Drivers on Sunset Boulevard have been doing double takes after discovering that the man moving around inside an enormous billboard is not a video, animation or AI creation.
He is a real performer occupying a glass-fronted living room roughly 30 feet above the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Selma Avenue in West Hollywood as part of an elaborate promotion for Netflix’s new sci-fi thriller The Last House.
Netflix says the unidentified performer is “living” inside the installation from August 6th through August 8th. Dressed in pajamas and a bathrobe, he has spent the campaign drinking coffee, looking through binoculars and communicating with people.
The stunt recreates the central predicament of The Last House, which began streaming August 7th and stars Greta Lee and Wagner Moura as parents whose family suddenly discovers that its home has been sealed shut with no way out.
People Initially Thought the Man Wasn’t Real
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The installation resembles the side of an aging house covered in greenery, with a large window exposing what looks like an ordinary living room. Directly below it is the question, “How long can you survive?”
Its realism has confused some people passing beneath it. “I thought it was like an AI bot or something that was just moving inside the billboard,” Noel Braham told ABC7. Braham realized otherwise when the figure reacted to him.
“And then he started to wave and I’m like… that’s a real person!” The stunt has since become a destination of its own. The Los Angeles Times reported that locals and tourists gathered around Sunset and Selma on Friday after seeing the installation in social-media videos and news reports.
His Only Way to ‘Talk’ to the Street Is a Whiteboard
The man is not simply sitting behind the glass while people take photographs. Netflix incorporated a whiteboard into the stunt, echoing scenes in The Last House in which the trapped family attempts to communicate with people outside.
One message photographed by the Los Angeles Times read simply, “I’m stuck.” ABC7 managed to conduct an unusual interview from the pavement by writing questions for the performer to read. Asked how he liked the view from 30 feet above Sunset Boulevard, he responded, “spectacular.”
Asked whether he expected to get any sleep while spending his time in full view of traffic and curious spectators, his response was “no.” Witnesses have also seen him waving and dancing for the crowd. Entertainment Weekly, which visited the installation, reported that Netflix stocked the room with books, playing cards and a globe to help its temporary resident pass the time.
The Billboard Has Air Conditioning, but the Bathroom Is Still a Mystery
Despite appearances, Netflix has given its temporary captive at least one significant comfort. The enclosed room is air-conditioned.
The room itself contains a couch, armchair, desk chair, coffee table, bookshelves, plants, paintings and thick red curtains, creating the illusion of a compact apartment suspended above traffic.
Entertainment Weekly also asked one of the more practical questions raised by the stunt: whether the billboard contains a bathroom. Netflix did not immediately provide an answer.
The Stunt Recreates the Nightmare in ‘The Last House’
The billboard’s strange setup makes considerably more sense once the premise of The Last House is known. Lee and Moura play Ann and Jason Delgado, parents who discover that their family has somehow been physically sealed inside its home. Their daughter Ruth is played initially by Riley Chung and later by Emma Ho, while Noah Alexander Sosnowski and Gabriel Barbosa portray younger and older versions of their son Graham.
With the doors and windows impossible to escape through, supplies begin disappearing as days turn into weeks and eventually years. Director Louis Leterrier told Netflix’s Tudum that the story deliberately transforms something normally associated with protection into a threat.
“The Last House challenges the idea of a safe haven, turning a family home into a hostile environment where survival demands unity,” he said. The film’s creative team took the changing house seriously as well.
Production designer Kevin Jenkins built a set designed to deteriorate along with the family, with everything from appliances to children’s belongings visibly aging as the years pass. The filmmakers also used practical techniques wherever possible. Netflix says the first part of the movie was shot on 35mm film before the visual style changes later in the story.