Los Angeles residents and tourists alike flocked to Sunset Boulevard and Selma Avenue in West Hollywood Friday morning.
Instead of coming to catch a glimpse of the storied Chateau Marmont, the historic hotel beloved by celebrities and New Yorkers alike a block away, people were there to take photos of and see one particular billboard about 30 feet above the ground.
A man who has not been publicly identified has been “living” inside the billboard since Thursday, in what resembles a fully furnished, air-conditioned living room. Sometimes, he waved to the people outside while holding a coffee mug in his other hand. Other times, he used a pair of binoculars to look outside.
He was wearing blue pajama pants and a bathrobe — sometimes red, other times blue — and carrying a dry-erase whiteboard that he used to “talk” to people walking by.
“I’m stuck,” read one message that he flashed to the spectators below.
The “living room” was furnished with what appeared to be a bookshelf, plants, a coffee table, an armchair, a desk chair and even paintings on the walls. Thick, red curtains adorned the “window,” which the man used to peer outside.
Below the window is the phrase “How long can you survive?” written on the blue shutters of the “house.”
A passerby gestures to the man living in a billboard as a part of a Netflix promotion on Sunset Boulevard.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
The billboard and the man inside it were promoting “The Last House,” a Netflix film that premiered on the streaming platform on Friday. The billboard’s occupancy along the Sunset Strip is expected to end Saturday.
The movie, directed by Louis Leterrier and starring Greta Lee and Wagner Moura, follows a family of four who are trapped inside their home with no way out, according to a Netflix statement.
The family must grapple with a dwindling stockpile of resources and the mysterious “threat” that keeps them trapped inside the home, the statement read.
The movie (and the man living inside the billboard) begs the audience to answer one simple question: “How long could you survive if you were suddenly cut off from the world with no explanation as to why?”
Jon Bruno lives a couple of blocks away from the billboard in West Hollywood and ducked out of his house Friday morning to try to catch a glimpse of the spectacle.
“It was on all the socials and friends were sending me videos,” he said. “It’s on the news. Everyone’s covering it. Is there air conditioning up there? Is there a bathroom? I saw videos where he was walking around in a bathrobe.”
Bruno, who has lived in Los Angeles for 30 years, was disappointed when he couldn’t see the man inside the billboard from the street below.
“I want to be able to get higher so I can see him,” he said while craning his neck to get a peek at the billboard. “I mean, he could be taking a shower. I don’t know what’s up there. I need a ladder.”
Bruno works as a voice-over actor and attended a screening of the film Friday night.
“If anything, it’s a great publicity stunt,” he said. “I mean, I’m coming out here not because I have anything to do with the movie but because it’s close and it’s a great publicity thing. I’ve never seen anything like this.
“I think it’s great, you know. Anything that gets people to the movies, for me, is great.”
Nick Lonj, who is visiting Los Angeles from Oundle, England, is staying at the nearby Godfrey Hotel in Hollywood. He drove over to West Hollywood Friday morning because he saw a story on the news about the man inside the billboard.
Lonj said it reminded him of a stunt performed by magician David Blaine decades ago, in which Blaine stayed suspended inside a glass box for more than a month above London’s River Thames.
“We should do this with more things,” he added.
Charise Butler, 54, drove all the way from her home in Burbank Friday morning with her son to take a look at the billboard.
“I think it’s really cool,” she said. “I didn’t know anything about it, but my son was saying that it was a man living inside the billboard, so when he showed me the video, I was like, oh, that’s cool. I want to go see.”
Butler’s daughter, who works as an actor, was also planning to bring her kids down from Woodland Hills to see the man in the billboard.
“It makes you want to go watch the movie,” said Butler, a longtime Los Angeles resident.
“Seeing this makes me want to tune in and see what this is all about. How long can you survive?”
