War & Peace Quote by Alicia Witt

There is a quiet act of reputational repair buried in Alicia Witt's relief that a production shot in New York. She’s not just praising the city; she’s pushing back against a particular global storyline: New York as a permanent crisis scene. The phrase "somehow started to think" is doing diplomatic work, softening blame while still calling out the media logic that turns a singular catastrophe into a lasting brand. And "envisioned it as some war zone" is deliberately vivid, a cinematic metaphor from an actress who understands how images overwrite reality.

Witt’s intent feels twofold. On the surface, it’s practical gratitude: filming in New York is a creative and logistical win, and it carries prestige. Underneath, it’s a plea for normalcy as a public good. When she says "after that happened", she avoids naming the event, a tactful omission that acknowledges trauma without exploiting it. That vagueness also mirrors how the world consumed the moment: as a shorthand "that", endlessly replayed and flattened.

The subtext is about who gets to define a city: residents living its ordinary rhythms, or distant audiences fed a loop of spectacle. By framing the misconception as "across the world", she recognizes New York’s symbolic role as a global stage. If the stage is seen as unsafe, the cultural production that depends on it - film, tourism, art, the myth of the city itself - starts to seize up. Her comment is less nostalgia than counter-programming: keep filming here, keep showing it alive, and the war-zone story loses its grip.