Tours including Thank You for Smoking
Explore Washington D.C.'s famous TV & movie locations!
Tours for Thank You for Smoking
D.C. TV & Movie Tour
What People are Saying
“This tour was very entertaining. Our guide was a hoot. You still get to see DC, but in a different light.”
- Female, Age 50-59, Domestic Tourist
“On Location Tours’ Washington DC TV and Movie Sites tour is not like your usual guided trip around the city…”
-Washington Post, Sept. 2009
On Location Tours’ Washington DC TV and Movie Sites Tour visits dozens of Washington DC locations used in film and television over the years. One of the films discussed on the tour is the 2006 film Thank You For Smoking. The film is considered part comedy, part drama, part satire.
Thank You For Smoking was directed by Jason Reitman (who also directed the Oscar-winning film Juno) and was based on the 1994 novel of the same name written by Christopher Buckley. The plot of the film revolves around the character Nick Naylor, played by Aaron Eckhart, who is the Vice President of the Academy of Tobacco Studies. The Academy is actually a tobacco lobby whose purpose is to research the link between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer. Being that this “research” is funded by the tobacco industry, the Academy perhaps unsurprisingly finds no connection between cigarettes and cancer. Naylor’s job is to inform the public of these findings and actually promote cigarette use in a time where the real health risks of smoking are widely known.
The film has an all-star cast, including Eckhart, Maria Bello, Katie Holmes, William H. Macy, Robert Duvall, Adam Brody, J.K. Simmons, Rob Lowe, Sam Elliott, and Dennis Miller. All of these actors were director Jason Reitman’s first choices for the roles. He wrote individual letters to each actor telling them why he thought they would be perfect for the part. All the actors accepted right away and many thanked Reitman for his kind words.
Although the film is about smoking cigarettes, no one in the entire film is ever seen smoking a cigarette. Likewise, aside from a scene in the black-and-white film that Aaron Eckhart watches, no one in Thank You For Smoking is ever even seen holding a cigarette. Eckhart holds an empty cigarette packet at one point, and Robert Duvall holds an unlit cigar.
Thank You For Smoking was filmed in California, North Carolina, and—as een on the Washington DC TV and Movie Site Tour—the District of Columbia. The Academy of Tobacco Studies building in DC in the movie is in actuality the Department of Labor’s Frances Perkins Building, located at 200 Constitution Avenue. The Academy sign in the film was superimposed over the actual Department of Labor sign.
Thank You For Smoking was widely positively received by critics and fans alike. The film received a Golden Globe nomination in 2006 for Best Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy, but lost to Dreamgirls. Also, in November 2006, NBC announced that it is developing a television pilot based on the film.
* In an effort to stay current, we are constantly updating our tours with new locations and cannot guarantee the presence of locations mentioned on our site. If you have a particular interest in locations from a specific TV show or movie, please let your tour guide know and we will do our best to accomodate your request.
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On Location TV & Movie Tours
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