Spoilers May Be Below!
Like many others selected for brief appearances in the filming of "Public Enemies," the movie about John Dillinger starring Johnny Depp now filming in Wisconsin, Ellen Weisling took a step back in time last week for a scene filmed at the Lafayette County courthouse in Darlington.

But for Weisling, it was to play a very familiar character. The "floater" court reporter in the Fifth Judicial District that includes Dane, Rock, Green and Lafayette counties played the role of a court reporter in a scene filmed in the courthouse where she has worked as a real-life court reporter on occasion.

"It was very much fun for me," Weisling, who has worked as a court reporter for 24 years, said as she recounted her one-day role. "It was very interesting and fascinating." Weisling got the non-speaking role through a series of happenstances not uncommon as bit players were selected for the filming currently being shot in Oshkosh.

It turns out that one of the people working for the casting firm whose job is to hire people for the film is the nephew of a woman who works in the Dane County District Attorney's Office. The nephew told his aunt there was a need for a relatively small court reporter to fill the role of a court reporter in the movie. She, in turn, put her nephew in touch with Weisling, who was a perfect match. Weisling said she was unaware of the filming, but sent in a picture of herself and was picked for the part.

Weisling had even worked as a court reporter in Lafayette County's courthouse, one of the oldest in the state. But the courtroom she was used to looked different when she arrived last Wednesday for the shooting.

"It was so beautiful," she said of the work done by the set designer. Wooden blinds had been installed on the windows to reflect the 1930s era, all the electronics had been removed, and the furniture, including the desk in front of the judge's bench, had been restored to the original luster.

Also brought in was an ancient, by today's standards, court stenographer's machine, a far cry from the computerized models used today, but it had the same pattern of letters and symbols familiar to modern-day court reporters. Weisling's job was to take down everything said by the actors as if they were appearing in a real courtroom.

"I ended up being smack-dab in the middle of the courtroom," she said. Weisling was one of seven people in the scene, which also included a heavily guarded Depp as Dillinger as well as some real-life Wisconsin National Guard members dressed as Indiana National Guardsmen from the 1930s. Although much of the film is being shot in Wisconsin, including a bank robbery in Columbus, the locations are supposed to represent a bank robbery and the subsequent court appearances in Indiana.

Weisling said she was impressed by the meticulous detail paid by the film's director, University of Wisconsin graduate Michael Mann, and his crew.

"The attention to detail was phenomenal," she said. "It's so '30s I looked like my mom."

Other locals selected to be the audience in the courtroom scene were given 1930s-style haircuts, and all the men were told to shave.

"One man had had a beard for 32 years," Weisling said, but shaved to be a movie extra. "They were the cleanest-cut looking young men," she said of the batch of 20-somethings that made up part of the audience in the court scene, "and the girls were all young and gorgeous."

"It took about two hours to do my hair," she added. "I think they glammed me up way too much."

She got to see Depp, of course, but didn't get much of a chance to speak to him because when they weren't filming one of the uncountable number of takes for the three-minute scene, they were listening as Mann and others gave them directions.

And even though the day's work proved to be long, from 5:45 a.m. to 8 p.m., she was happy with the experience. "It was fascinating for me, I loved every minute of it," she said. And despite what one might hear about Hollywood types, the crew was good in dealing with the extras. "These people were so nice, and so gracious," she said.

There were, however, a couple of things that bothered her about the filming. "The food was lousy," she said. "I thought we would be having a wonderful lunch and it was a cafeteria." She was also a little disturbed that so much money is being spent on a film about Dillinger, one of America's most notorious bank robber and killers.

But all in all, she said, "it was a wonderful experience." All she has to worry about now is whether the three-minute scene appears in the movie or ends up on the cutting-room floor.