U.N. Report

Catch the flick

Those of us who work inside the U.N. headquarters eventually grow somewhat blase about finding undersecretaries-general tucked into relatively private third-floor pay phones, or smacking into the secretary-general’s security detail as we round a corner. And celebrities are always signing up to be goodwill ambassadors.

But this is better.

Hollywood finally is going to shoot a movie inside one of the most fabled and recognizable buildings in the country, and the timing probably couldn’t be better.

Bonjour, Nicole Kidman. Ahalan wasalan, Sean Penn. And a big gracias to producer Sydney Pollack, who apparently buttonholed Secretary-General Kofi Annan for permission to shoot the thriller in the U.N. building.

Wire reports describe “The Interpreter” as a thriller about a U.N. multilingualist who overhears a conversation that could cost her her life.

Chilean Ambassador Heraldo Munoz, who presided over the U.N. Security Council in January, told Reuters last week that a senior U.N. official had asked whether the council would consent to the filming.

One could ask how the minicity of a Hollywood production can be grafted into the sometimes-airless world of U.N. regulations and relentless scheduled meetings. The United Nations has not, historically, been Hollywood-friendly.

But with the aged headquarters building falling apart, U.N. officials are desperate to scrape up a billion dollars or more for a major renovation of the glass-walled landmark. With the Bush administration unwilling to play sugar daddy, a little Hollywood exposure probably isn’t a bad thing.

And let’s face it, a couple of genuine Oscar nominees will do more to improve the organizational image than anything the Department of Public Information can put on the U.N. Web site.

If “The Interpreter” is filmed at the United Nations, it could be a first.

There is no formal consensus on where Alfred Hitchcock filmed the 1959 classic “North by Northwest,” in which an arrogant but innocent Cary Grant is pursued through U.N. corridors and across a grand chamber after being framed for an ambassador’s murder.

U.N. officials say no scenes were shot inside the headquarters building.

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