SAN FRANCISCO -- Dressed in a tan cloth coat and crocheted white hat and pulling a wheeled shopping basket behind her, Eve Rojek trudged up and down Castro Street in a sputtering rain the other day. She walked up a stretch of sidewalk between 18th and 19th streets and then down and then back up again.Rojek is an actress, cast as a middle-aged extra in a long-anticipated feature film about the life and death of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk that has begun shooting in the city. Like everyone and everything in view of the camera, Rojek needed to convey the precise look and feel of the Castro in the 1970s. "It's a good old Irish neighborhood, and now it's changing," production assistant Matt Miller coached her. "You're pretty grim about everything."Rojek nodded and got ready for another take. "Milk," which stars Sean Penn as the groundbreaking gay politician, won't be in theaters until some time next year. But the making of the film on the streets of San Francisco -- especially Castro Street -- excavates a potent piece of the city's history. People who lived through the era are revisiting the turbulence and exhilaration of Milk's rise to prominence as one of the first openly gay people in the country to hold a major elective office. They are also remembering the black day in November 1978 when Milk and Mayor George Moscone were shot and killed by aggrieved rival Dan White in City Hall. "I have cried every single day since we started working," said Cleve Jones, 53, a longtime gay activist who is best known as creator of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Jones is working as a historical consultant on "Milk" and will be portrayed in the film by Emile Hirsch. "I'm happy that they're using the actual locations," said Marc Huestis, a film director and producer who knew Milk well. "More than just for veracity. I think there's a spiritual element to that." While many residents and merchants said they support the project, not all of them are thrilled about trying to conduct business on a street that becomes a film set.Small white sidewalk signs up and down Castro Street inform shoppers that businesses are open during the "Milk" filming. Modern Muni bus shelters were coming down the other day so as not to clash with such period details as the psychedelic Aquarius Records storefront, the repainted Castro movie theater marquee and the flickering neon window sign for McConnely Wines & Liquors. Archivists working on the movie have combed through books, newspaper accounts, film and video footage and mountains of photographs to help recapture Castro Street and other locations as they looked three decades ago. About 100 crew members and 66 extras were on the job when filming began on Castro Street. Shooting is scheduled to continue through March 15. "Milk" came about in large part because a young actor and screenwriter, Dustin Lance Black, was determined to make it happen.The boyish-looking Black, who is in his 30s, was raised a closeted kid in a one-parent Mormon household in San Antonio. He started coming to San Francisco in the early 1990s, when AIDS was still devastating the gay community. "Hearing about Harvey was about the only hopeful story there was at the time," he said. Black's imagination was further stoked by Rob Epstein's 1984 Academy Award-winning documentary, "The Times of Harvey Milk." Black began interviewing anyone he could find who was part of Milk's world.Black, who also has written for the HBO series "Big Love," finished his script last February. He showed it to Jones, who promptly took it to director Gus Van Sant, an old friend whose films include "Good Will Hunting," "Finding Forrester" and "My Own Private Idaho."According to co-producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, things moved smoothly from then on. Penn accepted the lead role pretty quickly, said Jinks. That Penn is straight was never a consideration, said the producers."We have straight actors playing gay roles, gay actors playing straight roles, gay actors playing gay roles and straight actors playing straight roles," said Cohen. "It's our equivalent of blind casting."E-mail Steven Winn at swinn(at)sfchronicle.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com
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