By AccuWeather staff writer
Published Jan. 25, 2021 4:46 PM EST
BING!
“Ned! Ryerson! Needlenose Ned, Ned the Head? C’mon buddy Case Western High!”
Stephen Tobolowsky has played a plethora of characters in his acting career, from the timid Principal Ball in ABC's The Goldbergs to the demanding CEO Jack Barker in Silicon Valley, but no role of his has been memorialized like the zany life insurance salesman Ned Ryerson from the 1993 film Groundhog Day.
Groundhog Day has become one of history's most beloved comedy films since its release in 1993, with its fond memories particularly peaking every February for Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day, of course, is the annual tradition held on Feb. 2, starring the world's most famous rodent meteorologist, Punxsutawney Phil, who is unofficially charged with determining if an early spring or prolonged winter is on schedule, depending on whether or not he sees his shadow.
Tobolowsky sat down with AccuWeather to share what life was like behind the scenes of the famous movie, which was set in western Pennsylvania but shot in Illinois for exterior scenes, based around the holiday. Tobolowsky opened up about how the weather affected the actors' performances and gave insight on how he believes the weather helped shape the way the world remembers the film.
Read below for a truncated transcript of Tobolowsky's tales from the movie set.
AccuWeather: All these years later, what's it like being the man behind Ned Ryerson and what's your reaction to how incredibly famous the movie has gotten?
Tobolowksy: It’s funny in a kind of zen way, in a zen-lesson of life way. We never know what our legacies are going to be in our life. We never know and you have to always keep your eyes, "Hey, it could be this or it could be that." We have to treat everything we do in life with a certain amount of care and respect as that thing could end up being our legacy. When we were making Groundhog Day, we knew the script was fun. We didn’t know what the movie would turn into.
Actor Stephen Toboloswsky who appears in the movie Groundhog Day as Ned Ryerson makes an appearance at Gobblers Knob for Punxsutawney Phil's weather prediction in Punxsutawney, Pa., Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010. Phil saw his shadow which means there will be six more weeks of winter. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
But I never knew beforehand that Ned would be one of my legacies, because of the greatness of the movie. I tell you, as an actor, it takes a lot of pressure off of you when you go into an audition and say, "You know, I may not get this part but you know, I was Ned." Groundhog Day will be the new Wizard of Oz. It will be the new film that plays every year on television, this will be on February 2nd and Wizard of Oz was over Easter. It’s the new legacy.
AW: How has Feb. 2 changed for you since the movie?
ST: February 2nd has become a completely different day because usually, starting around now [mid-January] until February 2nd, people ask me for interviews, so it’s very busy. I’ll tell you one thing about Groundhog Day, the movie: It’s one of the few events of my life where fiction has usurped reality. Now, when people talk about a repeated event over and over again, they say, "Oh, it’s Groundhog Day!" Well, real Groundhog Day, February 2nd, has nothing to do with a repeated event. The movie has to do with a repeated event. So our idea of Groundhog Day has to do with reality repeating itself. It’s mind-boggling when you think about how it's so different.
I find weather-wise, the whole thing is kind of fascinating in a historic meteorological point of view, in that Groundhog Day, if you want to call it that -- it’s only called that here in America -- it exists between the winter and spring solstice, (winter solstice being December 21, spring solstice being March 20). So 1,000 years ago, this holiday, this event, this notion evolved as the people figured out this equidistant point in between those two is when a bear or a wolf or something saw their shadow, it meant bad news. It meant that the gods were giving them one day to gather more wood or more food to survive a difficult winter. I always ponder in a meteorological way, how did people figure that out without all the weather maps? Of knowing a high-pressure front will come in and we’re going to have sun, all that. And as you saw on the AccuWeather channel, they posted the percentages of when Phil sees his shadow. And he sees his shadow a good deal of the time. It’s an interesting example of how science is internalized or appreciated in an era in which there was no science.
AW: What was it like in the area of Woodstock, Illinois, on set for the film and since then for the area?
ST: It’s ironic that people in Woodstock, Illinois, were eager to invite a film crew there to shoot a movie to demonstrate to Hollywood that you could shoot in Woodstock, Illinois. It was great. So they shoot Groundhog Day, and it ended filming in Woodstock, Illinois, because Groundhog Day was so famous that you can’t shoot there again because it all looks like Groundhog Day!
Actor Stephen Tobolowsky, who appears in the movie "Groundhog Day" as Ned Ryerson makes an appearance at Gobblers Knob for Punxsutawney Phil's weather prediction in Punxsutawney, Pa., Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010. Phil saw his shadow predicting there will be six more weeks of winter. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
The first thing that struck me when I went to Woodstock was the weather. It was a cold, cold, cold, clear day on that morning that we started shooting. I grew up in Texas and the old joke is that if you don’t like the weather in Texas, wait 10 minutes. That’s what it was like in Woodstock and part of it was the weather coming off of the Lakes and around Chicago. It was snow, it was sleet, it was sun, then it would rain. It would do it in rapid succession, so we never really knew what the weather was going to be, which was fascinating. I had never been in a place that was so cold and we had to wear all sorts of protective clothing that didn’t interfere with our costumes, because of the weather, like little heating chemical pellets in our socks and in our gloves.
But it’s interesting, one of the reasons I think the film has endured time is because it was so cold. Everybody is wearing winter clothing. They’re wearing puffer vests, scarves, sweaters, hats, toboggan hats, big overcoats, like Bill Murray, and the style of those hasn’t changed that much. So if you had a movie that took place in spring or summer … you know when Danny [Rubin, who co-wrote the screenplay with Harold Ramis] started writing this, he didn’t know it was going to be Groundhog Day. He wanted it to be around some sort of holiday that could repeat, but it just slowly trickled down and evolved into Groundhog Day.
If it had something at like Easter, heaven help us. If it had been nice weather, that movie would look totally out of style in terms of hairdos and in terms of, you know, how long or short the dresses were. Because it took place in Woodstock in winter in this frigid, frigid condition, the clothing then looks pretty much like the clothing now and the hairstyles weren’t that important because people had hats on their heads.
And if you take a look at any of those 9-5, comedy films of the same genre of like a Groundhog Day that took place in summer, everybody has shoulder pads and hair out to here and it looks completely dated, but Groundhog Day does not because of the winter clothing.
AW: How did that cold weather help the cast with getting in character?
ST: Well we certainly didn’t have to act cold, but I’ll tell you one subtle way it helps, is that with comedy you have to really pick up the pace. Comedy is always faster than drama and because it was so cold in Woodstock, all of us had that extra bit of energy of like, "Let's get to the end of this scene so we can get inside to where they have the heaters!" Everybody had that great comedic pacing partly because of the cold.
Actor Stephen Tobolowsky speaks with AccuWeather about what the conditions were like behind the scenes in the filming of Groundhog Day.
AW: How do those conditions help create the setting for the movie and the holiday?
ST: It may have created a bonding situation with the people of Woodstock. The people of Woodstock, the townsfolk, were enormously accepting of the film. That’s not always the case when a movie moves into a little town. Everyone was completely supportive. So I do think the weather was important in the bonding of the people of Woodstock with us actors in Woodstock who were living there in Woodstock because everyone in the town was so helpful ... The people of Woodstock were very open to us, accepting to us.
I was there right before the pandemic, the year before the pandemic I was invited there to hold up Woodstock Willy, which is a knockoff of Punxsutawney Phil. So Woodstock Willy, they do the same routine -- everyone comes out at dawn, they have some guest, in this case, me, listening to what the groundhog says and then announce to the people did he see his shadow or not.
So they invite me up onto the bandstand, where they had the polka band in Groundhog Day, the handler of the groundhog hands me the groundhog and the mayor comes up to me and says, "I don’t care what you think that groundhog says to you, you are going to announce that he did not see his shadow. It’s been too hard of a year for these people anyway with the weather and I don’t want you saying that the groundhog saw his shadow." And I said to him (jokingly), "This is completely corrupt! Political corruption all the way to the top, even to faking what the groundhog tells me!" But [then] I said, "OK, OK," and indeed I did say that the groundhog did not see his shadow and the thousand people who showed up at dawn began cheering wildly and I saw why I could never be a politician.
But the people in Punxsutawney, the celebration in Punxsutawney is completely different from Woodstock. Woodstock is a big party, it is a big celebration and it is wonderful, it is festive. But the real Groundhog event is nothing like the movie. We had to arrive to a clearing in the mountains outside Punxsutawney, so you’re in the wilderness in the clearing, 16,000 people show up at 4 a.m., the police check everyone coming in. No drugs, no alcohol allowed -- any of that and you go home. So everyone shows up and they played rock music at the beginning, but then, when the Groundhog event started, the lights went down, the men in the long coats and the top hats come out and 16,000 people go silent. Silent. The mist on the mountains starts to settle and it becomes a kind of, I don’t know, druid, like kind of, Stonehenge. It becomes this eery kind of religious event and they take Punxsutawney Phil out of the tree, listening to what he says and announcing it on the scroll. And they were face up about and said indeed he did see his shadow and 16,000 people groaned, but then the man held up his hand and 16,000 people were silent again.
It was holy, a holy experience and not a big party celebration, that was the big difference.
Tobolowsky and other guest experts join together on the AccuWeather Network to forecast Phil's prediction.
There is a gravity to having that many people in one place. It's different than being alone in the mountains, being there with 16,000 people being silent. There’s a gravity that can be felt but can’t be described.
AW: Groundhog Day producer Trevor Albert said the conditions spanning from March to July made for plenty of hurdles with both the cold and heat. What do you remember from those troubles and what kind of acting challenges can the weather produce?
ST: That’s difficult and that’s something actors have to do all the time. Quite often here in Los Angeles, I have to do the opposite. I have to do swimming pool scenes where I’m wearing a bathing suit. Like in [the Showtime series] Californication for Stu Beggs: I’d be in a swimsuit and the temperature outside would be California 60 and it’s freezing and you have to pretend that you’re in the sun and enjoying it. Silicon Valley was a big one. When I was shooting Silicon Valley, it was so cold when we would shoot some of the outdoor scenes that we had huge overcoats that we would throw on right after the shots because I was wearing some shirt and tie out by the pool, but it’s frigid.
I shot most of my [Groundhog Day] scenes the first three weeks, most of my Ned scenes were in the first three weeks when it was still cold. Then they brought me back a little bit later to do the end scene at the auction, but by then that was an indoor scene so I didn’t have to wear my big overcoat or anything, but that’s always a challenge.
I knew the set dresser for Groundhog Day, he was a friend of mine from high school. And they were always jumping around putting in fake snow and sometimes they used piles of sugar that they would pour around the street and it looked like granulated snow and they put white styrofoam on the water to make it look like ice and those grounds people were going crazy.
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