Actor Basil Hoffman, Recently in 'The Artist,' in Pass Tea Party Production

Character actor Basil Hoffman, who recently appeared in the 2012 Academy Awards Best Picture winner "The Artist," is at Riley's Farm in Oak Glen this week working on a pre-Revolutionary War drama financed in part by modern-day Tea Party conservatives.

"Courage, New Hampshire" is a digital series distributed online and on DVD, in its third episode, and it's produced by a company called Colony Bay.

This is the same series in which conservative media icon Andrew Breitbart, who died March 1 at age 43 in Los Angeles, was cast as high sheriff. Breitbart appears in the second episode of "Courage, New Hampshire."

Hoffman is ok with the Tea Party association. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he said at a Los Angeles Tea Party rally in 2010, "I'm here in defense of America, of free speech, low taxes, liberty."

The Colony Bay Productions team has worked on-location at Riley's Farm several times over the past year, said publicist Tracy Balsz of Beverly Hills.

Hoffman, 74, who portrayed an auctioneer in "The Artist," has played supporting roles in other Best Picture nominated films, including "All the President's Men" in 1976, and the 1980 Best Picture winner "Ordinary People."

In "Courage, New Hampshire," he plays the role of colonial American solicitor Simeon Trapp, who is loyal to the Crown and speaks "the King's English," Hoffman said in an interview Thursday at Riley's Farm.

"It's approximately 1770, five or six years before the War of Independence started," Hoffman said. "And Simeon Trapp is not sympathetic to the cause of liberty in any way."

Hoffman's acting career spans decades, and he considers himself fortunate to have worked consistently since the early 1970s, with directors including Mario Monicelli, Robert Redford, Steven Spielberg and Sydney Pollack.

"What I want people to know is that I'm an actor who's relatively successful in this business, I've done a lot of great movies for great directors, and I want people to know that I'm as proud of my work in 'Courage, New Hampshire,' and I'm as proud of 'Courage, New Hampshire,' as I am of anything I've ever done."

So how did anyone decide an Oak Glen apple farm in the shadow of Yucaipa Ridge, about 80 miles east of Los Angeles, would look like pre-Revolutionary War western New Hampshire?

James Patrick Riley, 52, the owner of Riley's Farm, has the answers.

He's a founder of Colony Bay Productions, he's helping finance "Courage, New Hampshire," and he plays a leading role in the series. He's also part of the Tea Party, and he's been "surprised to learn how many Tea Partiers there are in Hollywood," he told The Hollywood Reporter last year.

He describes his family's 700-acre spread as a "living history farm," where visitors can step back in time to settings that evoke the Civil War and the American Revolution.

The community of Oak Glen dates back to the 1870s, but Riley says there's a need in Southern California for a place where youngsters and their families can experience American history that predates his apple orchard community.

Riley said he's been in Oak Glen since 1978. He said his family bought the original property from the Wilshires, a family that established one of the first homesteads in the area in the late 19th century.

Riley's Farm is a realistic location for a drama set in pre-Revolutionary War New Hampshire in part because the Rileys have built many structures "to reflect that period in American history," Riley said.

Riley, who studied American and English history at Stanford, says he has performed Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty" speech for thousands of visitors to his farm.

Period actors worked Thursday at Riley's with busloads of children, who came from San Diego and Orange counties and the Inland Empire, Riley said. The setting is intended to look like colonial America, and hopefully the attention to detail helps make "Courage, New Hampshire" authentic, Riley said.

"We try to keep it as accurate as we can," he said. "We do a lot of research on costumes, language, we read the journals of the justices of the peace at the time. Without being too pedantic, hopefully we're creating drama."

Fact and fiction have long been blurred in Hollywood. For the sake of entertainment, this Tea Party-backed group of producers and actors appear to be taking care of business their way, on the high west end of the San Gorgonio Pass.

"Colony Bay Productions is dedicated to telling the adventurous, heroic and exceptional story of America in a way that both challenges and inspires the audience," the company's website states.

"We're a small group of professional filmmakers, writers, actors and editors who love the independent way of bringing the story to the public, and you can help us continue to do that by purchasing our stories and subscribing to our web 'back stage.'"

To view trailers and episodes of "Courage, New Hampshire," visit colonybay.net.