Skip to content

John Noble

SHOOT: FRINGE at Britannia Heritage Shipyard Park in Steveston for 5×09 – Updated

Fringe spent the day filming two boats — a Loyalist zodiac and [a small dinghy] — arriving and departing from a dock at the Britannia Heritage Shipyard, but not without incident. Simulated gunfire, stunt doubles and stunt mats suggest something went down out there.

We couldn’t see much of  the action from a grassy area north of set except for the cast — Anna Torv’s Olivia Dunham, Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop, John Noble’s Walter Bishop and Jasika Nicole’s Astrid — coming and going. But we did catch a glimpse of Joshua Jackson’s Peter running along the dock with his big backpack. Whatever happened, these scenes will be part of the ninth episode of Fringe’s fifth and final season.

Read More »SHOOT: FRINGE at Britannia Heritage Shipyard Park in Steveston for 5×09 – Updated

SHOOT: FRINGE Fights the Future at the Olympic Village Redux for 5×07

The last time Fringe decorated the False Creek waterfront at the Olympic Village with Observer posters to signify a future set in 2036, it was for season four’s Letters of Transit,  the gateway episode into the show’s fifth and final season. Fans lucky enough to see filming that day got a sneak peek at Observer overlords, Loyalist troops, a silver-haired Nina Sharp (Blair Brown) in a wheel chair and a blonde Olivia lookalike, who turned out to be POlivia’s grownup daughter Etta (Georgina Haig).

Last Friday, Fringe returned to the Village on False Creek, but this time it was amber-preserved Olivia (Anna Torv) kneeling down to talk to wheelchair bound Nina Sharp, not her lookalike daughter. Walter Bishop (John Noble), looking less befuddled than in Letters of Transit, and his faithful companion Astrid (Jasika Nicole), joined the pair for a long walk (roll)-and-talk along the seawall.

Read More »SHOOT: FRINGE Fights the Future at the Olympic Village Redux for 5×07

WEEK: September 24-30 2012

WEEK: September 17-23 2012

  • Sunday, September 23rd – Arrow films at Riverview Hosptial in Coquitlam with recurring guest actor John Barrowman on set.
  • Saturday, September 22nd – Rogue’s Marton Csokas films scenes at Bentall 5 tower in downtown Vancouver dressed as Trade Investments.
  • Friday, September 21st – Once Upon a Time filmsd scenes on Moncton Street in the village of Steveston south of Vancouver in a night shoot.
  • Friday, September 21st – Joshua Jackson uses his LUNCH break from Fringe to go introduce his new Canadian film Inescapable at a Vancouver screening.
  • Friday, September 21st – Arrow‘s Stephen Amell does his own running stunt at Queen Consolidated, aka downtown Vancouver tower at West Georgia & Homer, chasing a shooter on a motorcycle.
  • Thursday, September 20th – Fringe‘s Joshua Jackson sits in the red chair for a pre-taped interview about his Canadian film Inescapable on CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight.
  • Thursday, September 20th – FOX releases new Fringe poster for fifth and final season featuring Joshua Jackson, Anna Torv and John Noble as resistance fighters against Observer overlords in 2036.
  • Thursday, September 20th – The CW releases new Supernatural season eight teaser of Sam and Dean reunion in unique Winchester way.
  • Thursday, September 20th – Mob series Red Widow films in the Burnaby Youth Detention Centre, possibly in the cells.
  • Thursday, September 20th – Psych films interior scenes at 303 West Pender and 330 West Pender in downtown Vancouver.
  • Thursday, September 20th – Fringe films for second day in seedy Gastown hotel, directed by Jon Cassar.
  • Wednesday, September 19th – Fringe filmsd first day in seedy Gastown hotel, directed by Jon Cassar.
  • Wednesday, September 19th – Rogue films in a house overlooking Deer Lake in Burnaby, on a street so clogged with white work trucks they couldn’t fit in one more.
  • Tuesday, September 18th –  Youngest member of Red Widow mob family does his own stunt at Victory Square downtown.
  • Tuesday, September 18th – Jorge Garcia, who’s been cast as The Giant on Once Upon a Time, spotted walking Read More »WEEK: September 17-23 2012

SHOOT: FRINGE Family Films at Pacific Central Station As Monorail Station Circa 2036 for 5×04

Fringe crew transformed Pacific Central Station in Vancouver into a New Jersey Monorail station circa 2036 on Thursday with bilingual signage in the English and Observer languages, Observers, Loyalist troops, Native citizens dressed in 1940s fashion, armoured jeeps and check points. I missed the day shoot outside and inside the main entrance to the station but caught the evening one on the north side with cast Joshua Jackson (who did his own stunt running across the hood of the Bishop mobile), John Noble and Georgina Haig in gas masks as the Bishops, who make their getaway in the faster-than-it-looks half-a-century-old family station wagon. One of the oddities of this shoot was seeing Observers and Loyalist troops with no eyes or mouths (which made it very difficult for these background performers to go to the craft table or anywhere else).

Read More »SHOOT: FRINGE Family Films at Pacific Central Station As Monorail Station Circa 2036 for 5×04

SHOOT: From Utopian to Dystopian. FRINGE Family Fights the Future for S5 Premiere – Updated

On the same day that Fringe filmed that utopian Fringe family picnic in 2015 with Peter, Olivia and young Etta (Henrietta) for the season five premiere, they filmed a dystopian scene of the Fringe family as members of the resistance fighting the Observer overlords in 2036 with Walter, Peter and grownup Etta but no Olivia.

The big family reunion in 2036 apparently happens early in the season premiere, according to Fringe showrunner Joel Wyman, but Olivia’s meetup with her grownup daughter won’t be quite what we expect. Meantime, here are three of the four members of the family destined to fight the future: John Noble’s Walter Bishop, Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop, and Georgina Haig’s Etta Bishop.

It’s Fringe Division’s final stand. This now insurgent group, which includes Jasika Nicole’s Astrid, filmed take after take of them exiting a dirty old van and then collectively gazing up in the direction of huge green screens on an empty lot next to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Village. (The grey-haired fellow is a background performer not the real thing,)

Read More »SHOOT: From Utopian to Dystopian. FRINGE Family Fights the Future for S5 Premiere – Updated

BIG READ: Vancouver Productions Working the Comic-Con Craziness

Published July 9th, 2012 on Vancouver is Awesome

How’s this for Comic-Con craziness? Comic-Con tweeted Twilight fans today asking them not to start lining up outside the San Diego Convention Center three days before the convention starts on Thursday like they did last year. The anual geekfest doesn’t want them to erect another Camp Twilight tent city either. Any Twihard or TwiMom who tries to line up earlier than tomorrow or brings more than a chair and a sleeping bag with them, risks not being among the six thousand-plus lucky enough to get into the final vampires & werewolves panel at lunchtime on Thursday. If asked to leave, they’ll miss seeing exclusive footage from the mainly Vancouver-shot The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn 2 and celebrity trio Kristin Stewart, Robert Pattison and Taylor Lautner in person. Organizers have scheduled the final Twilight movie as the first official panel in marquee Hall H so that Twilight teens and their Moms can’t ruin Comic-Con like they have in the past.

[Update: A Twilight fan who’d been camping outside the San Diego Convention Center since Sunday was struck and killed by an SUV on Tuesday morning while rushing to cross the street to get back to the lineup which Comic-Con organizers were moving. Fellow fans are trying to organize a moment of silence in her honour during the Breaking Dawn 2 panel.]

Once the Twihards have gone home, Comic-Con is free to fly its geek flag until Sunday night, epitomized by what could be 2012’s hottest panel — the 10th Anniversary reunion of the cast (and creator) of space western Firefly, featuring Canada’s own browncoat Nathan “Captain Tightpants” Fillion. Is cult TV once again dominating big budget movies at Comic-Con with Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and The Big Bang Theory panels all in high demand too?

Maybe, maybe not. Iron Man 3 is a hot ticket, as are the Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures and Sony Pictures panels in Hall H. Who doesn’t want to see footage from The Hobbit, which just wrapped filming in New Zealand? Or get a first look at two other mainly Vancouver-shot movies: the upcoming Superman reboot Man of Steel starring Henry Cavill (seen below filming a shirtless green screen rescue scene in North Vancouver) as part of the Warner Bros. panel on Saturday afternoon and mysterious space station movie Elysium starring Matt Damon (link to first official photo) and Jody Foster as part of the Sony panel on Friday afternoon. Vancouver director Neill Blomkamp will be on hand with his stars to answer questions about the followup to his Oscar-nominated first feature District 9. It turns out Elysium is the name of a vast space station constructed by a company called Armadyne where the very rich live in the year 2159  (want-ads for Armadyne  popped up at last year’s Comic-Con, the start of a viral campaign for the movie). The rest of us –- the 99% if you will — live on the over-populated, ruined planet Earth below. A bald, buff  Damon is Max, who goes up against Foster as hard-line government official Minister Delacourt [corrected], who will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and preserve the grandious lifestyle of the citizens of Elysium in space (the mansion set below on Kent Hangar field could be on the space station).

Read More »BIG READ: Vancouver Productions Working the Comic-Con Craziness