A New Rep for New Jersey

Oh, it’s fun for producers and directors to think about the sensitivities of their leading men and women and to keep them out of harm’s way. The genial director Ron Howard was determined to please Oscar winner Russell Crowe and so arranged for a secret site at which to shoot scenes for the new movie “A Beautiful Mind.” Crowe, Jennifer Connelly and Ed Harris worked in several warehouses at the Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne, N.J., before crossing over to New York. Howard was so impressed by the security in Bayonne, which has a population of fewer than 62,000, that he wants to take the cast back for more scenes in the Garden State.

Officials, worried about those very real kidnapping threats against Crowe, also felt Bayonne was a perfect place to work unfettered.

Maybe Bayonne will become the next movie-making mecca. Hollywood, Toronto and Austin, Texas, have had their 15 minutes! But Emmy winner Barry Levinson also brought Kyra Sedgwick and hunk Rob Morrow to this New Jersey town for a pilot to be titled “Hudson’s Law.” Therein, Sedgwick is a lawyer named Hudson, and Morrow is a former cop.