Spinning a big "Recount"

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Seven years after the election drama that put George W. Bush in the White House, HBO is shooting the movie "Recount" in the town where the behind-the-scenes decisions were made and where the decision-makers are expecting as much Hollywood spin as political fact from it all.

"They won't be able to resist overdoing it because of Katherine Harris and because the way it usually happens is not the way it usually looks in the movies," said J.M. "Mac" Stipanovich, a top adviser to the former secretary of state during the recount.

A good example of the Hollywood-ization: Actress Laura Dern, playing Harris, appeared in pancake makeup and what appeared to be an overstuffed bra while riding a horse, in a replay of Harris' famed rodeo appearance when she ran for Congress — two years after the recount.

Monday's on-scene shoot didn't much resemble the mood — or weather — of the cold and overcast recount month. The weather was warm Monday, and set managers even tried to prevent servers from Andrews Capital Grill & Bar from serving people so as not to mess up the background of a shot.

"This place was packed in 2000, and the last thing you would have done is keep a waiter from serving people food. They were hungry," said owner Andrew Reiss.

Like a number of the behind-the-scenes shapers of the real recount, Stipanovich strolled by Andrews and said he got a kick out of being an outsider looking in and having little idea of what was going on behind the scenes.

The producers want it that way. Actor Kevin Spacey, signing a few autographs and posing for fan cellphone photos between shots, said he couldn't talk to reporters.

In true Florida-voter fashion, one extra from Kissimmee said she voted in Hollywood in 2000 and meant to vote for Bush, but instead she believes her ballot counted for Gore.

Gore's staff chief, Ron Klain, is being played by Spacey, according to former Bush 2000 election lawyer Barry Richard, who chatted briefly with the actor. "I wish you were playing me," Richard said he told Spacey.

But Richard's character isn't featured because, he said, "Recount" is "about the backroom intrigues, which I was not involved in."

Others, such as Democratic lawyer Mark Herron, who had wanted to challenge the validity of some military ballots, want little to do with the filming. "I really don't want to relive it," he said.