Dormont Family Gets ‘One Shot’ to See House on the Big Screen

It was a little strange to see trailers emblazoned with “Paramount Pictures” logos lining Peermont Avenue last week.

It was even stranger for Peggy White, who had a production crew camped out in her kitchen.

White’s Pinehurst Avenue home was the location producers of “One Shot,” a new movie featuring Tom Cruise, chose to shoot a few scenes. The movie is being filmed in the Pittsburgh area.

“It’s very cool, but it’s kind of weird to get kicked out of your own house,” White said. “But it’s definitely been a good experience. Everyone who walked through my door was nothing but lovely.”

The movie is scheduled for release in 2013. White—who also grew up in the house—said she’s excited to see it on the big screen and add something to the home’s history.

“In all the years this house has been around, I would imagine it’s never seen this many people,” she said. “Maybe some Tom Cruise fan will want to buy it someday.”

White didn’t know her neighborhood was being considered until a local real estate agent called and told her that location scouts wanted to see the inside of the house.

“I was at work and just didn’t think anything of it,” she said. “It was neat, but I just thought ‘Well, that was weird.’”

About eight other locations in Dormont were being considered, White said, but a few weeks later she got word that her house had been chosen.

“I said to my kids, ‘When is this ever going to happen again? It’s never going to happen again, so lets just go with it,’” she said.

The filming was a bit of an inconvenience. White, her husband David, and children Morgan and Matt Kramer stayed at the Green Tree Hampton Inn with their three cats and their dog while filming took place. The first floor of their home was painted and redecorated, shrubbery was added to the front yard, and lights and cables were hung everywhere.

But the family was allowed to visit the set during the shoot and see Hollywood in action. White said she was allowed to use her kitchen, and took advantage of the time to make cookies and tea for the crew.

“It’s still your house and you still feel like you need to be a hostess,” White said. “You’ve got a bunch of people and you see they’re working so hard. And the average age of them was about early-20s. I was so impressed by that.”

Although Tom Cruise wasn’t on set, costar Rosamund Pike was, and White said she and her children got to watch the actress film a scene on the sidewalk through director Christopher McQuarrie’s lens.

“They were acting about 10 feet away,” White said. “When you’re watching, it looks like just two people talking on the street, but when you see it through the director’s screen, it looks like the movie.”

And when filming wrapped up, the production crew restored White’s house to normal— almost. Crews repainted the first-floor rooms to their original colors, fixed holes that were drilled in the ceiling for lighting, and offered to plant grass seed in the home’s now-muddy backyard.

“From what I gathered, these weren’t huge scenes in the movie,” White said. “But it’s absolutely amazing to see how much goes into one little scene.”

White said she appreciated the help with the restoration, but didn’t ask the crews to complete all the work they offered to do. Having her house turned upside down gave her a chance to do some much needed cleaning and painting of her own, she said.

The last member of the production staff walked through her kitchen on Monday morning. Although the experience was a once-in-a-lifetime event that White said she’d never trade, she’s happy life can return to normal.

“Sometimes I’ll meet people and they’ll say, ‘Oh, I’ve seen you running in the neighborhood,’” White said. “Now I have people saying ‘Oh, you’re the one whose house the movie was in.’ It’s kind of a change. Life on a movie set is a totally different thing than I ever would have thought.”