Try living in Los Angeles. Every other movie has some local detail pretending to be somewhere else. And if you're ever going up the highway east of the Sierra Nevada, be sure to stop in at Lone Pine's film history museum. The Alabama Hills just west of town have been stand-ins for every western state, as well as Mars, Afghanistan, the entire Middle East ... It's disconcerting to be watching a movie and seeing known landmarks pop up on alien planets, or see Mt. Whitney in the background of a shot in the "Himalaya."

"Vancouver Never Plays Itself"

https://vimeo.com/138807572

I feel you. As New Zealander watching lord of the rings with local soap opera actors appearing randomly really break whatever immersion you tried to build up...

Sometimes, this happens to me just because the same actor pops up in two films. I can never quite get over Lord Elrond being Mr. Smith from the Matrix, for example. Perhaps because the acting in the two roles seems so similar to me. I don’t watch movies very much. People who do, must have this happening to them all the time.

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson."

Hence this map: https://www.themarysue.com/how-hollywood-fakes-location-map/

'Hollywood' in general is like this. All the film studios have real life people working in them and who have lives outside of their work. One of the reasons that Bel-Air, Beverly Hills, Malibu, etc. are what they have become is that they are a commutable distance to the studio lots. The same is then true of shooting locations in southern CA. The ability to go back home on the weekends/evenings (in the least) is very attractive as a shooting locale.

Apparently the pay is also different if you're within the 30-mile zone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_zone

[Also, my original comment should have said "southeast" not "southwest", d'oh]

I believe the reason why movies started getting made in Los Angeles was because of the diversity of terrain within a reasonably short distance.

I had something similar happen on a show, I believe this one titled Drive:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770521/

They had a scene that was "outside Gainesville, FL". That's where I went to university and from the highway it's basically flat forests. The scene instead looked semi-arid with mountains in the background...

Ah, looks like my exact story is documented exactly on IMDB!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770521/goofs?item=gf0809526

The show only lasted 6 episodes, so...