Steve Carell spotted in Onset as village becomes movie set

If you'd like to check out the beach toys at Patsy's Beach Bag in Onset, you're out of luck. It's not a real store.

And if you're craving a slice of pizza from Marc Anthony's, well... you'll have to wait.

Onset Village was turned into a movie set on Tuesday for Steve Carell's movie, "The Way Way Back."

The production is filming inside Marc Anthony's, shutting it down for the day, and if you take a stroll up Onset Avenue, you'll catch some stores that weren't there earlier this week... and won't be there next week.

The "real" stores are getting a bit of a makeover, too.

“They showed up and asked if I minded if they put props up," said Bryanne Tucy, owner of the Victorian Cafe on West Central Avenue.

The crew covered Tucy's fence in beach toys, set up some bicycles, and changed the blue umbrellas at her outdoor tables to bright, rainbow-colored ones.

Tucy was happy to oblige.

“This is very good for Onset. I'm excited," she said. "Onset definitely needs this boost.”

The movie is a coming-of-age tale about a young boy who travels to a beachfront community for a summer vacation with his mother, played by Toni Collette of "The United States of Tara," and her boyfriend, played by Steve Carell of "The Office." It is an independent film directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.

"The mother's boyfriend is not very supportive," said Scott Levine, unit publicist for the movie, and the "kid stumbles upon this theme park where he meets this charismatic manager."

The theme park used? None other than Cranberry Highway's Water Wizz.

The boy and the manager befriend each other, and the boy discovers he can become part of a community, Levine explained.

It's not the first time Hollywood has shown up at Water Wizz's door. "Grown Ups," a movie featuring Adam Sandler and Kevin James, filmed at the park in the summer of 2009.

"This is a very film-trendy spot," Levine said of the water park. "A water park was an important location for the film and this satisfied everything that we needed."

The crew finished filming at Water Wizz on Monday.

Wareham High School senior Sandra Kunze Sarkisian was an extra in the movie and spent two days on-set as it filmed at the water park.

"I was just kind of in the background," the 17-year-old said, noting that she could not say much about what she did because the film is still in production.

The crew had approached the Wareham High at the end of the school year because approximately 150 extras were needed.

"A lot of my art kids from the high school were there," said Sandra's mother, Christina Kunze, who owns Eye of the Goddess Pottery in Onset and teaches art classes. Many of the extras made drawings that they hoped to give to Carell.

Sandra said she saw some of the stars from the cast, but the different groups of actors were kept separate from each other.

"You have the 'regular' people, the 'union' people...," she said, noting: "It's weird because you all had to eat under the same tent," but the tent was separated by "group."

The pay wasn't extravagant, Sandra said, before adding: "I would have done it for free anyway."

Management at the water park, which remained open throughout the filming, could not be happier.

"It's great," Water Wizz spokeswoman Patricia Kells said on Monday. "This is the last day and we're sad that they're leaving. ... Even our customers are really happy that they're filming here. They think it's so cool."

Though the movie is graced with star power, Kells said that her customers have not been too zealous in their pursuit of the famous.

"People will stand and watch for a while, but eventually they get on with what they're doing," she said, adding that scenes often have multiple takes. "After somebody sees it several times, they say, 'Oh, let's go to the slide again.'"

The experience for the Water Wizz management this time around has been a little less stressful, Kells said.

"Grown Ups" was a major Hollywood production, and because of last-minute changes in scheduling, often times certain sections of the park had to be shut down, she explained.

During filming of "The Way Way Back," only one slide had to be shut down at times, letting customers enjoy the park throughout the two weeks of filming, Kells said.

Kells said that Water Wizz has enjoyed its experience with Hollywood, and hopes that it returns to visit.

"We're waiting for our third" movie, she said.

"The Way Way Back" will take a little over a month to film, Levine said. Shooting began on June 25 and is expected to wrap up on July 27.

Shooting will also take place in Marshfield, Mass., where Carell and his family own a home and the Marshfield Hills General Store, which they purchased in 2009 in an effort to preserve the landmark.