Photo by Sefton Ipock

George Clooney and Renee Zellweger returned to the Upstate to publicize their upcoming movie Leatherheads, which was filmed in and around the Carolinas last year.

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The shoots have been shot. The film has been screened. The promos have been run. And the interviewees have been interviewed.

All that’s left now when it comes to the new George Clooney flick, “Leatherheads,” is to let the world see what many in the Upstate have been waiting on for a long time.

It’s time for us to go to the movies.

“Leatherheads,” the circa-1925 romantic comedy with a backdrop of the early years of professional football, opens in wide release on Friday. But this opening is of particular interest to Andersonians and Upstate residents. After all, many of them were in the film.

Kathy Benson was one such extra, who will be looking for herself in the film. She was at the Calhoun Historic Lofts when George, Renee (Zellweger) and John (Krasinski) came to town for a couple of weeks last March, to shoot interior shots. She hopes the scenes she was in didn’t end up on the cutting room floor.

“It was really neat,” she said. “Now it’s just a matter of waiting for the movie to come out and see if we made it.”

That wait is nearly over. Many local theaters are planning “red carpet” events and the Calhoun will even hold its own pre-film gala on Friday, during which movie tickets will be given away to the first 100 guests.

Other film locations, such as Greenville and Greer, also are holding special events — some specifically for the extras who braved the weather and long hours a year ago for the chance to be in a movie.

When Mr. Clooney and Ms. Zellweger came to Greenville last week as part of the film’s promotional “Whistle Stop Express Tour,” they spoke highly of this community and the extras who helped “Leatherheads” come to fruition.

“It’s nice to be back,” Ms. Zellweger said during a key-to-the-city presentation March 27 in Greenville. “I think I recognize half the crowd from filming.”

In his own deadpan way, Mr. Clooney praised the hundreds of extras who endured weeks of filming without complaint.

“Well, we tried not to talk to them or look them in the eye,” he joked. “No, seriously, they tossed the football with us in the very cold and just stuck it out with us. That’s why we came back here. We left a year ago, but wanted to bring it back to town.”

The film is about an aging pro football player, Jimmy “Dodge” Connelly, who is trying to keep his franchise, the Duluth Bulldogs, from suffering the same fate as others that are shutting down. But when his team must disband, he comes up with a plan to make pro football something the whole country wants to see.

Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford is the best of the best in college — and a war hero, to boot. When he agrees to play for the Bulldogs, the crowds suddenly swell and pro football is back.

The only hitch in the plan is Lexie Littleton, a Chicago Tribune reporter looking for the real scoop on Rutherford’s war hero story. Of course, the fellers fall for the outspoken wordsmith and comedy ensues.

It was a film nine years in the making for Mr. Clooney. He had seen the script almost a decade ago, and only recently found the time to make it. It was the third directorial effort for Mr. Clooney, and the first he decided to star in himself.

That, he admitted, might have been a mistake.

“I forgot when I did that that I was going to have to play football,” Mr. Clooney said. “The first day, I got hit pretty good by one of the guys, Tommy, and he hit my head with his knee. Well, that shut down filming for the day and we had to make a rule after that: Don’t hit the director.”

That rule didn’t apply to Anderson native Zach Kay. Mr. Kay, 21, auditioned as an extra and ended up playing on the Duluth Bulldogs with Mr. Clooney and Mr. Krasinski. He was there for the whole filming and can be seen from the very start — getting hit.

“In the scene … with the cow, I’m the one getting hit and all the guys falling on me,” said Mr. Kay. “In the scene where it looks like I’m fielding a punt and getting hit, I’m getting hit.”

Mr. Kay also can be seen in train shots, early in the film.

Friday will be a busy day for many in the Upstate. They will likely flood theaters to see what landmarks and neighbors they can recognize in the film. And then, the wait begins for another movie crew to come through.