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‘The whole town was rooting for us,’ says director/star Miranda Rae Hart of shooting her film 'Off to the Races' in Saratoga.
When Albany Academy graduate Miranda Rae Hart decided to make her first feature film, she didn’t wait for a studio, a grant or anyone’s permission. She came home to Saratoga Springs, called in every favor she could think of, and built a production out of friends, locals and the kind of community support you only get in a place that genuinely wants you to succeed.
“We’re in the waiting game now,” she says — the limbo between finishing a film and waiting to hear from festivals. The movie, titled Off to the Races, already carries the fingerprints of the region that raised her.
Hart shot most of the film — a rom-com homage to 1940s screwball comedies — in her parents’ Saratoga home, a Victorian that required little more than a few trash bags taped over the windows to transform into a set. She expected neighbors to complain; instead, they asked questions and offered help. “Everyone was pleasantly curious,” she says. “It felt like the whole town was rooting for us.” That support extended far beyond the block.
The director/star actor/writer is vocal about wanting to show a version of upstate New York that rarely makes it onscreen — one that’s intellectual, artistic and culturally alive. “People think of upstate and picture farms,” she says, and sometimes forget that this area is also a center for the arts.
Hart calls herself a “history snob,” and it shows. The film leans into Saratoga’s Victorian character, manicured gardens and old‑world charm. In other words, she didn’t need to build sets; Saratoga already had them. “Saratogians take pride in their houses and their gardens,” she says. “Everything we needed was already here.”
Off to the Races centers on a woman who does exactly what she wants — a sleuth‑journalist type who inserts herself into the drama she’s supposed to be observing. Hart describes the tone as “fast, witty and a little old‑timey,” with dialogue that nods to Gilmore Girls.
The cast includes fellow Capital Region native Lucas Aurelio, who was featured on Season 3 of Bridgerton. Hart remembers hearing about him years ago — her cousin was dating someone who knew him — and thinking he’d be famous one day. Bringing him into the project felt like a full‑circle moment.
Now that the film is finished and the festival submissions are out, Hart is back to waiting. But she’s clear on one thing: the movie couldn’t have been made anywhere else.
“This is a story of human positivity,” she says. And Saratoga gave her every reason to believe in that.
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