Hollywood comes to Berlin

Surely there have been bigger events in the history of Berlin.

It’s just that no one can remember when.

For hundreds who lined the White Horse Pike at Broad Street just about all day Monday, this was it. A once-in-a- lifetime moment fueled by megawatt Hollywood star power.

“This town lives for stuff like this,” said Ronnie Kapischke, 47, manager of a Wawa whose parking lot was the front line of a celebrity safari for Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez and Liv Tyler, stars of Jersey Girl. The film, by Central Jersey native Kevin Smith, is being shot in South Jersey and Philadelphia.

Kapischke said crowds started gathering around 5 a.m. By 11, they’d bought her last roll of film.

The Berlin Diner – a metal-plated, art deco, neon- lighted throwback across Broad Street – was the location for a scene being filmed Monday.

“Ben … J. Lo … Liv,” voices barked out from the crowd, which grew to about 400 by midday, as the onlookers’ idols breezed on and off the set.

Affleck, an Oscar winner and certified matinee idol, worked the fans into a frenzy just before 10 a.m., strolling across Broad Street to meet and greet.

Women cooed as the chiseled, 6-foot-3 actor turned up the charm. He posed, offered kisses, signed autographs and smiled for just about everyone and everything in front of him as the crowd pressed in.

Affleck even grabbed several cell phones to chat with unbelieving friends who would have killed to be there.

“He talked to my girlfriend,” sighed Tina Caro, 40, of Berlin, still breathless a few hours later.

Caro, a school bus driver, said her friend Marcy Czechowski was resting at home in Cherry Hill after recent surgery.

“He told her to have a good recovery,” Caro said. “He called her `sweetie.’”

No doubt about it, this was a big deal for Berlin, whose population is slightly above 6,000.

“It’s such a treat to have a movie set in a town people used to make fun of,” said Lori Singley, 49. “When we were growing up, people used to call us farmers. This is a nice little Jersey town.”

Jersey Girl is actually set in the Monmouth County borough of Highlands. It’s about Affleck, a New York City PR man forced to move back to his hometown with his wife, played by Lopez, and their daughter, the title character. Scenes also have been shot in Paulsboro.

But that’s all Hollywood stuff. As far as the locals here were concerned, Jersey Girl reflects them and their community.

“It’s great for Berlin,” said Police Chief Lawrence Winters, who deployed 13 of his 16 officers to the scene.

The only thing that rivaled the excitement, Winters said, occurred several years ago when the old Berlin Hotel was moved down the pike to a new location.

Kapischke remembered the hotel spectacle, but ranked Monday’s movie shoot higher.

“The hotel was old and ugly,” she said. “Ben is not old or ugly.”

The crowds, packed on both sides of the pike behind yellow police tape and under an overcast sky, spied every move. Technicians, extras, stand-ins and just about everyone near the action were fair game for adulation. Lopez stoked the fans by sweeping into the diner just before 11 a.m. and leaving shortly afterward, wrapped in Affleck’s arm.

Tyler, daughter of Aerosmith singer Steve Tyler, also drew whoops and hollers as she was whisked in and out of the restaurant.

But the crowd, overwhelmingly female and swelled by kids off from school for Yom Kippur, left no doubt about its favorite.

“We’ve been out here since 7 a.m.,” said borough resident Stephanie Amato, 15, as pal Jessica Malespin, 13, stood next to her. “We were across the street and we thought they weren’t going to let us come over here to get an autograph from Ben Affleck, but we squeezed through the crowd.”

Their reward: autographed T-shirts they swore would never be washed again.

HUNDREDS OF starry-eyed movie fans crowded around the Berlin Diner, in Berlin, Camden County, yesterday, to catch a glimpse of actors Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez and Liv Tyler who were filming the movie, “Jersey Girl.”

The crowd erupted when Lopez stepped out of a SUV and waved to fans.

Tyler and Affleck delighted the crowd when they emerged from filming in the diner.

“In Sunday’s item about Ben Affleck’s going goo-goo over babies on the set of ‘Jersey Girl’, I listed his year of birth as 1962. It’s 1972. Also, the names of baby Shane Kubiak’s mother and aunt were transposed; his mother is Fran Savastano, and his aunt is Theresa Marsden.”