After greater than eight many years in enterprise, a Coney Island sweet retailer is celebrating a candy second within the highlight.
Williams Sweet is getting some well-deserved recognition after being featured in a movie now nominated for six Academy Awards: Sean Baker’s “Anora.”
The film is a couple of younger intercourse employee who marries the son of a Russian Oligarch — its been nominated for Finest Image, Finest Actress, Finest Director and a lot of the film was shot in Brooklyn.
Together with one notably chaotic and violent scene on the iconic Coney Island sweet retailer. The Surf Avenue staple is simply down the block from Nathan’s scorching canine.
“It’s great! It’s exciting to see your store in a good movie in the Oscars. Millions of people watching, it’s great,” stated proprietor Peter Agrapides.
Williams Sweet, a fixture of Coney Island, was used for scenes in “Anora.”
Within the film, Mikey Madison’s character, the titular Anora, go in search of her misplaced husband with a handful of his household’s employed fingers. They smash up the shop utilizing fake glass instances for a scene that shocked Agrapides to see on movie.
“After I saw the movie, I said ‘oh my god!’ And we were finding that glass all over the place for months after that,” he revealed.
Williams Sweet has barely modified because it opened in 1941. The store has that traditional old-school really feel that retains prospects coming again and attracted the film’s producers.
“They’re a great family, they deserve all the business they get,” stated buyer Lynn Marando.
“They come and they ask, ‘was Anora filmed here?’ and ‘where’s Billy the owner?’ I’m the owner! Not Billy! He was just the fake owner,” laughed Agrapides.
O’Brien in entrance of sweet cabinets at Williams Sweet in Coney Island. He performs the shop’s fictional proprietor in “Anora,” now up for six Academy Awards.
Billy O’Brien, a Coney Island fixture since he was 5, performs the proprietor within the movie. He nonetheless hangs out on the retailer and parks automobiles in the summertime. He is within the scene the place the shop will get smashed.
“I come back out again and they busted the whole place up with the glass. I come out and I say ‘what the hell?!'” he stated.
Agrapides stated he acquired paid a good quantity to surrender his sweet retailer for the day, however had no concept the success the film would go on to have.
“I think I shoulda got more… if I knew it was gonna be an Oscar hit,” Agrapides laughed.
Within the meantime — he stated he’ll take pleasure in the additional enterprise now that they’ve Oscar-worthy road cred.
The forged of “Anora” share enjoyable behind the scenes moments from filming and what it meant to be in Brooklyn and Manhattan for manufacturing. Information 4’s Brian Worth studies.
