REAL ESTATE
Palmer Co-Star, Wynn Everett, Calls Pinewood Forest “Home“ W hile the high-profile film industry residents of Pinewood Forest are kept largely confidential by the community’s management team, one actor came forward to share what it’s like to live there. Atlanta native and Auburn graduate Wynn Everett, currently filming Palmer in New Orleans with Justin Timberlake, spoke with Georgia Hollywood Review about her acting career and her home in the Pinewood Forest creative community. GHR: DID YOU EVER ENVISION THAT YOU’D BE ABLE TO PUT YOUR ACTING BACKGROUND AND THEATER DEGREE TO PROFESSIONAL USE IN YOUR HOME STATE, LET ALONE YOUR HOME CITY? Everett: Never! It is truly incredible. I speak to so many young people today and always tell them, “If I was graduating from high school today and wanted to pursue a life in the arts, I would never leave Georgia.” There are so many wonderful things happening here and so many opportunities to live a balanced, creative life--to be able to afford a home (difficult for artists in NY and LA), to enjoy a slower pace, to not be inundated by the business, day in and day out, but to also pursue theatre, film, and television on your own terms. GHR: OF ALL THE PLACES YOU COULD LIVE IN ATLANTA, HOW DID YOU PICK PINEWOOD FOREST? Everett: When my husband, Michael, and I made the decision to move back to Atlanta we wanted to live closer to family… when we learned of Pinewood Forest it was just open land, not even one house. However, we fell in love with the vision and the people behind it and knew that this was where we x
Actor Wynn Everett Photo by Braden Moran Photography
Photos courtesy of Pinewood Forest
wanted to raise our girls and settle down. Having lived in New York and Los Angeles we were looking for creativity, walkability, and community, all of which Pinewood Forest is creating (without the traffic of the north side of Atlanta.). This helps me a great deal as I travel north for auditions and work at various studios. GHR: TELL US ABOUT YOUR WORK ON PALMER IN NEW ORLEANS, STARRING JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, AS WELL AS SOME OF YOUR OTHER WORK. Everett: I’ve been having a wonderful experience on Palmer . I play Lucille, the wife of Palmer’s best friend. Some other work I’ve done includes HBO’s The Newsroom , Charlie Wilson’s War , ABC’s Agent Carter, Modern Family , and Grey’s Anatomy , NBC’s This Is Us , Netflix’s Heartstrings , and Netflix’s Slutty Teenage Bounty Hunters , due out this year. GHR: LASTLY, WHO DO YOU CALL “NEIGHBOR” AT PINEWOOD FOREST? Everett: Many residents are artists and creatives, musicians, furniture makers, teachers, pilots, doctors. We want our family to live around a diverse group of individuals and families. That is one of the reasons we left Los Angeles. Part of the unique advantage of living in Pinewood Forest and watching it grow is seeing the different vocations of the creative individuals that are drawn here.
More than a stunning place to live that’s buzzing with creativity, Parker says that Pinewood Forest is helping to instill a remarkable culture to the area around Pinewood Studios. In three additional phases, the total number of residents is expected to grow to nearly 4,000 and the community’s town center will ultimately house a dozen food concepts and 90,000 square feet of retail. A second hotel will be added, as well as an additional office building/co-working space. In the walkable paths around the Pinewood Forest development, public art installations and murals will provide a dazzling backdrop for high-profile film indus- try events. The development is also catering to the educational needs of residents’ children, Parker reports, with an innovative on-premise academic institution that will send off its first high school graduate this year. College students will also benefit from the special city and culture of the community, with the University of Georgia in Athens, in collaboration with the Georgia Film Academy, selecting students from its Master of Fine Arts in Film program to live and work at Pinewood Atlanta Studios and Pinewood Forest in fall 2020. During their time living in the community, the graduate students will work in groups to produce a short film trailer or pilot. Amid all the buzz surrounding the Pinewood Forest live-work-create community today, Parker says there’s much more to come. “As Georgia and Atlanta continue to grow as a media mecca, we believe this town will be at the center of the discussion on how to build a place where people love to live,” he closes.
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