NEW YORK (AP) While shooting in Boston, David O. Russell found his film "American Hustle" caught up in the Boston Marathon bombing.
When the city was essentially shut down for the manhunt for suspect Dzokhar Tsarnaev in April, the production which had been shooting in the area had to be stopped for a day. The experience, Russell says, was felt closely by the filmmaking crew and actors.
"It was hanging over us the whole time," Russell said in a recent interview.
"You just end up feeling the emotion and the strength of the community around you," said the director. "It just makes you more human, really, because you end up having a very human connection with, literally, everyone around you. I mean, everyone, strangers on the street. Everybody was moved and pulled together by that tragedy."
Russell, a New York native, has become increasingly identified with Massachusetts. A graduate of Amherst College, he memorably shot his Oscar-winning "The Fighter" on location in Lowell.