Elijah Wood shoots scene here for Spanish thriller

Actor Elijah Wood was in town Sunday and Monday shooting an exterior scene for the Spanish production of “Grand Piano,” a thriller set mainly in a 3,000 seat theatre in Chicago.

Wood stars as a washed up virtuoso pianist who finally summons up nerve to return to perform after a lengthy absence and finds a threatening note on his sheet music, forcing him to play his best concert ever to save his wife’s life and his own.

Shot on the Washington Street bridge near the Civic Opera House, the entire scene is an elaborate inside joke – a reference to the “Bohemian Rhapsody” scene in “Wayne’s World.”

Wood’s character comes in contact with a van loaded with the fictional heavy metal band, “The Lords of Uifam.” Uifam is the backward spelling of Mafiu, a Spanish mispronunciation of the name “Matthew,” a character in the movie.

Joan Philo Casting was called at the last minute for extras. Director Eugenio Mira (“Agnosia”) spotted the headshot of local actor Christopher Kahler (“Chubby Killer,” “The Zombie Movie”) who was hired and brought friends in to round out the casting.

John Cusack co-stars as the bad guy.

Principal photography took place in Barcelona, Spain, where production company Nostromo Pictures is based and where some exterior shots were filmed, described as shots “with signs for cerveza and tapas juxtaposed against extras in Chicago police uniforms and English-language ambulances,” by twitchfilm.com.