated with the movie filmed in the Magnolia State were quite pleased with the Art Department loan, she said.

All were items “they couldn’t purchase at a store or easily fabricate,” said Mississippi College art professor Stephanie Busbea.

Mississippi College’s Art Department got something out of the movie deal, too.

The movie company made a nice donation to the Art Department that will help students travel to two art-related conferences this spring, including a trip to New Orleans, Busbea said.

It’s the second movie that Baptist-affiliated Mississippi College has been involved with in recent months. Mississippi College horses, students and equestrian team coaches were part of a new movie “A Gift Horse” filmed in June at Providence Hill Farm.

It tells the story of a grief-stricken 10-year-old girl after her mother dies. The girl receives comfort and hope from her horse. Mississippi College equestrian team horses like Hale Bopp and Coconut Grove appear in the film. But Hale Bopp landed the starring role.