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The trailers movie stars rent may look like the fifth-wheel Grandma and Grandpa take to Yellowstone every year. But, sorry Xzibit, they make your guys from “Pimp My Ride” look like rank amateurs.
From a full galley, bedroom, bathrooms with showers and Internet connections, the trailers are an office, makeup studio, party pad and bedroom on the road.
The pimped-out trailers from Star Waggons, housed at Albuquerque Studios, are specialty tools. The trailers have built-in makeup counters that rival anything backstage on Broadway.
Pedro Valdez, the local manager of Star Waggons, said the company rents about 50 to 70 trailers from Albuquerque Studios at any given time. Some are local and some go to parts east, from Louisiana and Michigan to as far as Boston.
But, man, it’s worth the trip.
The company’s 47-foot, fifth-wheel trailer is, company President Jason Waggoner said, built to near-military specs so that it can be towed to any location without damage. Inside, once all the pop-out extensions are deployed and the power and water hooked up, it’s almost 600 square feet of luxury. From 52-inch flat-panel TVs and massage chairs, to a kitchen designed for a professional chef, they’ve got it all. Stars live in style on the road.
Valdez said trailers like this are usually for the big stars, those making at least $20 million a picture. The lesser stars get a two- or three-room version of the same trailer.
Sure, the 47-foot trailer is the top-of-the-line beast, and the company offers several other smaller trailers that may be just as long, but they’ll have two or three rooms crammed in.
”This is for a star that’s on the way up,” Valdez said, opening the door to one, which shows a sofa bed, TV and makeup counter next to a bathroom.
Star Waggons is the largest company of its kind in the business with almost 700 trailers of all varieties, Waggoner said, going to sets all over North America. The company, based in Burbank, Calif., rents makeup trailers, living quarters, mobile offices, schoolroom trailers for child actors, gyms, catering trucks and more.
”When they set up, it’s a small-scale military operation,” Waggoner said.
The company can design and set up a full town for movie sets. When “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” filmed in Roy, N.M., last year, Star Waggons designed a full encampment for the crew because the little town didn’t have enough hotel rooms.
The biggest stars, though, like Will Smith, have doubledecker custom tour buses that would put even the best apartments in Albuquerque to shame.
Often, Valdez said, stars (and it’s a shame he can’t say which ones) trash a trailer. One big-name star sent back two trailers with busted cabinets, torn up beds and broken massage chairs and left garbage all over the place.
”We’re really concerned about the trash,” Valdez said. “We know who was in there and for some people, that trash could be valuable.”
Check it out
Want to see a movie-star trailer from the inside? Click here for a quick tour.
