Movies and TV shows filmed at U of T range from The Boys (2019) to The Incredible Hulk (2008). You might have seen film crews around campus, covering up our coat of arms with crests for imaginary schools, while some of your classmates may have also worked on those sets. 

U of T holds a particular appeal for studios, not just because it’s located in a film-making hub with tax incentives, but also due to its varied architecture. Filming on campus generates revenue — both for the university departments that book spaces and coordinate with producers, and for the students who land gigs as background actors. Some of these students told The Varsity that opportunities in Toronto have allowed them to gain experience, make money, and have fun — all in a day’s work.

Who gets paid?

U of T charges studios and production agencies $4,000 per day to film on the St. George campus. The charge doesn’t include additional costs like food or city-issued filming permits. However, other locations in Toronto may cost film companies more. For instance, the Ontario government charges $6,700 per day for studios to shoot interior scenes at select public courts and offices in Toronto.

There are no fees for students to use shared spaces during regular building hours to film for class assignments or for extracurriculars, but the school does not facilitate filming requests for students’ personal projects.

The event-booking branches on each campus — Campus Events at UTSG, Hospitality & Ancillary Services at UTM, and Retail & Conference Services at UTSC — collect those fees and coordinate with studios. These three branches are ancillary units: they operate semi-independently from the university, submit separate budgets, and aim to turn a profit, which they pay into U of T’s massive operating budget. 

UTSC Conference Services’ 2024–2025 budget forecasted that the unit — which also rents out campus spaces for a summer camp and pre-university orientation — will bring in $2,791,000 in revenue during the fiscal year from June 1, 2024, to April 30, 2025. However, after covering expenses, the unit expects to make $41,000 in net income. 

When it presented its budget in February, UTM Hospitality & Ancillary Services projected $798,886 in revenue from facility and space rentals during the 2024–2025 fiscal year. 

These amounts represent only a small fraction of the university’s projected $3.52 billion in total revenue. The revenue from event-related ancillaries is also small compared to other ancillary units. For instance, the university expects residences at UTSC alone to bring in $711,000 in net income for the 2024–2025 fiscal year. 

U of T did not respond to The Varsity’s questions about how much money it made from renting out campus spaces for filming.

Toronto on top

US-based studios often choose to shoot in Canada because of its favourable exchange rates and substantial benefits for companies that hire local actors and crews. Other Canadian universities also host movie studios — for example, scenes from the romcom movie She’s the Man were filmed at the University of British Columbia, and students at Mount Royal University watched actors from the TV series The Last of Us run past their classroom windows. 

But Toronto comes out as a top location for shooting screen media. In 2024, MovieMaker Magazine rated Toronto as the best city to live and work in as a filmmaker. Additionally, the Toronto International Film Festival — one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world — enhances the city’s prominence in the film industry. 

The City of Toronto aggressively markets itself to studios, highlighting its “multicultural pool of actors” and skilled crew members on its website. The provincial agency Ontario Creates offers logistical and funding support to studios through targeted programs and by leveraging public and private partnerships. This helps studios secure tax credits that, when combined, can offer up to 45 per cent savings on labour costs and 35.2 per cent savings on overall production costs.

In 2021, the screen media industry in Toronto was valued at $2.5 billion. According to the comprehensive movie database IMDb, more than 17,000 films have been shot in the city. However, Toronto rarely appears as itself in movies, as its aesthetic, yet generic, settings more often stand in for American cities. 

A 2021 report commissioned by the City noted that, despite the increased production of foreign movies, domestic movie production declined in Toronto since 2014. “Producers, especially domestic ones, are being crowded out of the Toronto production market,” the report states. 

U of Television? 

Along with being situated in Toronto, U of T’s ‘Harvard of the North’ reputation attracts studios seeking an Ivy League stand-in. In the cult classic Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Knox College stands in for Princeton University, while U of T buildings including Whitney Hall and the McLennan Physical Laboratories double as MIT and Harvard buildings in Good Will Hunting. 

The varied architecture also lends itself to horror — for example, Robarts Library appears as a mega-prison in the action horror movie Resident Evil: Afterlife.

Along with feature-length films, U of T also provides interesting settings for commercials. Senen Sevilla has worked as a set decorator on ads for brands like McDonalds and Money Mart. He told The Varsity that his role includes “[wearing] many hats” — from buying furniture to setting up and taking down sets. 

Sevilla said that filming at U of T excites him. “A lot of commercials are in a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, a bathroom, all the same thing… So when we shoot at U of T, I know it’s gonna be cool.”

But much like the obstacles faced by our favourite movie characters, filming at U of T doesn’t come without challenges. 

U of T enforces strict rules about what studios can and can’t show, and urges productions to maintain the university’s anonymity while filming. Sevilla said that crews make an effort to leave locations in good shape, partly because they don’t want the university to ban them from shooting here in the future. 

U of T tends to limit filming to weekends, reading weeks, or the summer. Sevilla noted that, in Toronto, most filming takes place during the summer and spring anyway since producers often prefer to avoid dealing with harsh weather. 

Students for hire

Filming in Toronto also creates job opportunities for students looking to appear as extras, also known as background actors. In 2021, Toronto’s film industry employed approximately 35,000 people. However, film crews don’t just pick up students off the street — background actors must be approved, sign releases, and get fitted to ensure their wardrobe matches the setting.

Felicitas Damiano, who recently completed her masters of teaching in dramatic arts and social sciences at U of T, along with her partner Jake Pereira — a fifth-year student studying drama, political science, and Spanish — have frequently worked as background actors. This includes spending eight days at St. Michael’s College shooting scenes for a TV series remake of the 1999 film Cruel Intentions. 

Damiano told The Varsity that becoming a background actor had interested her for years, but she didn’t see an opportunity to break into the business growing up in Barrie, Ontario. “When I started at U of T… I was like, okay, now I’m living in Toronto. They actually do a lot of filming here. This could actually be possible,” she said.

Ulis Bertin, a third-year student studying English and European affairs, worked as a background actor on Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, which Netflix plans to release in 2025. 

“They told me not to cut my beard because they were going for a very specific look,” Bertin said. He worked three days in total, putting in 14-hour days and earning $16.55 an hour.

“It gives you experience [and] it shows you know the film world,” Bertin said. “More than anything for aspiring actors, it’s a good source of money, because it requires almost zero preparation and yields pretty good, long hours.”

Pereira noted that he earned about $1,000 on the set of Umbrella Academy. However, he explained that, although non-unionized background performers earn minimum wage, unionized performers — with either a drama degree, spoken lines, or who have worked 1,600 hours or 200 days as background actors — receive at least $31.75 per hour, along with travel and overtime bonuses. .

Acting in films shot on campus has its perks, with Pereira noting that, “It’s just cool to see the university… become something completely different.” 

But that doesn’t mean the work can’t be hard. Damiano told The Varsity that, despite Cruel Intentions being set in the summer, they filmed scenes in December. “So we were in shorts and T shirts outside in negative two degrees,” he said. “The moment they [said] cut, all the makeup people and wardrobe people would come running with sleeping bags.”

Bertin’s advice to students? Apply as a background actor. “It’s a shitty job, but it’s one of the greatest shitty jobs,” Bertin said. “I made many friends, people who I could never have met studying at U of T.”