Shooting Heroin – Red Carpet

By starrymag | April 27, 2020

By: Kelly Kearney

 

 

Q) I’ve been covering movies that were going to be coming out but now they’re going straight to On Demand and today is the day that many are being released. So, my question is, why should people watch this one, Spencer? Why should they rent it?

Spencer T. Folmar: Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, we did have a nationwide release and we had a red carpet. We were all gonna be together in person versus Zoom last night in Hollywood and yet here we are. And we considered the current situation that we have an contemplated delaying the release, but I think it’s important to get this story out now because despite all the efforts that are happening currently in the nation with the panic despite all the efforts that are happening currently in the nation with the pandemic the opioid epidemic is still taking lives and this is an important story to get out today. And I’m thankful that today we have the technology like this conference call that we can do this impromptu red carpet and that people can watch this film right now in the comfort and safety of their own home.

Q) Did you base this story on anything in particular?

Spencer: Yeah, I based this film on where I grew up in central Pennsylvania. I grew up it’s very rural rustbelt and I’ve had multiple classmates in my own class and surrounding classes that are passed away specifically from heroin overdoses.

Q) It’s such a heavy movie and maybe some of the actors can answer his but how did you keep things light on set while covering such a heavy topic like this?

Spencer: Yeah, it’s an interesting because the film comes out here in April, but I wrote the script two years ago. So, this is been my world for two years and I’ve done a lot of self-reflection recently and I like to hear from the actors as far as their perspective carrying this heavy load. But it’s a really heavy film. I mean, it Shooting Heroine is an R-rated drama and it’s dealing with weighty matters and thankfully we did a small or in the fall to engage with recovery groups and rehab centers and some of the areas that we filmed the movie and there’s so many stories. I mean, every single person I talked to (and I was making this film in Pennsylvania) … Everyone knew someone that they had lost. So, it’s been really heavy and I’m excited to finally get this film out into the world happy back should watch it now and hopefully it makes a positive impact.

Q) For any of the actors, can you jump in and just a sort of say what you did to blow off steam when you’re working on such heavy content?

Alan Powell: Yeah, I don’t want to speak for everyone else but It’s an interesting balance, right? Because certainly as an actor you want to be…I felt responsible to the concept and I felt responsible to those who have literally firsthand dealt with the matters that we were dealing with. Fortunately, for myself, I haven’t. So, the responsibility to step into that place emotionally and get as close to it as you can, to be able to portray truth…But I had the privilege in between takes or at the very least after we got done filming that scene. I’m not good enough of an actor to be like in it and then he says “cut” and I’m like out joking around and come back. So, like if I’m doing an angry scene, I’m not the guy you want to talk to between takes, but I had the privilege of being able to snap out of it. When we were done with the day or moving between takes, I don’t know. I like to literally shake it off and maybe like tell some stupid joke or smile or just laugh because I can’t allow myself to do that in the process of the scene. It would be Garry [Pastore] or Jordan and we did a number of really heavy scenes that we had to do and we would just be sad for a long time or I would just be sad and in that place for a long time and I appreciate you guys like Spencer creating an environment where we could we could live in that. You don’t feel the freedom to do that and everybody kind of understands the process. I think about who is supportive for those who were as we were going through that. I almost feel bad for everybody on this movie because like I said, I spent most of the time as this character in pretty dark and unhappy place and I’m not good enough to come in and out of it. So, I was probably pretty dark and heavy the whole time but I’m not that way all the time guys! I don’t know…Maybe Sherilyn [Fenn] thinks I’m a really big mad person. [laughs] I don’t know?

Garry Pastore: Can I weigh in here? First day I met my man over here, Alan, I didn’t know what to think. But I always give actors their space and probably the second day that we actually warmed up to each other and on the day, we shot all the bar scenes. That was done in one day and Alan and I really bonded that day. I’ll never forget when we were outside the bar shooting that scene that we heard these and it was a heavy scene in fact. From what I understand the whole crew was crying because of our performance, which is always kind of heartwarming. We had to stop because these emergency vehicles we’re making so much noise around the corner and next day we find out that three people had overdosed while we were shooting that scene. So, it really brought this whole thing that we were doing to a new perspective. I have to say, that was one of the most memorable days of shooting the whole movie and I actually liked Alan after that day!

Q) Sherilyn, I’d love to ask you if I may, what impacted you the most while working on this film? You’ve done a lot of great things throughout your career, of course everybody has, but for you in particular, I’m really curious to know what impacted you the most and working on this?

Sherilyn Fenn: Well, I think it’s Impacted all of us in a way by addiction in one way or another to varying degrees either personally or family members or friends. It’s an important message to get out there in a world where there’s so many superhero movies and that’s great. That has its place, but so does just telling real stories and exposing us to what’s going on. I learned a lot I mean. I met people on the set who had lost children this way and it’s just tragic. It’s unbelievable. It’s one of the many ways that the world, or our country, is just backwards and we really need to support some serious change which is, I think, connected to everything that’s going on as well, you know? It was just sad. It was a sad reality. Sometimes films have to luminate that, they have to. That’s what art is supposed to do in its purest form. It kind of gives voice to the difficult things…and I have blue freaking hair, so listen to what I have to say! [laughs] No, butI’m serious. This is what happens when you stay at home for too long. [laughs]. I’m having fun, but yeah, it’s a crazy, crazy world right now and this is one of the many aspects that is tragic and crazy. So, I’m proud to be a part of it and to work with Spencer, to work with everybody. It was amazing.

Q) Is there anything I should be really looking forward to in the movie? Anything that’s really going to blow me away?

Garry: Ah, I have something to say. We didn’t have a lot of rehearsal time, so we didn’t have a lot of shooting time. So, we kind of scrambled to give our performances and what we got out of it was, by the end of the day, we started to become that magic that usually happens on set. I always say the best stuff happens when the camera is rolling. We can all rehearse and try and memorize our lines. We all try get in that groove, the real magic happens when the cameras rolling and the unexpected happens. We take those moments of quiet weirdness, forgetting the lines, and we kind of jump in and do our own groove and that happened a lot on this movie. I think those magical moments between myself and Alan as we got to know each other, really, really made our performances what they were. I mean, I had never worked with any of these actors before and that in of itself was a great, great experience. The fact that we had little time, we knew it was a tight budget, we really didn’t know each other and that’s when the stuff starts to shine.

Jeremy John Wells: One thing that you know you won’t see in the film, of course, but um something that we all experienced onset is it’s a very different experience when you shoot outside of LA. And one thing that’s more unique and, in my opinion more enjoyable, is that you see the community kind of come out and part of it’s just curiosity because you know it’s kind of this, it’s an interesting process. If it’s not which you’re exposed to all the time but one of the things that was really inspiring to us is how engaged the community was. I think, and again to everybody’s point here, when you are in an area where so many people are affected by this story and it’s not a Hollywood story. It’s their story. It’s their brother’s stories. their cousin’s stories or spouse’s story and that was really you know it’s not as bad here as it is in some places and that was eye opening for me. But at the same time, it brought this kind of gravity, what was happening offset brought a respectable gravity to what we were already doing on set. I remember you’ll see this kind of pivotal moment in a scene, it involves a fire without giving anything away, the one thing to appreciate about that is we probably had seventy-five or maybe it felt like seventy-five or a hundred…I don’t know how many people were there, background actors and those are all people from the community, but what you don’t know is that they had been there from the morning doing a riot, protesting and they were all there until I mean literally the middle of the night. And the energy was palpable I was amazing and that was a really great experience.

Q) Nick, what was your experience filming in central Pennsylvania which is not at all like filming in Los Angeles?

Nicholas Turturro: That was very, very, very personal because you know you (Spencer) put me at your parent’s house. I got to know your parents, got familiar with your family. I was thinking, you know not just the movie but whole experience. Whenever you make a movie like that, which is personal to you, you always have like an experience that sometimes you remember more than the movie. I don’t mean it as a bad thing, but it just turns out that way. That you know where the location is and when I was a young, I was up in Rhode Island doing this movie Federal Hill and I was a young kid. I was staying at a dormitory with all these guys and his whole family was involved in the movie. Like your family, another mom and dad, so it becomes like a whole thing. A whole something that stays with you, which is nice, you know? Because it isn’t just always the movie sometimes. It’s the things that go into it, you know? Into people that had a hand in it that you remember. Sometimes you do something and you don’t remember anything, but I will remember Pennsylvania. I will remember you guys and the movie because that was the biggest part of it for me.

Q) So, Nick, initially attracted you to the script?

Nicholas: To do a part that was something different, you know? You always like to play different roles, different parts, and the pastor sort of thing…I like to try and not always play a cop or good guy or bad guy. So, just the fact that it was something a little different outside the norm. You never know what a movie, especially an independent movie…Sometimes you might do something and you don’t think anything of it and then all of a sudden you are a part of something really good. And you just never know. You just never know with a movie. You know I was in Blackkklansman and I didn’t know it was going to be that kind of movie. I did a couple of scenes and all of a sudden, I was like, “Wow, this movie is pretty good.” Then, all of a sudden, the movie gets critically acclaimed and sometimes it’s the one that you never think about and then people go, “Oh, it’s a hit!” I was just listening to Michael Imperioli about “The Sopranos” and now people always want to jump on like, “When did you know?” You don’t know. You never know. You could read something, and you think it’s on paper and then it becomes something great and then they screw it up, the execution of something. So, you never know. That’s the thing about independent movies. I mean, I just like that the spirit of making those things because I’ve made my own, my share of pilots, and I’ve been involved in a lot of those things. Abd even when I first started acting, I produced a movie out in Red Hook. New young guys were out there winging it. You remember that camaraderie is the spirit of making something because it’s hard. It’s hard made and even a junkie even, whether it’s good or bad it’s still hard.

Q) It was filmed in Pennsylvania, were there any problems getting permits for filming or any issues along those lines? What was the ultimate reaction from the locals?

Spencer: So, we filmed it where I grew up, which is very, very rural central Pennsylvania. It’s near Penn State University. The closest thing nearby, two hours from Pittsburgh and four hours from Philadelphia. It’s right in the middle of the state and the locals were actually very supportive of the film. The opioid epidemic has really hit hard in Pennsylvania in particular and the Rust Belt of rural America. There’s still an average of ten Pennsylvanians today that die from the opioid epidemic. There were people who volunteered their time and businesses that shut down and gave us resources. They were doing so because they believed in the cause and they were frustrated that there isn’t more media attention on this very important topic. And that’s why we made the movie. We wanted to just bring some light to the stark topic and talk about the opioid epidemic and, hopefully, give people who have dealt with it some hope. The community and the area were really supportive of that.

Q) When did you film this?

Spencer: Oh, it’s been so long ago now. It was October 2018, so it’s been a year and a half now.

Q) I thought the odds of Adam running down a kid on an ATV vehicle in a jazzy mask and having him be the actual kid transporting drugs was odd.

Spencer: Alan, you want to take this? Pat, you too. You helped us coordinate the logistics with this.

Pat Romano, Jr.: Yes, they are really a big think in Pennsylvania. It’s a legitimate thing for people to use so many off road vehicles.

Alan: Well, I’m not from PA but I had a good time driving those ATV’s. That’s all I know.

Q) What about you Jordan, we haven’t heard much from you. Jordan was Kenny and he used the off-road ATVs a lot from day one.

Jordan: I’ll let the film speak for itself, but I think Kenny got his fair share of cruising around on the ATV and of course of high-speed chases with our man Alan over there. And I remember there was one take that we did where Alan got blasted by a rock…

Alan: It’s true…

Jordan: …and it almost didn’t end very well. Have you recovered from that Alan? [laughs]

Alan: Oh man, I can’t use that finger anymore. [laughs] That was a fun time. Kenny popped a couple of wheelies and he did a lot of cruising on the ATV, that’s for sure.

Jordan: That’s a fun question. I guess we shot a whole bunch of times where Adam was pulling over people who weren’t the drug carrying people. But I’m just not sure that would have made the cut or very fun to film.

Spencer: But those were some of the best scenes in the movie. Those racing scenes and the train tunnel scene. Those locations are very remote. Most of central Pennsylvania has never been on film and probably won’t be anytime soon, but Pat can you talk a little bit about the logistics of getting the trucks out there to the railroad tunnels?

Pat: Yeah, that was something. Really quick, on the RVs and the side by side stuff. Stuff like that. Riding in the woods and things like that was an amazing thing out in a central Pennsylvania. It’s a big thing. As a matter of fact, a lot of the townships and communities the smaller municipalities were opening up their roads for shared use so that people can actually…You can get into your vehicle and you drive to avoid driving the supermarket. You can get around to do the different things and that’s how much of the townspeople advocate for this. Back to when Alan was chasing Jordan, if you can immerse yourself into what goes on here, we know what each other’s four-wheeler looks like. You can pick up on that just by looking at someone’s face. It’s very distinctive. You know who a person is by their helmet, things like that, and the luxury of having this in the production I was so sure rails-to-trails is in charge of the area where the tunnel was and they were very, very cooperative and helpful in coming out. It was about eight miles into the woods down a gravel path and we knew it was going to be a very late shoot. I was talking to Spencer and I’m like, “Listen, we gotta get the RV down there.” A couple of the other drivers were like, “No, we’re not going to do this. I suspect it’s gonna rain tonight. It’s going to be late. It’s going to be cold. You can’t do hair and makeup on the bus.” It was intense. So, I had a couple guys get up on the roof of the RV and we drove in and they trimmed everything back so we could get in there. And it’s funny because having it in there also gave us the opportunity for people to jump in there and get warm when they needed to. What was it, Spence? About 1:30 when everybody was hungry? We had to, by the contract, you have to have a meal. So, we were sending people to go pick up burgers and hot dogs and right off the back of the RV we grabbed a grill. We had basically a tailgate eight miles into the middle of the woods.

Spencer: Really the filming of this movie was a very immersive experience. The weather was trying at times and knowing that we were trying to light the house on fire, it was snowing and raining. Yeah, any kind of war stories that you remember? Sherilyn? Some of the more difficult times on sat or just to you know unique experiences?

Sherilyn: Well, it’s true that whatever happened in the house and living with Cathy (Moriarity) and the horse that lived across the way that I created this whole fantasy story with. It was amazing. I like filming like we’ve done because it’s kind of all of John Cassavetes. You just go and you have to just jump off and it’s a less controlled environment and that can be a really good thing. You always set the tone of peace and you know that’s really important, Spencer. It didn’t matter what was going on you. Spencer would be calm about it and I would be like, “It’s crazy! This is crazy.” But when everything was done, you just stayed calm and it was a good thing to observe. I respect that you did that and it taught me some stuff.

Q) You know when addiction is the theme characters are going to suffer and certainly Hazel does. How did you decompress from such a tense and violent performance?

Sherilyn: Oh my gosh. Well, it’s a weird thing. I think partially when you…I guess we all have our own way of doing it. I’ve been doing it for thirty-seven years. So, I find peace oddly in seeing and having to deal with people’s truths and my own and as I’ve gotten older. So, it’s harder to not look at that stuff and on some level I don’t know how. I don’t think there’s any one way. I think maybe in the past I would have drank wine and when I didn’t do that I think you just…I had the pleasure of living with Cathy Moriarity and we would talk about a lot of stuff and Garry came over once to make pasta and we talked

Garry: Yeah, that was fun…

Sherilynn: Yeah, it was fun. And for me it’s never been about pretending. So, in a way, it’s good just to be able to show your feelings and express things and try to understand. Or at least maybe not understand but respect and honor those parts of ourselves where it’s darker where it’s area where that’s a gift as an actor. So, you have to play this role and, of course, as just a person I would worry. I’m a mother. I have two sons. What if something happened? You know, especially now right but when you think about that and you go into the collective pain of the mom that did lose her children and you know it’s intense. It’s a weird business. It’s such a weird thing that we do, actually, but it’s oddly beautiful and therapeutic and painful. And for me, when I first started and I had a dramatic scene and then it would be over, “OK, Cut! Print! Moving on…” And then everyone leaves and you’re just left standing there with this stuff, but after so many years (thank God) it’s there. They’ve got you dealing with real stuff, you know? Thank God you’re being authentic and trying to grow and trying to…Somebody said there’s a crisis with adults in America. [laughs] And I swear, even with all this stuff happening that’s so negative and I don’t like to watch it, but I had to learn in a funny way, at 55, that life is beautiful and its scary and intense and that’s our job – to illuminate that human struggle. Just do it from the outside looking in like, “Oh, this is not how I was taught. I was taught you deal with whatever you stuff is,” ya know? It will touch people’s stuff and we all have that stuff; we all have it. Especially now we have it. We’re scared, we’re happy, we’re excited, we don’t know what the hell is going on. An actor kind of feels like that all the time. Or maybe It’s just that I do. [laughs]

Q) Spencer, this was shot in rural Clearfield, Pennsylvania and the location really gave it this American small-town feel. How does the cinematography add to the theme here?

Spencer: Thank you so much for all the press who’ve participated today. This is very personal as it was inspired by real people and true events that transpired in my hometown and we filmed on location where things that are tied in with my family and with me personally. I’ve been saying from the beginning, when I first started writing the script and we were looking at casting and production design and cinematography, that the area is like a character itself. It defines this film. It’s another member of the cast almost, this area right behind me. In the cinematography we wanted to get some beautiful shots to show that the natural beauty of Pennsylvania but also to show sort of the gritty situations. There’s a lot of handheld work giving it a real gritty kind of feel because it’s such a pretty region.

Q) Was there any consideration about turning this into a television series or a sequel or anything along those lines?

Spencer: So, this we say that this film is one of the very first narrative feature films on the current opioid epidemic of today which is shocking to me you know with the amount of deaths that have already happened because the opioid epidemic. Over between 150 to 200 Americans a day die just from the opioid epidemic. I would have thought they would already be a lot of cinema and a lot of television shows dealing directly with this topic and I hope that there is a lot. Obviously, we’re dealing with the pandemic right now, but I think that there needs to be more content made around this storyline. There are many stories that it did not include in the film. Unfortunately, there’s so much loss and tragedy connected with the opioid epidemic you could continue making films until there’s no more films to make. But I don’t have any plans to do anything else on the topic myself. This is my personal address to the opioid epidemic and I’m looking to move on to other topics. Sarah had texted what is next for Main. I have a film on a World War II epic on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and some other films. Hopefully, with some of our other cast members and television shows and looking forward to working on other topics as well there’s a lot of unfortunately dark areas of the world that need address can hope to address some of those in future shows and films.

Q) Spencer, can you talk a little bit about that Bonhoeffer project you’re working on if you can?

Spencer: Bonhoeffer is one of my heroes and it’s something I’ve I think I theologian pastor martyr that I’ve been studying for many years. I went to actually attended seminary and studied him quite a lot and the film is based on a lot of his historic writings it’s not based on any biography and I went location scouting in Germany and Berlin and we hope to make an announcement here soon about the development of that project and Rachel Hendrick she’s a sweetheart she supposed to join us here tonight she did incredible job in the film she really nailed her role is Britney and sorry she couldn’t be here tonight she was able to attend some of the screenings but she’s very gifted actress and I was fortunate to work with so many great actors and actresses here.

Q) For the cast, what advice did Spencer give to you that you took to heart? Maybe in considering doing this film or on set?

Alan: I remember a conversation you had with me as I was packing up my Volkswagen from Nashville, Tennessee to Pennsylvania and you just reminded me to actually look into what drug usage actually looks like and what a potential overdose might look like. That was kind of game changing, you know? I went from what I thought it was in my head to literally listening to and watching YouTube videos in a very safe manner for about a ten-hour drive to set and I never forgot that. So, I think that really probably changed the directory of whatever performance I gave. So, that’s like the first thing that sticks out to my head.

Garry: I think the only thing I really took in was getting there and guess two days before we shot and going out and meeting the locals and sitting in the bars and just getting into their vibe and trying to picture what it’s like to be in a crisis such a small heartwarming town up. I found that to be the most incredible part about this movie besides that you had this horrific opioid crisis going on basically what was the heart of America. You know corn fields and planes and mountains and you just you don’t expect it you feel like heroin’s gonna be a big problem in the cities like New York or LA in Pittsburgh and Chicago, but to come out to the rural Heartland of America and see how horribly this little town which really the film was based on had been affected by it really hit a nerve. It hit a chord. I remember meeting Alan and Jordan [Fitzsimmons]. We went to a bar we had some wings, we were watching the Michigan Penn State game, remember that guys? I will never forget it and that was like our first night out as a collective group hanging out with these local folks and trying to put that into perspective. Again, you know the night when Alan were in a scene outside the bar, which is a very poignant scene and here in comes the emergency vehicles responding to overdoses while we were shooting a scene about a drug overdose. If that doesn’t hit home, I don’t know what does?

Alan: For me, just shooting in your hometown, Spence, shooting at your old high school. Certainly, dealing with something that you’ve been forced to deal with in a personal way and to watch you deal with the personal side of that and watch you kind of put yourself out there in that way. For me, as an artist, certainly it felt like a challenge to rise to the occasion and as an actor that made it equally as personal for me. I was inspired by that and I think that whether it be as a writer…They say write what you know. The director will have to understand a subject matter or vision and bring it to life and actually get an understanding of why a character is dealing with – what they’re dealing with. So for me, just really inspired to see how you were handling all that and at the same time willing to allow other artists – Garry, myself, Jordan, Sherilyn, Cathy, Nick, anybody to come bring their perspectives as well while also it being something personal that you didn’t square peg into round hole somebody else’s performance or somebody else’s take on the character that you created. That’s always a fascinating thing for me to watch as an actor. You come in and you bring a character life that oftentimes your director imagined and so it’s kind of that baton hand off that is an interesting responsibility that all of us actors feel. But it’s also really interesting to kind of watch. Some directors do it better than others and, Spencer, I thought you did that really well. It’s a balance between being responsible to the character and more importantly the story that you created but also letting your artists be artists so that was something that I really watched you do, and thank you.

Nicholas: I’m glad I got to meet you and become friends with you and your family. The whole experience was really special, you know? I was shocked to see that happening in your town because it seemed like the American dream and it seemed like a perfectly beautiful place, but also the sadness that was kind of there too. But you always kept it positive, which was which was good. A tribute to you.

Q) Between the non-stop smoking and the drunk driving, I’m worried for the citizens of Whispering Pines. When you are dealing with these addition issues, is it possible people are trading one addiction for anther?

Spencer: Yes, that one was the tongue in cheek aspect of the script that as much as we can unite around a single cause or whatever that might be as much as we may like. I think the thesis of the script is that as much as we want to characterize someone as either good or bad or someone else as having a problem and ourselves not look in the mirror in addressing our own issues that these this town came together around the opioid crisis while also drunk driving while chain smoking. And that is the irony of human life as much as we are called to try to make a positive difference in the world and yeah that usually starts with ourselves. That’s just the complexities and greyness of life. It’s that you don’t want to watch people who don’t reflect yourself and you know well very complicated people.

Alan: That’s my favorite part of the story and, I think…And I will try not to ruin the movie for those of you that haven’t seen it, but the last scene for those of you who have you know what I’m talking about. It happened before too, but the last scene between my character and Cathy who played my mom, it’s that this isn’t a film where there’s good people and there’s bad people, and the good people have to stop the bad people, this is not that. This is flawed humans who are fixed on this one issue because it’s the thing that they can see. It’s that experience and personal loss, but it’s flawed people trying to fix a flawed situation without seeing their own flaws. That’s interesting, so you know I give credit to Spencer for the for the story that he constructed, which I think is philosophically entirely more interesting and truthfully more honest to the human experience than a typical kind of good versus bad story. Cathy is not on here but that was such an easy scene to do, Cathy is so good! I feel like I remember, Spencer, you prepping me for the scene and Cathy and I had worked together enough and rehearsed the scene before we start shooting. And you kind of wanted to talk about the scene and I was like…And I don’t know exactly what I said and no disrespect but, “Just roll the camera because she’s so good! I’m just gonna react to what she’s doing!” Cathy is incredible.

Spencer: She was a gift and incredible to work with. She’s the kind of actor that whenever you have the camera and you’re shifting focus, she knows exactly…Even if their backs are turned to the cameras, she’s got like eyes in the back her head. It was really something and you’re right. I had almost no notes to give at all or direction between you and Cathy because it was just smooth and spot on and what’s in the final cut.

 

 

*CONFERENCE CALL*