It has been said that you should “write what you know.” And Tim Federle has certainly done just that with his new movie “Better Nate Than Ever.” Based upon his 2013 novel of the same name, the Disney Plus original sees theater-obsessed Pittsburgh middle schooler Nate Foster (Rueby Wood – in his first big-screen role!) traveling to Manhattan with his best friend, Libby Reneé (Aria Brooks), to try out for a Broadway musical, a premise the author/actor/dancer/director/all-around multi-threat knows quite a bit about.
A self-professed “theater kid,” Federle was born in Foster City, Calif. (this writer’s hometown!), but spent his formative years in Pittsburgh, where he fantasized about one day making it big on the Great White Way. Upon turning 19, he moved to New York and saw his dreams become a reality in just a few short years via a stint choreographing “Billy Elliot: The Musical” and roles in “The Little Mermaid” and “Gypsy.” Once Broadway was tackled, Federle decided to change gears, shifting his sights from the stage to the page. And the rest is history! He explained to Dance Spirit, “An acquaintance in the publishing industry suggested that, rather than trying to write a vampire novel or historical epic, I stick with a topic I know well: the performing arts and all the craziness behind the scenes. When I finally opened my laptop to write, I was surprised by how quickly it all came together. Once I had the characters in mind (everyone in ‘Better Nate Than Ever’ is loosely based on a person in my life) and a premise that made me smile (‘a small-town boy runs away from home to crash an audition for “E.T.: The Musical”’), it was just a matter of showing up at the computer every day and seeing what happened.”
The novel went on to win a slew of awards and was eventually optioned by Disney. A true Renaissance man, Federle not only penned the script for the movie himself but directed it, as well. The completed project, a sincerely happy little film, premiered March 15 to much praise, with the Polygon website asserting, “‘Better Nate Than Ever’ is exactly what Disney Plus needed.”
The flick isn’t just for theater lovers, either! As Federle told Entertainment Weekly, “Nate is very much a classic middle school protagonist who dreams of this big wide somewhere out there. And whether your dream is baseball or politics or being a chess player or whatever, a lot of us were that kid from a small town. This is for underdogs out there, anyone who feels like they’re the costar of someone else’s story because we’re all the stars of our own life. And while the odds are crazy in show business and in New York and frankly just in staying sane as a normal human, somebody beats the odds every day, and I hope the audience who watches this remembers that could be them too.” Feel-good through and through, “Better Nate Than Ever” certainly brings some much-needed optimism to the screen.
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Image Credit: Disney+ While set in both Pittsburgh and Manhattan, the movie was shot solely in New York. As TribLIVE reports,” “Pittsburgh is a great town for film production, but due to covid protocols and the need to film on Broadway, it made more sense to shoot the entire film in New York.” As such, Federle and his team pegged various Westchester County suburbs to mask as the Steel City onscreen.
The establishing shot of Nate’s neighborhood shown in the opening scene (pictured above) was captured on Agar St. in Yonkers, with Monastery Church of the Sacred Heart standing tall in the background. Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains popped up as the fictional Brook Trout Middle School, where Nate and Libby attend classes. And for the flick’s most notable locale, the charming abode where the Foster family lives, Federle looked to Port Chester, a leafy suburb situated about 25 miles northwest of Manhattan. He explained to TribLIVE, “We scouted all of Westchester and I said, ‘Find me the homes that feel the most Midwestern on the biggest hills.’” The yellow-hued American Foursquare-style structure he eventually settled upon can be found about a mile north of Port Chester’s quaint downtown at 40 Lafayette Dr. (Please remember this is a private home. Do not trespass or bother the residents or the property in any way.)
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Image Credit: Google Originally built in 1900, the three-story abode has curb appeal on lock! Set far back from the road behind a wide stretch of grass, the pad’s decidedly Anywhere, U.S.A. façade boasts a wraparound porch, a large bay window and a red front door situated at the end of a flower-lined front walk.
According to Zillow, the three-bedroom, three-bath, 1,892-square-foot property last sold in June 2019 for $629,000 but is worth almost $730,000 today.
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Image Credit: Zillow Though MLS photos of the interior are scant, according to the 2019 listing, the property is chock full of original finishes, including hardwood flooring, stained glass windows, handsome moldings and a fireplace with a “detailed tile inlay.”
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Image Credit: Zillow The surrounding 0.26-acre lot features mature trees, two grassy expanses, a large deck, a rear garden and, though there is no garage on the premises, space for four cars to park in the lengthy gravel driveway.
In need of some updating at the time of the sale, the place has likely been modernized since changing hands three years ago.
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Image Credit: Google The property’s attractive exterior pops up several times in “Better Nate Than Ever,” though the full façade is oddly never shown onscreen. Audiences are only given tight glimpses of the front door, porch and driveway areas. The limited views were a curious choice from a production standpoint considering how lovely the dwelling is in real life.
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Image Credit: Zillow The actual inside of the home also makes a few appearances in the movie. Jane Musky, the prolific production designer behind such celebrated films as “Ghost,” “Blood Simple” and “When Harry Met Sally . . . “ (who just so happens to be the real-life wife of “Scandal’s” Tony Goldwyn), worked her magic on the place for the shoot, outfitting the interior with a plethora of photographs of the Fosters (many of which Federle has highlighted on his Instagram feed in recent weeks) and transforming the entry parlor into the family’s dining room.
The understated aesthetic she created serves as an excellent foil to the bright, magical world of the New York theater scene, which Nate encounters in full technicolor upon arriving in the Big Apple and where, as he sings in “Big Time,” he knows he’s going to see his “name in lights up on the marquee one day!”