Despite playing civic roles in more than 500 feature films and nobody knows how many TV shows and only theoretical numbers can be used to figure how many TV commercials, Long Beach tends to be camera shy when playing itself.

It can do Calcutta in one take (as it did in “BASEketball”), it barely needs to leave its trailer to do a turn as Baltimore (“As Good As It Gets”), it can do accents, like playing Beijing in “Red Corner,” and it can even outshine Los Angeles, as it did in “La La Land.” It’s done Miami way more times than Miami has, thanks to its Floridian palm trees and its poor man’s Biscayne Bay in Alamitos Bay.

But the city gets all introspective, shy and shaky when it’s asked to play itself. It starts yapping about “what’s my motivation here?” and storms off the set and sulks with the extras in the crafts services tent.

I’ll only grudgingly acknowledge the city getting some self-centered spots in the wildly fictional 2006 feature “Freedom Writers,” which wasn’t supposed to be fictional, but it made my beloved alma mater Wilson High look like a hideout for Somali pirates. And, while some scenes were filmed in Long Beach, the role of Wilson was played by Hamilton High in Los Angeles.

The last time I recall a show actually being set in Long Beach, it also was filmed outside the city. That was HBO’s “Getting On,” set in the fictional Billy Barnes Extended Care Unit of the deteriorating Mount Palms Memorial Hospital in Long Beach, California. It ran on cable for three seasons, from 2013 to 2015. It starred Laurie Metcalf, of both “Roseanne”s and Alex Borstein, who does the voice of Lois in “Family Guy.” I never saw it. Any good?

Coming to your idiot box starting Monday, Aug. 6, is AMC’s “Lodge 49,” a one-hour dramedy starring Kurt and Goldie’s son Wyatt Russell, playing a sort of Lebowskian/Spicolian slacker in search of something to make his life a bit more worth living. He stumbles into a member of the fraternal lodge, and then the fun begins!

The show, executive produced by Paul Giamatti, is set in the town of Long Beach, and crews have done a lot of filming here for the series’ first season, filming exteriors at several locations, including Bluff Park, a residence on 46th Street and the Bixby Village Golf Course.

Interior scenes, with the show’s talent, however, have been shot in the film-happy state of Georgia, according to show location manager Debbie Page. In fact, the show’s namesake Lodge is also in the Peach State.

So, yeah, you’ll get a lot of Long Beach scenery by the city playing itself, but a good portion of the production money is being funneled into Georgia. It’s OK; it’s always good to see our town getting work.

Tim Grobaty is a columnist and the Opinions Editor for the Long Beach Post. You can reach him at 562-714-2116, email [email protected], @grobaty on Twitter and Grobaty on Facebook.