Bloodied and armed actors Matt O’Leary, left, and Warren Kole were among those stopped by police at gunpoint while filming a scene in Winnipeg on Saturday. Someone thought the action was real and called police. (Rebecca Sandulak for Sun Media)

WINNIPEG -- How's this for art imitating life?

Things got a little too real for a big-budget movie crew when it was surrounded by police at gunpoint while shooting scenes in Winnipeg's Exchange District on the weekend.

Someone saw the blood-soaked and gun-toting actors -- who were filming scenes for Mother's Day, which has been shooting locally for a few months -- in an old station wagon and, thinking it was the real thing, called city police on a cellphone.

What unfolded was some unscripted drama and tense moments both sides were able to laugh off once everyone realized the misunderstanding.

The crew said it has no hard feelings and understands the officers were just doing their job.

"It was kind of ironic, because we're doing a movie about bank robbers and the bank robbers got caught," said executive producer Curtis Leopardo.

The incident happened on Adelaide Street at William Avenue, a block from the Public Safety Building, on Saturday at 5:15 p.m.

Officers were unaware of the movie shoot and took no chances when they got a report of a person armed with a firearm.

About 15 Mother's Day cast and crew members were present when about eight police cruisers surrounded the station wagon and crew near the vehicle.

Actors Patrick Flueger, Matt O'Leary and Warren Kole -- who play three bank-robbing brothers -- were between takes and sitting in the car along with some crew members.

"All of a sudden a cop came up and yelled, 'Put the weapons down!' " O'Leary said. "I've got (fake) blood all over me and a gun in my hands."

Flueger said he can understand how things might have appeared to passersby.

"Everything that was happening (in the scene) looked like a suspicious situation in real life," he said.

LOADED WITH BLANKS

The actors were armed with real firearms, which, when loaded for a scene, are loaded with blanks, the crew said.

Police ordered the car's occupants to exit one at a time at gunpoint with their arms in the air. Everyone was ordered to stand against a wall until the matter was sorted out within a few minutes, the crew said.

"After they figured out it wasn't real we were allowed to put our hands down and take a deep breath," said associate producer Jordan Lange.

"A lot of (the officers) were laughing once everything was figured out," Flueger said.

Mother's Day, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman and starring Rebecca De Mornay as the brothers' maniacal mother, is a psychological thriller, Leopardo said.

The plot revolves around the mother and her offspring returning to their foreclosed home after a robbery gone wrong and terrorizing the new occupants during a birthday party.

Loosely based on the original Mother's Day horror flick filmed in 1980, the latest version is scheduled to be in theatres in 2010.

chris.kitching@sunmedia.ca