A guide to UofT’s role in film, with a focus in and around Victoria College
With the end of pandemic restrictions comes a resurrection of Toronto’s bustling city life, and with it, its surprisingly large film industry. For a variety of reasons—most of them boring, like affordability and tax incentives—the United States tends to outsource its productions up north, and Toronto is one of two major cities that movie makers have their eyes on. The other is Vancouver, nicknamed ‘Hollywood North,’ a title that may soon pass to Toronto as its film industry continues to grow. On any given day, a walk through Toronto might take you past truckloads of film equipment or a film set in action. Or, if you’re a student who spends most of their time on campus like me, you might have noticed that the University of Toronto has no shortage of film sets either. Even our own Victoria College has played a role in several cool and popular productions.
A quick search on for films shot at UofT pulls up a list of 147 titles across all three campuses. Among the top ten are Shape of Water, The Incredible Hulk, Mean Girls, and Shadowhunters, but that’s only a small fraction of what UofT has hosted. Exploring every one of these films would take a book, so I’d rather give you, dear reader, a tour of the sets located at our beloved Victoria College.
Old Vic is the most popular building on our campus for filmmakers, particularly for more horror-esque films. The main floor was used as an old-timey publishing house in Guillermo del Toro’s horror-fantasy Crimson Peak (2015), a movie starring Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain. The exterior of Old Vic, set against an overcast sky, also served as an office building in Hannibal (2013), with a focus on what appears to be the principal’s office as the interior. On a less grim note, Old Vic stood in for Queen’s College in Charlottetown, PEI, in Anne of Green Gables (1985).
Beautiful though it may be, Old Vic isn’t the only Victoria College building to star in film. The 1998 slasher Urban Legend used the outside of Northrop Frye Hall, with Old Vic serving as yet another university. This time, Victoria College stands in for Pendleton University, where the deaths of students parallel deaths of local legends. It’s not all that comforting to think about when you’re walking across campus at night, but when Vic checks boxes for both ‘gothic-looking’ and ‘haunted,’ it doesn’t come as a surprise that we attract movies like Urban Legend and Crimson Peak. Let’s just hope it never ends up being based on a true story.
On a more cheerful note, the movie that makes the most use of Victoria College’s campus is Almost Adults (2016), an LGBT Canadian comedy starring two friends in their final year of college. The movie makes use of the exteriors of Old Vic, Northrop Frye, Emmanuel College, and E.J. Pratt. Almost Adults is a nice way to round out the list of films that take place at Vic, not only for its representation, but also for being a Canadian production rather than an outsourced Hollywood blockbuster.
Recent projects in and around Victoria College are more up in the air. Last year, a film crew took over the entrance to Kelly Library and transformed it into a consulate for the United States. Since it was set up right across from the Victoria College campus, I often walked past this makeshift American consulate on my way to and from class. At first glance, the set appears to be for a TV show called Ruby Road. I didn’t think much of it until a few days later, when someone told me that Ruby Road is the codename for The Handmaid’s Tale. The giveaway lies in Toronto’s list of ongoing productions: Ruby Road’s production company is called Gilead 5 Productions Inc., Gilead being the name of the republic where The Handmaid’s Tale takes place.
Much more recently, trucks full of filming equipment lined both St Joseph Street and Charles Street, boxing in Victoria College and causing problems for anyone who drives. Among my friends, the theory was that they were filming season four of The Boys, which announced it had begun filming in August. One person thought they might still be filming The Handmaid’s Tale. The right answer? Your guess is as good as mine. Movie makers do love their secrets.
While UofT is a popular spot for filming, the actual UofT population remains in the dark regarding what or who is taking over our campus. If you’re like me, and you can’t wait for answers, your best bets are the City of Toronto’s official production list and the Twitter account called @TorontoFilming. If not, speculate away! Guessing what our campus will transform into makes for good fun.
