Shooting on the big-budget Lee Daniels-directed movie “The Butler” was shut down in New Orleans as Hurricane Isaac barreled down on the Gulf on Tuesday evening, Page Six can exclusively reveal.
Cast and crew of the film — including Daniels, Cuba Gooding Jr., Alan Rickman, Oprah Winfrey, Robin Williams, Lenny Kravitz, Melissa Leo, Forest Whitaker and producer Hilary Shor — were evacuated to safe locations until the storm passes.
“Evacuating Louisiana. Hurricane Isaac please be gentle! Everyone be safe!” co-star Alex Pettyfer posted on his Twitter feed on Monday.
Minka Kelly, who plays Jackie Kennedy, and Jane Fonda, who plays Nancy Reagan, were due to fly into New Orleans on Monday, but their flights were canceled at the last minute. A source told us, “The cast and crew for the film is huge, and it was a giant operation to get them out. But everyone has been taken to safety. The stars were flown out over the weekend right up until the airport closed.”
“The Butler” centers on the life of White House butler Eugene Allen, played by Whitaker, and his service to eight American presidents over three decades. Allen started as a “pantry boy” in the White House in 1952, and rose through the ranks to head butler. He retired in 1986.
Written by Danny Strong, the movie is based on a 2008 article, “A Butler Well Served by This Election,” by the Washington Post’s Will Haygood. Columbia Pictures bought the rights to Allen’s life story a year later. Allen died in 2010.
Daniels assembled an all-star cast including Winfrey as Allen’s wife, Williams as Dwight Eisenhower, James Marsden
as John F. Kennedy and Liev Schreiber as Lyndon B. Johnson. Mariah Carey and Terrence Howard also star, and Quincy Jones will produce the soundtrack.
Hurricane Isaac hit Tuesday night as a Category 1 hurricane — with winds of about 80 mph — a day before the seventh anniversary of when Hurricane Katrina deluged the area. Production on “The Butler” is expected to resume next week.