Show Notes
Melissa got a chance to sit down and chat with writer, director, producer, and more Michael Saquella about all things Saquella!
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Michael Saquella Interview
Melissa Serchia: [00:00:00] all right. This is spoiler country podcasts and I'm Melissa searcher tonight.
I'm excited to welcome actor director, producer, and writer, Michael Sapelo with us tonight. How are you doing today?
Michael Saquella: It's nice to meet everybody. Yay.
Melissa Serchia: We're happy. You're here. Very excited.
Couple of things that you're doing here, you're pretty busy. You're doing a lot of stuff.
Michael Saquella: yes I am Melissa. Sure.
Melissa Serchia: Well, I really want to talk about, dream round. It's just coming out on November 10th. And, I'd love to hear more about what inspired you to write this movie and to produce this movie. as I understand it's about, a little bit about golf, a little bit about loss.
if you want to talk more about that and tell us, you know, what we have to afford you with that
Michael Saquella: dream round is. Yeah. I don't know if it's a romantic [00:01:00] comedy. If it's a sports film, maybe it's a sports picture with a little bit of romantic comedy with it. All ages, PG 13 type of project. What inspired me was back in the middle two thousands, 2005 and six.
I was playing a lot of golf and I thought in my head, you know, in your mind, you always think you can do something, but you really can't. But I thought I could be a pro golfer. So I practiced a lot and I went out and I make movies, of course, acting, producing, directing, and doing a blue show all over the country.
So I would play golf and I just, one day had an idea. You know, what, if I did a cool golf movie, like Tim cup, tin cup with Kevin Costner, like I got to do something. I want to something fun. So I got a great swing. So I figured it. So that's how it started. Then we went after Morgan Freeman, the play that ghost in the film.
No, we couldn't raise the money we had, we need a million. So we gave up on it later on in 2018, 19, I did a rewrite with Lisa [00:02:00] Houston, a writer in Arizona, very talented young lady. And we came up with an incredible story from the original script and a, basically a gentlemen that could have been a pro golfer.
Gave up golf to raise a family, to a daughter and a son and a beautiful wife and a great life, but he works too much. He couldn't pay attention to anything but his job to pay the bills and to grow in life. Well, to see the wife gives him a kiss and says they were going out shopping. But, well, I got a big Christmas present for you.
Take some time off. We saved up enough money. Take a year to take two years off, write a book. You know what? You should go back and play golf. You could have been a pro gold take up golf and they leave or killed in a car accident that night on Christmas Eve. So the movie starts 15 years later. And he's in a trailer park.
Hasn't shaved in days, he smoked cigar. He listens to golf. He doesn't do anything. He was a bum and he blew up about a hundred pounds. So he's sitting around and this little, 10 year old girl played by Alexa Lowman, [00:03:00] a local Phoenix. Actually, she was on her way up. She's very talented. She comes by and drives the schedule bona nuts.
Every day I go, I'm at your boner and he's like, no, what do you want every day? She comes up on her scooter and drives this guy nuts. Well, One morning, he wakes up and there's a guy sitting by his bed, but he doesn't realize it was a ghost. And it's like his wife channeling through an ex pro golfer who passed away many years ago.
So this guy is going to rush them out of bed, get them up, get them cleaned up, have him shave and go off to the golf course is going to get them playing golf again. So as they go through, when he starts practicing, the little girl gets invited by the play with them. They go have a little lunch, they have some Apple pie and he's a waitress.
The waitress knows him from when the wife first passed away and she kind of has the hots for him. The little girl hooks him up, plays the matchmaker and know that's where the love story starts saying he starts playing, but he cannot be his nemesis. The pro two guy in the course, the pro has to be, to make the pre-qualifier played by Richard Grieco from 21 jump street.
If looks could kill, you know, mobsters [00:04:00] yet good looking guy. I had his hairline and I'd make a million dollars. You know what I mean? So Richard's let us to guys, you know, and he, you know, he's a real guy and good luck in life. Get sin. Body slammed really ripped still at his age. 39 whatever. And so we, I have to beat them and I can't be in them.
There's nothing I can do. My character just can't take until he relaxes. So as he builds relationship up, it gets stronger in one night. It happens. He makes love for the first time in over 15 years. So the waitress. And the next morning he's up flipping pancakes is cooking, dancing, and singing in the kitchen on amazing new man.
So he goes back out to the course and he beats Richard. He beats the character, the program for not only beats him, he smashes him. BCF drives him, me, touch them. Anyhow, chip shots from everything is better than him. Now we know who Joe bono was 15, 20, 30, 40 years ago. So Joe has to go to the pre-qualifier.
He wins the pre-qualifier. He makes the big Arizona open. [00:05:00] That's all I'm going to tell you, but it's a great love story. The dog, little 10 year old becomes his daughter kind of like adopted daughter. And, it's just a real fun. And actually my mother and some other women went to the screening before it opened in theaters.
And I saw all these women crying and they had to show no one, Oh, you don't, I'm looking at my shelf. And I'm like, eh, you know, I'm overweight, whatever, but the women were crying and this movie, so I guess there's a little bit of a tear-jerker to it too.
Melissa Serchia: You're touching people as well. Like it's touching their hearts, like getting them involved emotionally.
I think that's great. Is there a little bit of comedy in it as well? Like a little dry humor.
Michael Saquella: Oh, yeah. You talk about comedy. Oh my God. When I first started playing golf, you know, you can't bend over, can hit the ball. The club goes flying. Are you? Oh my gosh. Yeah. And the little girl is so cute. He's trying to relearn how to putt and she's eating potato chips.
He says, come on your mind. And he can't fuck. Cause every time he goes to punch, he's crunching the chips and then. [00:06:00] And then she stops and puts it away. She pulls up bubblegum. So he starts to play again. Now she's blowing bubbles. It's like, it's so cute. And it's not only there. It's fun with the relationship, you know, like.
Some people sleep with Teddy bears and some people sleep with two, three, four pillows. Well, my character sleeps in golf clubs and there's a real funny, there's a real funny love scene, you know, with clothes on that happens with the golf club, but you're going to die laughing that when you see it's really funny.
So yeah, it is a comedy, it's a sports comedy with, you know, in a cool twist to it because you don't get to see middle-aged. Little overweight men would know, you know, balding going out and winning the open or, you know, a Rocky story. We'd golf, you know, you know, I'm not built like rockier, you know, Stallone or sports and anger.
I definitely don't look like Jason stadium. My hair does, but not my body. So, you know, and you read the reviews on that film. And my last one before that, and you hear the critic saying, Hey, you know what, we'll be launching pad for a low budget. [00:07:00] It was, you know, cute, whatever, but you know what we really liked.
Michael's equals performance because. He was like average Joe. He was the kind of guy that never gets to play the hero. We always see these good look and rip guys, and it was refreshing to see a guy like that built like that, like us out there doing it and playing the lead role in a movie. And we could laugh at it and enjoy because we don't have to worry about our girlfriends staring at our stomachs.
That's hanging over on BeltLine. Well, that guy's ripped on the screen. And I had a couple of reviews like that and it really made me smile. And I'm not saying it because I'm trying to get my ego or blow up my head. It really happened. And it's kind of nice. That you go out and you do that and people respect
Melissa Serchia: it.
Yeah. That's relatable. It makes it very relatable. And I mean, you just decide, you know, half of the people out there they're trying to play golf that, you know, everyone wants to be pro of course there's always that fantasy. you know, didn't you said you did play a lot of golf beforehand. Did you have a trainer at all that helps you with your screen for the movie at all?
Michael Saquella: no, but I didn't start playing golf till [00:08:00] later in life. And. I was playing golf on a golf course. I have a friend of mine and a movie got me into it for a minute. I went to a golf course in Arizona and I saw the sky, one of these huge putters, really big putters and, you know, double handled. And it was like pulling from his face and he was watching me and he goes, I can help you kid.
And I was a kid back then I got to help you straighten your game. The God game. I don't even care. I'm just out here having fun. It was horrible. Moody was a great golfer pro golfer. And he taught me, we played around a little bit. And I got better, not great, and then grit, real friends in real life. And we did a movie called forget about it together with Burt Reynolds and Ratko Wells and Richard and I would sneak off set to play golf.
We played every day, you know, we played before or after we were shooting and plan the weekend and it was always a competition. I could not beat Grieco. So he was kind of like my trainer and we worked really hard every day and he would help me. You know, he's not what people think they're. Some of the actors are [00:09:00] really nice to some out there that are not, but Richard was really nice.
Took a liking to me. We became like brothers, his father had a crush on my mother. My mother had a crush on his father, both single parents at the time. And so we would go out and Richard would really help me. And, you know, then I got, I met some pros at a golf course in Arizona that took me out and said, no, you're doing it all wrong.
They changed my stance. She changed my swing. And after just a few rounds, they had me go out and do two a days like they do in football, like the NFL training for football. That's what we did with the golf. We went out and we did all these, Oh my God. I have so many balls. My hands were blustered, but then I went.
Richard's dad flew in from New York. We all went to play at the Phoenician and Arizona really great golf course. And I beat his father and him and I finally broke car. Then I knew I had something. So he was my trainer.
Melissa Serchia: Yeah. So he was kind of like your, Infor inspirational nemesis competitor in real life.
And then he became that in the movie for [00:10:00] you as well.
Michael Saquella: Yeah, exactly in real life, because I tried to beat him so bad. I could never beat him in real life. Finally, I did. And then the same thing in the movie, same thing happened and now we're too old to play. Can barely get the ball out of the fricking green.
Melissa Serchia: That's true.
Michael Saquella: I look good for 96. You know what I mean? I look really good.
Melissa Serchia: Yeah.
I think we all do at this point, this pandemic, everything everyone's still in feeling it, feeling old. no, we were talking about your Italian you're from the East coast,
Michael Saquella: right? Absolutely. New York morning, upstate New York. First-generation mom and dad were born in Italy.
Melissa Serchia: Perfect. Yep. Same first generation.
My dad was born with this a week. Where are your parents from in
Michael Saquella: Italy? outside of Naples called Avellino, their little Providence about Molina was called can live in the side of a mountain.
[00:11:00] Melissa Serchia: And where are you growing up in New York? You know, I'm sure had some interesting experiences. There is like a whole community in New York of Italian civilians.
You know, what was that like when you were like, I want to be an actor because you gotta a good, you know, support from your family and friends.
Michael Saquella: Well, we did grow up in a big, heavy, heavily populated Italian neighborhoods. And back then, I really didn't want to be an actor. I was, I had a gift to be a baseball player and went to Arizona state to play ball, and I played great ball up there.
And, you know, I could smack home runs and I mean, I was really into baseball. The acting didn't hit me until my middle teens. So I was already pretty much grown up. And then when you leave, I left for Arizona at 18 and I never went back. So, you know, we were in spaghetti and pizza or they were, and I was playing ball.
Melissa Serchia: You say both for a long time [00:12:00] or just through the college or w what made you stop playing ball?
Michael Saquella: so I came out and played ball, hurt my finger at my mother's work. What to see my mom one day at a factory where she was a plant manager, I think anyways, the machine was broken and I was a smart ass and I thought I could fix it.
So I stuck my finger in it to fix it. And it was a laminator laminated, copper to vinyl or whatever, and it closed and it was 300 pounds in degrees. And I wrecked my index finger. I couldn't smell the ball anymore, so I kind of quit, but what really made me quit? Is, I did a Western call, Frank calls in town, the metal lady.
And she was a wardrobe lady in school when we were doing theater. And she was working at a wild West town way out East where Elvis did the movie Charo. And everybody worked there from Kirk Douglas to John Wayne. So that was called the patchy land movie ranch. I got a job as a stunt man. I never done that before I do shootouts.
I got killed seven times a day on a weekend, you know, So they came [00:13:00] through a Vern peel or some big Western director comes through and they're doing a movie and I really wanted to be in the movies. And, they couldn't find a kid that needed a 19 year old kid to play it. The young brother that it was called Frank Coles in town.
They Rob a bank. And then I'm going to go to New Mexico. And it held up here at a small town in Arizona. And Frank Cole has been wounded and everybody is in the hotel shooting and hanging out for the whole movie, except for me. And I'm with the mayor's daughter, but I get killed at the end of the picture and I got the blood, I got it in my blood.
Oh my God. I want to do this the rest of my life. That's when it really hit me. And, you know, everybody says you got to come to LA to come to LA. So I went to LA and I slept on a buddy's couch. Right. Yeah. So that's how I quit baseball.
Melissa Serchia: Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Well, now you've got a lot going on with acting and your writing, which is amazing.
producing draft day. They're very involved. You have your own production company called passes through entertainment. when did that [00:14:00] come about? How did you
Michael Saquella: start that up? Cactus blue came about five years ago. four or five years ago, I just had a bunch of different names for companies. And I wanted something to remind me of the desert.
You've got fine line new line Morgan Creek. You had to Tristar this star, that star, you know, and I was like, ah, what do I want? You know, so I came up with cactus blue. On a team. I love cactuses. What am I gonna, I can't call cactus purple. Okay. So senior year I'm and I liked it in the initial CBE were pretty cool.
So I formed a corporation and, you know, that's my production and my distribution, but it's not the big investment company that will bring the money through. And then we funded into the project, but cactus blue, it's my home run right now.
Melissa Serchia: Good. And you've got quite a few projects going with that.
Michael Saquella: Yes. I had forget, sorry.
Start all over again. The first one we did [00:15:00] with that one. Was a movie called El coyote with me originally started Tom Sizemore, but we had to take them out because of his past. They wouldn't buy the film and had the two great Italian actors that had, John Kappa Dietschy from Iceland tour, but detective and the Phantom and an ad Bobby Q stands out from diehard to and from Goonies and.
A bunch of great Italian actors and had some Hispanics and it was the Italian mafia versus the Mexican cartel. And that phrase was when was the last time you saw the mafia down and take care of the cartel? You never, so I love that
Melissa Serchia: script.
Michael Saquella: Yeah. So it's, so, you know, in that film, I'm the lead. I didn't direct it, but I wrote it co-wrote it produced it and started it.
And it was a great if we had more money, it could have been amazing. But you know, we had a small budget did well. COVID helped a lot in the digital market. It's still out there worldwide 67. Country's doing very well. You know, you can watch it on prime or wherever. Then the next picture we did was [00:16:00] the dream round.
That's coming out now. And with myself, Richard Grieco, Heidi Thompson, I mean Heidi Kaplan, Alexa, Lowman and others. And then while Kobe was hitting, he had written. script in 2015 called Carolina's calling, which I really like is a comedy. And it's about an alien that gets shot down by a beam of light or energy from earth who's around our satellites because our satellite singles signals are killing their brains on their planet.
Four light years away. So he's supposed to seek and destroy, but he gets it and he crash lands in South Carolina. After five years, we meet our character and his name is Bob and he drinks beer. my name was Bob bicker, spell my name for the Becker Bob. You don't want to want a beer anyways. Antonios bottle jr.
A member of the Calvin Klein. He ran for progress. He was a soap opera
Melissa Serchia: general hospital. Yeah,
Michael Saquella: he's my, Female lead. I directed it and my female I'd Stacey dash [00:17:00] from clueless, no money, beautiful and very talented. She out acted everybody on the film. we had, we had Jason, no, Jacob Hopkins. You may have had them on your show already.
Jacob is very talented on the Goldbergs. He, he did an amazing job on the film with us. He, He was the love interest of the bottle Junior's daughter. Anyway, so the there's two engineers who developed continuous energy. One of them I played, but I died in the very beginning of the mommy. And Antonios the other one.
Once they get the energy, no one wants to give them any money because it will be the end of fossil fuel. So he moves to South Carolina from California, and that's where she falls in love with Hopkins. And he falls in love with dash. And then these dreams that he's been having come true. And he sees this barn and he meets Charlie and his drunk, older hick takes him in and he meets them.
And not only does Bob, you know, he meets this eight foot tall alien. It was cute as heck and funny, but he speaks redneck English. And then I [00:18:00] directed in that we're working on a Thanksgiving release, but I don't think so. It's just so many effects. It looks like probably February or release. We've got interest from a major studio, not going to mention the name, cause I don't want to kill the deal, but I'm actually moving up in the world and they want worldwide rights, but they don't want the Astrical rights because they think it's a good B-movie, but not an a, and if I can and make it an a minus movie by reshooting some scenes, we have a really strong possibility for a big theatrical release in February.
So that's what kick this blue has been doing. And we're known to. Netflix, Amazon prime type of shows doing a prequel to El coyote, the Italian mafia thing. So the main character, my character, and that would be more like a Walter White from breaking bad. And he didn't mean a time that works. He owns his own restaurant.
He's involved with the cartel and he goes, okay, cleaning money for the cartel. And there's always in every episode, there's always a problem. And also [00:19:00] we. Some big YouTubers that have millions of viewers that make a lot of money every month approached me. And because I've got a lot of hits on my YouTube new page.
Not as many as there I'm in the a hundred thousand they're in the millions. Multi-millions said they wanted to do a Halloween show because my art director that did the alien movie and my Italian mafia, a Mexican movie, he used to do all the sets for Disney at Disneyland. So when you go to digital and all those things that you see were built, the pirates of the Caribbean, all those things were built by this guy.
His name is Sid Kramer, and said, Can build incredible sets. So we want to do a show, like a 15 minute thing once a week on YouTube called the man who stuck in a haunted house can never get out. Once he goes in, he can't get out and everybody comes and goes and he hangs out with people and he's friends with everybody.
But the end of the night, when they got to leave, they leave, but he can't go. And then the only he's, there's 12 heads in a room there that are dead, but when he's in there, they talk to them, anybody else walks and they [00:20:00] freeze. So each head's an episode of a series of the show, so they would tell their story and then we would go with him and see the blood, the guts, the horror, whenever it would be that how they got killed.
And at the very end of the series, I can't tell you, but it's pretty cool. That's what I'm working on. And you know, yeah. That's what cactus, this blue entertainment's working at me. I have other things happening too.
Melissa Serchia: Okay. Yeah. I saw the trailer for Carolina calling and I was really, it looks so good back with me.
Cool. I was watching, you know, that quick, I think it's like a five minute trailer. but it looks big. I just really, I liked that there's a little comedic element to it and I'm a big scifi fan. So, are you're being scientists and sewer? Is this the first time you've kind of delved into it?
Michael Saquella: No, I'm a Saifai fan since.
Oh, man. I used to lay on my cars when I was 17, 18 and upstate New York and just stare and come get me. I want to go. So then [00:21:00] I started watching the films and I always used to pick them apart. All the science fiction to me, they were all, Oh my God, before I was a filmmaker, but I'm a Trekkie. You know, I'm not like a die hard Trekkie, but I love the new cast.
I love Chris pine and those guys are incredible. I hope to God, they mean, I really want the one to go with the guy that did pulp fiction, to direct sure. Quintin Tarantino is supposed to direct him. Oh, I want to see it. I want it to be all, but you know, I want to go to space. I'm getting too old, like dream about it all the time.
And I've written several science fiction projects. I wrote one called beyond and back that never got funded. You know, a little girl that was kidnapped and in a middle-aged middle-aged man later in life gets kidnapped the same spot and he ends up bumping into this girls now growing up and they have a love affair on another planet.
And he brings her back to earth. I wrote that, but that never went anywhere. And you know, then I got the Carolina's calling and I got another one called outer man, because you know, the Avengers were [00:22:00] huge. And it's justice league. So outer man is just, it's just a guy that it's the same character that, you know, everybody likes the donut shop guy, the mechanic, whatever that, but he doesn't live here.
He lives, you know, five, 10, 12 light years away, a hundred light years away, but he's watching earth and he's in love with an American actress, but it takes two days to get the signal three days. And he's watching all our TV because he's in love with this, like a Jennifer Aniston type of girl. You know, I wrote that and he, there's a war between him and the answers are like a giant lizards, a talk.
And he has to stay there delivering the fastest ship in the whole universe. And it's a slip ship. They call it's faster than anything we've seen in star Wars or star Trek or any of those. And they're delivering it because his dad owns the company and he. He decides to slip away when he hears that the woman that he loves been kidnapped on art.
So he comes to earth to save the day and finds out. She's not good. She's finds out she's rotten. She can't stand [00:23:00] it. And he finally catches when he finally gets her and brings her back and they're involved. She got taken in by the telephone and they wanted like a hundred million dollars to buy weapons and he saves the day kind of, but then the answers come in from another university or another.
Star system or no, whatever, you know, I mean solar system and they come out and all hell breaks loose on earth and he goes back to his planet, all depressed and he ends up marrying his ex wife again, who was six foot something tall. And she's a rollerblader, but they don't use rollerblades. They got like jet engines on there.
Melissa Serchia: Yeah.
Michael Saquella: Yeah. I love science fiction. Yeah.
Melissa Serchia: That's great. You know, I think it might be interesting to have like, didn't think about doing like mafia and stay right. Chasers in space, how they would handle that.
Michael Saquella: Yeah. I thought about it, but you know, how a heck, I mean, I can barely get enough money to do these little films.
How are you going to raise money for that? That's a great idea. That's a great [00:24:00] idea.
Melissa Serchia: Yeah. Well, a lot of your ideas to kind of sound like they would translate really well to comic books for a graphic novel. Like, have you ever thought about doing
Michael Saquella: that? adopting in the FA a novel to a screenplay. Yeah.
Melissa Serchia: Or like a comic book, like making, you know, doing a graphic novel with them, you know?
Cause your ideas, I think they seem to, they would translate well to that
Michael Saquella: format. Yeah. Well, I thought about it and we worked on it and there was a superhero in a wheelchair that Stanley owned the character from the Marvel comics, the guy that took Stanley's cup. Public took his company public. and I hooked up and he had the rights for a little while and then he left.
Awesome. And we were going to talk about maybe me playing that character, a thought about it. And then, you know, I mean, there's a lot of books out there that I love that we'd like to make into movie saw and then I've written. So, I mean, I read some great ones. Yeah, I really liked the Stephanie plum series that was written by, she just passed away to [00:25:00] great writer.
Janet Evanovich Janney. And that series, but then you got that girl from Grey's anatomy that decided to do it herself. She raised the money, she was the executive producer and she made it and it was terrible. If you got a guy from Chicago planter, daddy's a new Yorker. And then they got some total white grandmother had no tiny accent whatsoever in that movie.
It was all Italians and anyways, but, and then I got, you know, when there's someone like Clive, cluster's got some great books. James Patterson and James Panisse, the zoo was a big series for a while and it was just, I mean, my favorite by Stewart Margolin, Phillip Margolin Margolis wrote a book called gone, but not forgotten.
I want to make that movie. I couldn't put it down. I mean, that movie, that book, I read it from cover to cover in. I started in the morning and I'm about 400, like six, seven in the morning. And I didn't finish the four the next day in the morning and couldn't put it down [00:26:00] and I'm going to make that movie. I said, I'm going to make it.
And then Brooke shields made it for TV movie. Come on, man.
Melissa Serchia: There's like this, that I talked about this with some of my friends that are in the industry. There's like this weird thing where we need to put something out into the universe. If you don't. Necessarily act on it. It seems like somebody else does, you know, and somebody, you never knew he could never have predicted that they would have had the same idea as you, but there is kind of the strange thing, like where you received something I could have, I invented that or, you know, I thought about that first and then, you know, someone else does it.
So do you ever find yourself kind of seeing that happens and you know, watching a movie and you're like, wait, I have this idea of 10 years ago.
Michael Saquella: Can I tell you two real quick?
Melissa Serchia: Yeah,
Michael Saquella: one, one, my ex-girlfriend my little girl, that little she's 20 going to be 21 she's university of Kentucky. Her mom invented the pouch tops for the tuna fish [00:27:00] and how we did it.
We went and we went in and started doing it and gotten prototypes and went out and she'd started doing it all. And then, well, I don't know if we ran out of money or I got sidetracked cause we didn't really get along. We fought a lot and we stopped. And then many years later she was so mad at me because it came out, somebody else did it.
She also had the idea of filming, fixed fixer uppers. You know, you've got your renew, your home. And then she had that idea. But the biggest one of them all that today still irks me is that I met. My first picture was with Steven Spielberg. It was called 1941 probably before you guys were born, but we shot it in 78 and 79 at universal studios and Columbia, it was a code venture.
They spent 40 million. I worked a lot on it. I got to go to use cars that they were doing in Mesa, Arizona, out of here. I had just left here and moved to LA and I'm coming back and I'm here and it was Bob Galen, Robert Zemeckis. They were a writing team producing team and director Robert Zemeckis. We know Forrest Gump.
[00:28:00] Back to the future, you know? Oh my God, Castaway. He directed all of those. Well, anyways, so Bob Gale and I are talking, they're writing partners and he goes, well, don't tell me, don't tell me, cause I may steal it. So I told him, I said, I got this idea. It's called rollover, Beethoven. And it was about going back in time and it was going back and bringing in and bring in Beethoven to the future who falls in love with the music teacher bubble.
I had a great idea and a lot of the parallels, a lot of the back to the future stuff. So I told them all that and I never registered it. I didn't know how to register my script. I gave him the script and then four years later we finished in 80. Yeah. Five years later here comes back to the future. it was really, I was upset because I mean, they changed it, but it was the same concept and had a lot of the same stuff that I told them that, you know, that whole thing where he plays the guitar and he blasts, we did the same thing with a violent thing in my script, five years before Dave wrote it or came out, I got where Beethoven and he's in there and he's got a [00:29:00] kid playing a violin and they plug it into an electric thing and they blow everybody's here though.
Cause it's a rock concert.
So to answer your question. Yes. That has happened more than
Melissa Serchia: once. Yeah, it happened at some point. He just got it. You got to tell your own perspective though, you know, even if it's something similar that maybe other people have done, you know, a lot of ideas to kind of get recycled, but it's your voice and your, you know, your side of the story.
So I think that if you still want to tell that story, you should, that's my opinion.
Michael Saquella: Yeah. Well, Carolina's calling it's different. But most of the time, everything is the same. It's, you know, love stories and love story actions, action comedies, come in. There's just so many, there's only seven or eight different types of films and Carolina's calling yes, science fiction, dance and alien, but it's different.
And when was the last time you saw an alien drink? Beer, get drunk. Can talk funny.
Melissa Serchia: Yeah, I saw that clip. [00:30:00] It was hilarious. I have see
Michael Saquella: that. Wait T and meet. When you see the film, you'll meet him and he's got beer spilling all over the first day. It constantly goes to the refrigerator throughout the movie, drinking bearer.
Oh man, I need another beer. Well, that's too much from my head. You know, he drinks beer to make his head filled better.
The stories that are different though are true life story, you know, when something happens, a tragedy or, human, what do you call it? A try and throw a tragedy or people that don't expect it to make it, and they make it like Rudy and some really great, inspiring pictures that make it says a lot of like Angelina Jolie lately that she did the Jim Thorpe picture and.
Those kinds are different than the normal Hollywood types. So if you can get a good, true story, that's always a good piece. Yeah.
Melissa Serchia: Well, I think there's probably a lot more heart. a lot of times with indie films, you know, rather than the big [00:31:00] traditional they budget one, or, you know, people kind of get lost on that.
And I feel, I mean, you could probably elaborate on this, but with an indie film, I mean, you probably all like a big family, right?
Michael Saquella: Well, yeah, you're right. You're all like a family.
Melissa Serchia: Yeah. It's more individualized, more personal. You guys said inspire each other and work off
Michael Saquella: each other and it's freedom.
You get to do what you really want to do. And you get to put the look from the pages onto the screen. The big boys cut. Rip pages out. Cut it. Let's go. Move on. Or they tell you what to do. Nope. Some executive that doesn't have any experience on the field, but he's a big shot with the checkbook or whatever.
And he comes in and says, Nope, cut it. I don't like it. Who is? That's what I hear from, because I worked on eight pictures, I get little parts and eight pictures and I get major roles in a smaller picture. So I've been around the big ones and I've got friends that are in the pictures and you'll hear all these stories and.
That's exactly what they say. The [00:32:00] execs come in and they tell the director what to do or they fire them. So you never really like, like right now they've got, the movie, the justice league that came out and it bombed. I mean it did. It did. Okay. But now they got the new cut, the original director that everybody loved that they gave the money to, they got fired.
He's doing his cut and that's coming out in the beginning of the year. That's going to be on HBO max. And I think in limited theaters. And when you see the trailer, it just, it's just the hair in the back of your head stands up. It's like, wow. When I saw that new trailer, I thought it was a brand new band.
I don't even know what it was way better than the original trailer. And I can't wait to see it.
Melissa Serchia: Yeah, no, I think everyone's really looking forward to it. It looks so much better because the other one just terrible,
Michael Saquella: but so that's the difference. See, what happened is executives came in, said, Nope, we're over budget goodbye.
Then they bring a guy in or whatever. There's always arguments because the director can't be created where the writers are told to do this and not that. And they had to rewrite them. They run a beautiful script and everybody [00:33:00] changes scripts all the time. No matter, you know, you take a script, they buy it, they change it.
You got a green light, you get funded, they change it. It's like, unless you're an Indy, going back to your questions. If you're an independent producer director, then you can make pretty much, unless you got a hard nose, money guy and the money's going to be paid back by a certain day, you got to get your film out.
Then you have, but most of the time they can make what they want to make. And most of the Indies. Are crap. Sorry, but there are a handful of great ones, but all the little BC being movies that come out of no good, every little town in America has filmmakers and everybody puts out these films. Most of them never make it.
And th, and I've got all these people on the social media advertising, this film. And I, from every time I go to Facebook or Instagram, I see all these Indies and I'm looking at them and you watch the trailers and, Oh my God. And there's a movie opening in, out here at a theater chain called hearkens at the end of the month.
There's a piece of crap. it's a Western, Oh my God, [00:34:00] no stars, all local actors. Some of them can act. And, you know, some investor put up half a million bucks, 200,000 whatever, and they're never going to see a dime, you know, and those guys are gonna end up in prison or are they going to be paying the rest of their life in a lawsuit?
It's just like, you know, wow, sorry.
Melissa Serchia: no. Like I got to, I think like, I'm curious, you know, cause I do think like you were saying, it's kind of oversaturated. Everyone's trying to. Climbed to the top and they don't know what they're doing. How do you personally, like, keep your stuff relevant and current, and how do you like fight through all of the, you know, all that stuff, all that noise and kinda like, make yourself stand out.
Like, what are you doing for that?
Michael Saquella: All my pictures get distributed. Not all of them make theaters, but I get them all out. And why? Because. I'm tenacious. I don't quit. I don't give up. And I have a really good eyes. So when we're filming or writing or whatever we're doing, I paid attention to.
Everything from what's on the [00:35:00] paper to what I put on the screen. I make sure we parallel the bigger movies to real noise. So when I'm doing stuff, I always I'm like one step ahead. I do continuity while I'm directing. I do continuity while on even acting. I want to make sure that the rooms are, well decorated.
So when you see a low budget film on these. These pictures never go anywhere. They got nothing on the walls or they've got a police, they got an interrogation, or they got something in a police officer and he got one, one a poster up and something else. You got to plaster the walls. We got to plaster to death.
You have to make it look like a mess coffee cups. So you gotta make it look real. So that's my big thing. About low budget pictures. You got to have a great camera. Great camera crew. You got to pay them money to get people to know how to shoot. You know how to get the angles and you gotta decorate your stuff.
You gotta have your sets gotta look amazing and you gotta have a great talent that, your DP director photography has some know what the hell he's doing. And audio is really important. People forget about, they put all the money in the actor or whatever, but you got to have great sound guy. Cause lousy sounds a lousy [00:36:00] movie.
Yeah. Does that help you at all with that? I'm sorry. I mean, I could go on forever on that side.
Melissa Serchia: Definitely not. I think that helped a lot. I think that's really interesting because, you know, we don't hear the process a lot other times, you know, with the Andy film and how it's being made from the ground up and what you have to go through.
And I'm sure it's stressful at times, and it's fun at times for you, but you know, for you, you seem very passionate about making these movies. do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind the camera? what do you prefer? What is your well,
Michael Saquella: I'm an egotistical maniac when think I want to be in front, but I want to be in bed.
Of course I want to be in front of more than the bag, but I love the rank producing is becoming a pain in the, you know, what. Directing. I have a really good passion because I'm an actor and I take my time and I pulled performances. When you see Stacy Dash's performance, when her ex-boyfriend ex-husband beats her the crime scene that we did, you can blow your way, but I had to redo it and do it.
Then I had to pull this local [00:37:00] actor. I had to make him her quality and I had to get everybody out of the room and I worked with him. And then when he shot a scene, I yelled and screamed at him to get them up to the level I wanted. And he gave me a performance of a lifetime. When you see the scene between the two of them, it looks like a big two, eight actors.
So it looks like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt fighting each other. It's amazing. What I got. Well, I do have a passion, but I like acting. I'm a community and I'm an actor. I'm a blues singer. I want to be on stage. I want to be in front of the camera. I want to, you know, I can talk all freaking night. I don't care.
Sometimes I drop the F bomb and I don't mean it, but, you know, I really liked being in front of the camera. Number one, number two, directing number three in the blues brothers or the blue shows. Okay.
Melissa Serchia: Do you play any instruments or do you think.
Michael Saquella: I played a Gazoo. I play a little piano. I play some piano, but I'm saying I did, I did a documentary for a blues for the blues brothers in 85.
[00:38:00] I was doing, I had seven or eight callbacks from what we call wired. Ted Swanson was producing with, I can't remember his name. He did the hot dog movies anyway, so they gave me the role. And it got canceled. And two years later, John Peters got funded and got the money from a logging company in New Zealand.
And they shot the movie. Why? Well, Michael Chiklis, which launched his career and I didn't get the role, but I liked it so much that I wanted to do the blues brother. So while I was on vacation and Phoenix and my mom's, I was living in LA. I went to a buddies that owned a big old 1950s, kind of a rock and roll club.
And he goes, we gotta let's come up with, let's find you an Elwood. So I said, all right. So for like six or seven weeks, we did a contest. Every one Wednesday night I'd come in from LA and we would audition Elvis. It was the very last night this guy came in, Eric Martin. He blew everybody away. It was the perfect.
You look like a look like didactic, or I sound like he did rubber biscuit. Like nobody else. We hired him. We went to band rehearsal. We rehearsed for two weeks. We opened up for [00:39:00] Huey Lewis, the news. He was just breaking back then and at a club in Tempe called after the gold rush. Then from there I had, when I was filming that documentary as John Belushi at the Boulevard mall in Las Vegas, I bumped into a producer money Nelson.
Oscar who produced, the ABC, Barney, Barney Miller and another show. Anyway, he became a Vegas producer. He gave me his card. So we would love to have you on our show. Legends in concert at the Imperial palace. When the blues by this somebody I can't sing. I'm terrible. You know, and that's when I met the guy I got the partner opened up.
So then like two weeks after our big opening, we flew to Vegas for an audition. And we auditioned between shows. Who's the producer and the hotel, the owner of the hotel want us on the shelf so bad. We were in. The second show that night we just Floyd and the band had to learn three of our songs. We did three songs.
They kept us for three weeks, told me to go get voice lessons and learn how to do backhand Springs. And I just fell in love with music. So that's how I started, but I [00:40:00] was terrible singer. I should break class. Pardon me?
Melissa Serchia: Have you gotten better?
Michael Saquella: Oh yeah. Well, what ha what happened is I came there zona to go hang up by the pool and rehearse it because Eric was from Phoenix.
So I came here and I was calling around gymnasiums, trying to find someone that would train them 27 year old overweight guy, gymnastics. So we call and a guy answered the phone and he's screwing around on he go, who's this I go, who's that? Come on. This is Curt who, quick Thomas and he's, we're going back and forth.
You, what are you telling me? You want to do booze buzz that you want to do what? You're, how and you want to do backhand Springs, car wheels run off. When I run out, what are you nuts? I go, no, I'm serious. I'll give you tickets to my show. He says, come on down. Anyways. It was Kurt Thomas. She boycotted the Olympics.
He trained me and he told me you're going to be so sore. And he was right. I couldn't even move, but after three weeks, I'll do backhand Springs around. I was one-arm roundups, aerials. I couldn't [00:41:00] believe so that, and then I took my buddy, Eric introduced me to a vocal coach who worked with me, put telephones on my diaphragm and I'd lay on my back and try to sing.
I got a little better, but I still stunk. Yeah, I did the show from any months, they moved us around. We went to Tokyo, we were in Reno. We were in Atlantic city. We went to LA, we were everywhere doing our shell in Japan. The women would try to take my shoes off. It was crazy. But I did eventually get better, but I didn't get better until I recorded my own CD.
When I put my CV out, then I got better. I was in the studio and they would pound the notes into my ears. But later in life now I'm really good at it. So we go out and people make me do karaoke. I'll sing. Like she caught the KT or something, slower shotgun blues, and I'll blow the people away. Cause they got the virbrato.
Now I can hold my notes. So when I go out. I did a show two marches ago, March about a month, a year and a half ago. And we sold out 1200 people came and I killed it. I got standing ovations at my age. I was still doing Carlos and I'm 96, [00:42:00] but I love singing. That's my set. You know, that's great. I don't know what the heck the question was, but I'm sure I went off.
Melissa Serchia: Yeah, I was asking about the booth. Yeah,
Michael Saquella: I was just,
Melissa Serchia: yeah.
Michael Saquella: Yeah, I get called all the time to booze by sometimes I get called the new commercials, doing a blues brothers. I'm going to do a big for Carolina's calling. We're going to do a big red carpet out here. We've got the local TV station that my press agent Matt with have gotten contacted with me.
And they're going to do a red carpet with me with the Harkins theater out here. They're in five States and then hearkens the son of the owner. They're going to do something with us, cause it's a local shot. It's a bigger look, a movie. And afterwards, you know, there's always an after party. We're going to do my blue show afterwards.
I was going to come see me, do my show. That's amazing. I had a live
Melissa Serchia: stream video ad or something, so we can,
Michael Saquella: Oh, are you kidding me? I'll have 10 cameras. Shoot me. I'm going to put this baby on HBO. I'm going to be somewhere know. It's my [00:43:00] stuff. It's my show, man. My acting name used to be Poloma Michael Alma and the New York blues.
It's going to be sequella but it's going to be the New York blues, whatever it is, but I got a really cool show, but in the middle of my show, we're going to have a guest spot. My dancers singers are going to do a number called, cellblock, tango. That's. Show Chicago. And while they're doing cell block, I change.
And I come out with my blues, Bose partner, and we bought them away. We do about six, seven blues brothers numbers. and then we do a big finale with everybody, but I mainly my stuff, I do a blues brothers act in the middle of my blue show. And as a matter of fact, I'm doing a, we're doing a remake on my sugar daddy.
That was definitely well got thousands of views on my YouTube. But it was just outdated. So we're going with a rapper and we lifted it up to real cool beat, and we're going to redo it. I'm going to Vegas to lay my voice down next couple of weeks. And we're going to do a video where now I'm old. And I got all these little women with me cause I'm a sugar daddy for old ladies.
And the rappers got all the young ladies, but by the end of the video, we're all, it's going to be so much fun. We're doing [00:44:00] that.
Melissa Serchia: Pardon me? You're doing that in Vegas.
Michael Saquella: Yeah, cause that's where all the Showgirls are and they did my, you go to my YouTube page and look at the, cellblock number nine. Video and you'll see all the girls are from big Vegas shows in that video. They're all Vegas show dancers and they're incredible.
One of them, one of the girls with the blonde hair, the real long blonde hair girl who watched the video, she's married to a con muso from Laverne and Shirley. Remember that show? The karma car, my wife, she has his wife is my mini. I was pretty cool. He'd come home was hanging out with us while we were filming
like forever. I don't know what happened to him. Oh, well
Melissa Serchia: he did mention he had other stuff going on. I know I saw that you have blasted Dawn. I'm curious [00:45:00] about, we can talk just briefly about that. I don't know how much you can say about it. Cause I noticed
Michael Saquella: bill William Dale, beardy bill deer, or William deer, directed angels in the outfield, Harry and the Hendersons of most could kill a bunch of Disney movies.
He and I wrote the script called CNX Tuesday, which is the same thing would change the title, but we redid it. He had four writers on it, all Disney writers and it became a really funny project. So it's just two guys that collect their unemployment every week. It was going to be Richard Grieco and I, but everybody funding and studio eyes and big, you know, digital companies don't want him for some reason in the main role they wanted somebody else.
So we were working on railroad play the part we were really close. So then I wanted to Carolina's calling and we. Then on nice because of the COVID, but they collect their unemployment. They want to be somebody that never been anywhere. I tried baseball, I tried singing and they tried everything you could imagine in life.
They can't make it. So they decided they want to steal and Robin may become criminals and they can't even do that. [00:46:00] Right. You know, they go to Rob Walmart and they wear squirt guns and then get their pants, sweat, and they call them, we've got to spell it out. Third thing. and when they come out, they limousine guy picks them up and throws them in the car and he takes them to a bank and they open up the trunk.
There's real guns. Well, my character in the films was married to an Italian princess. Her dad is the mob boss, but he never knew what that did. So now they got this mom guy with them all the time, teaching them how to make money, because he wants to have alimony and Peloma money for his daughter. So he's going to train this guy, how to be a bad boy.
So take them over to the bank, tell them how to Rob. They go in with the guns and then a 1 million customer or 1 billion customer. And they went a hundred thousand. So then when they take the a hundred thousand and they invested into this and we see a great black ops operation, how they come into a helicopter and the guys who were in black with the Kevlar vests and the night fish and the scale of building the cut that the plasma cut, the windows that go in, they turn the alarm off, they steal the diamonds and they make it well.
When we finally see these idiots with the money they spent, it's a green helicopter, an old army [00:47:00] helicopter. They got the, you know, one's wearing shorts that no one's wearing baggy pants. And they get tied up. They get tangled, they can't get through the window, but they finally pull it up. But when they come down the elevator, it was a robbery at the pizza place.
And two black guys robbed them of the diamonds and they go in the wrong way and they go back down where all the costs are waiting and the Italian guys go running out the first floor down the escalator and they don't, they just don't make it anyway. So the whole thing started with them at the unemployment office saying, you know, every Tuesday and it gets our money.
So there is an employment office and they left. I forgot to say that part. So now at the end of the movie, they got to go Rob the Italians. It's 4 million very in the atrium, they get the money. When they come out, the Italians, catch him, take them under a bridge, put the bullets behind their head, the guns and say, you steal from me and my family.
When I let you go live with your family, how dare you? Right. So it's a big Robert the notes at the scene and you sit at guns going up and then you see a flash on a pipe. We pull back, it's a. Garbage truck collecting garbage and backfiring. And these two idiots are still under the employment office. They never left and everything they talked about was a dream it's called walk [00:48:00] the dog.
See what happens is they got to get the components at. And in the movie, this is the big thing is they're always talking about Al components. So the one, the D the father of the daughter, he was married to sends them over, to get the hat from this other godfather guy, not to kill him. You know, in the beginning, but then something happened.
So he wants him to go whack him. You want to be an Italian mobster, you got to go walk the dog. So they go to this big mansion. They got to sneak in. Well, they meet someone that works. He's a double agent for double mafia guy. He gets some interns in the alarm off. They go in, they go upstairs. And the Richard Grieco character with a good-looking Italian guy, it's a beautiful life in bed.
And she sees him, she goes, mine, my husband's. And next thing you know, these two are on the floor right next to the bed going at it. And then the, my character, the ex athlete, chubby guy that goes around to the other side of the bed. And he sees the Don sleep and he sees the Al Capone and it's supposed to get the hat.
And then the guy here I'm like, hope. He wakes up kind of, but then it goes back to sleep and it's just in, you hear the whisper we're supposed to wack. He does [00:49:00] know what to do. So he sees some motion. He puts in his hand, he goes under the fricking covers. Any wax tonight, he's wagging them. The wife's moaning.
He's more than he is on honey. You haven't been this strong since we were teenagers. Oh my God. The two of them are moaning and screaming and I have the greatest time. And then. It's over with, he grabs the hat they take off. So at the end of the movie, they're going to get killed by the guy that installed the dead textures Wiener.
And it's called whack the Dawn. And as she has never been done before. So can you imagine two idiots, one making love to the mafia, his boss' wife and the other guy is going to whack him. He doesn't know whack means kill. Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa Serchia: I love the play on that word.
Michael Saquella: Oh yeah. and then when he goes back to the big boss, the ex wife's father, father-in-law he goes up to him.
He goes, Oh yeah. Okay. We get it. We got here's the hat because I lacked them so good. He was moaning.
Any audience they're going to be dying when you go, you have a full [00:50:00] house when after COVID, when you're in there and they see that, Oh my God, they're going to scream. That's going to be one of those scenes where you can't hear the next several lines. Cause you're still laughing from the five minutes earlier.
Melissa Serchia: But wait, when is this coming out?
Michael Saquella: no, I'm going to shoot that probably, you know, within the next six months to a year. Yeah. We're going to get that done.
Melissa Serchia: Get on that because that's hilarious.
Michael Saquella: I want to get on it. You know, the funding trying to find money, you know, people send, they got, and they're going to do it and they go, but they never do it.
They're also full of crap. There's only a handful of people that really can do it. They're out there, you know, studios, you know, tardy get a studio to believe in a guy my age, you know, I'm not 30 years old, I'm not JJ Abrams or anybody like that. Don't start track, but I'm talented. And I like making the older type of films that have a story, meaning, well,
Melissa Serchia: there's a lot of, I haven't been a really good.
You know, something like glasses on, you know, like, I mean, in my opinion, since like analyze this, right, it was a [00:51:00] great community mafia and dizzy, and there really hasn't been anything bad. Great. Since then, I mean, even the most serious ones has all been kind of crap. I mean, you know, we have good fellows without father, you know, scare the Sopranos for awhile, but I don't feel like there's been a lot of really good quality films about the Italian Americans that have come out.
So I think it's time, you know,
Michael Saquella: Amazon prime and Netflix, both won't touch Italian projects. Right now. See the, we got a Emmy award winning writer, director writing that. My prequel to my El coyote, Thai mafia thing. They had to change it because it's too cliche. They don't want the old, they don't want the godfather, the Goodfellows, they don't want that anymore.
They want something different cartels big. So the only way to get the tie and they had an interweave, this character like Walter. From breaking bad. So my character is I've got to, you know, play with the cartel now, and that would all my Italian buddies in order to get it down. One of [00:52:00] those flicks, but a comedy Italian show is different.
Specially. You know, if you get big names in it, you get Ray Liotta and you do cameo from dinero. Well, I don't know about him anymore. I used to love him, but I hate him now. Peshy, you get some of this still alive to come move. Chazz Palminteri, any of the old guys to play it, a couple of guns and need to get two of the great old actor guys.
Great big names to play the two dons. And they're funny it's comedy. I had a blast working with Burt young, you know, Paulie from the Rocky movies. Oh, yeah, we did. We did a blue leg butcher I directed and starred in that horror film I did in 2007 and Burt played Italian, even though he changed his last name, it was fun.
He played a godfather now. he was, can't remember the name of it, but it was with a guy from Semite live that was in night at the Roxbury, the little guy Kathy with it. Yeah, he did. And he did a movie and he was ashamed of his family and he became an FBI agent and he was double, he was working for [00:53:00] his brother, his two brothers and their father, but he was FBI.
And the one brother was by the great director, Berg's Peter Berg. Peter was one of the actors in it. Anyway, it doesn't matter. it's just, you got to get great older actors, whack the Don and I have to surround myself because I'm not, I mean, I'm sort of a name now, but I'm not really a name.
I mean, I'm out there. I just got cast in a show. We're doing a pilot. Looks like it's going to get picked up eight more episodes. You know, it's called Friday night in Queens. It's for time guys who grew up together too. And, It shoots an LA Reynosa, New York story. And I got on the road and it goes pretty soon.
I talked with my press people today. Jessica and I are going to get, she's going to come to the set. It's supposed to go in like three weeks and I'll be out there shooting the pilot. And if it goes, you know, it's another tiny thing, but it's different. It's common to you guys talking and having a blast.
Nobody's getting whacked, no blood, nobody getting a throats. Cut. Just good old boys having a good old time.
[00:54:00] Melissa Serchia: Yeah. Well, and I like that. I think we need to see that, you know, when you use the, that side too, because there's so many funny, I mean, things that Italian, there's so many funny moments that we have, you know, in our culture with our families, I believe say it all the time.
We're like, Oh, we serve it shell, you know? and I think we need have more of that comedy, you know, inserted in, and do more funny Italian American stories. I don't know if you've seen this movie. It came out a long time ago, a mumbling Galliano.
Michael Saquella: Yeah,
Melissa Serchia: where the kid was gay and he was trying to come out to his parents.
Then that was like, it's a big deal, especially in that time with the culture, but not so much the spotlight itself, but some of those side stories, which just cracks me up with where they're walking. And they see the same people every two feet, but they have to say, hello, you know, every time they walk around the block, you know, they have to bail out of the same people again and again.
And I'd love to see more films like that because they make the relatable, you know,
[00:55:00] Michael Saquella: I love the Macomb. It's all about money. Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa Serchia: I know. Absolutely. have you, have you done, what is it a Kickstarter? Have you done anything like that before?
Michael Saquella: Okay. There was a little muffled. Could you repeat that question?
Melissa Serchia: Oh yeah. I was just wondering if he's ever done anything like a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a film or
Michael Saquella: no? No. I w I would like to, I mean, so many small people burned out. A lot of when all these want to be moving people that don't know what they're doing, did the, those kickstarts. And, the other ones, you raise money for people that go to hospitals or pass away.
I can't think of the name of that one. Go fund me. They did the go fund, me and the kickstart, and they burned people. They don't, you know, they get their goals and they can't make a movie for eight grand. I mean, I need to raise a lot of money, so kickstart, you know, okay. You can raise money for pre production for kickstart.
And, if you don't mind, you're not, probably not can see it back. People donate their money. I mean, [00:56:00] but you need 50 grand, a hundred grand to develop a story. So how do I do a kickstart for a hundred thousand, 200,000? That's a lot of money. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, you got one guy could do the whole thing. If he's in love with you, like I had a guy call me.
After he saw El coyote, they went to the theater, him and his wife. He calls me and I calls me on my messenger, but I didn't know it was so I didn't take it. He'll look, I want to talk to you about doing more time projects to call a guy up. He's from Detroit. He's Italian. He wants to do it. I go, it's all about money.
He goes, Hey, we have the money. And, you know, you don't believe people. And I, he tells me he got this guy inherited all this money and we can give you up to 8 million bucks. We want to do a real, a good Italian film for us. So I blew him off. I didn't believe him. So then I read news, habitual rises, guy died, and he gave all the money to the church, like, Oh my God, it was real.
And I didn't know, not a believable, but just hard to find real money. Yeah.
Melissa Serchia: Yeah. Well, I think so far you're doing really good. I mean, you've [00:57:00] got quite some great titles out. I was, like I said, I saw the trailers and I'm really interested in seeing him. You mentioned that Carolina's calling is coming out in maybe February.
I know you said you were originally trying to do end of this year, but you're thinking February 20, 21.
Michael Saquella: I'm thinking late January, early February of 21. Yes I am. And get what we got the golf movie coming out in November. So I got every couple of months, I got something I plan on doing more stuff. It's just, you know, I want to do a lot of stuff.
I don't want to quit. I don't want to retire. I just want to go. I want to have a camera in my hand, show me while they lower me in the grave. You know what I mean? Hey, what's he doing? He's still shooting.
Oh, forget a body on a man. I still want to do what I really want to do is I want to play. One film serious and award winning type on, I mean, not like awards for the festivals I'm talking about, [00:58:00] you know, like, I went to Fairport high school in upstate New York and you know, who graduated six years after me.
So let's see more Hoffman. He won the Academy award for Truman Capote. You know, and, there's a lot of people that win awards and it's not that I want, you know, I'm the, I'm a character actor. So the odds of me ever doing anything, good luck may be a supporting role, but there is one project I'd like to do.
And nowhere's five bosses, you're Italian. And there was five families manana. The Genevese is the Gambian of whatever anyways, so they did a series, the Banano series. And that's show time and they did. Okay. But the Italian guy, they brought in, he saw he's from Venezuela, even though he's Italian, I'm on a Santee, I mean, great actor, but he doesn't sound Italian.
So I know, I knew bill the son and I know his chill jr. And I know the grandson who ran everything. I met Joe [00:59:00] Bonanno before he. Asked, I got to go to the funeral anyways, so I got close to the family and I really would like to play him. In the forties, fifties, or sixties, I would like kind of look like I'm kind of have the same hairline.
And I think that I could kill it. I think I could do a great job because we're both from New York. And, I know a lot about the family. They sent me down and we had a lot of meetings. I would have to go with them in a deli. We'd have to go in the back room and take all our stuff on sleeping in our car and talk and something would come up.
We never talked over the phone. We'd have to drive halfway to Tucson. I have a meeting in a fricking restaurant, leave your cell phones in the car. I'm like, geez. You know, and all I did for them was I, they had talented singers and stuff and I would put them in my show and I had dinner theater. I would hook up their people.
So as I got older and as I see these movies and after I saw the Irish man, I know what happened. The family sent me down and brought me, we were in the family. Let me tell you what really happened. So I know what the Kennedys [01:00:00] all the way back to Jack and what happened. I mean, I was with these guys for, you know, 10, 15 years before they died and they told me so much.
So when I saw the, I liked it a lot, but I think that I could do the same thing from a true story. You know, really a true story with the real ending, what really happened to Hoffman? Oh, fuck. Sorry. I had people big wall street, people that want to do it, but they wanted me to do a different. What they wanted was, they want to do my story.
They know the people that were involved in the Wolf of wall street. They know that the guy that got in trouble, they said that most of the stuff was made up. Some of it was true, but they embellished it. And, after they found out who I made the front page of the wall street journal, I made the front page of a lot of newspapers.
It was a while back. I got in trouble in the stock business and. So, I'm sure you read about it. It's all over the internet. So I got these guys that [01:01:00] flew in and they had a lot of money and they want to do my story and they want to do it's called King of pump and go cause we did my guy that I was working with and I got involved with pump and dump stock, but I had the same stuff.
I had two jets. I had gorgeous girlfriends, everywhere and money coming out. My, you know, at $63 million at one time or the group did not meet directly. But, we did everything. I was friends with. We, I flew Adam Sandler. Chris rock Burt, Reynolds Goldberg, the wrestler, a bunch of us flew down to Florida for Burt's 50 year anniversary at the university of Florida.
I took them to the Vikings games, Minnesota Vikings. I mean, we did so much, so they go, look, we want to do your story, but reason why it's not because of the girls or the money planes as part of it. But what we want is the mobster side. I want you to tell all about what happened, how you got to meet everybody, how you know this.
W mover and shaker hung out with everybody from football to matters to, you know, monsters, but they really wanted them on and [01:02:00] I didn't want to do it. Then I came back and said, okay, if you play yourself, we got, and they told me the studio that would do it. And then I said, fine, I would do it after I talked to my family because I don't want to embarrass him.
And then a couple months ago they call me up and said, well, okay, we'll we can shoot it up to like a hundred million, but you can't play yourself. They want a big name to play you and you can be at the end of the movie and we'll give you a little cameo. I said, hell no goodbye. I said the only way I'll do it, I'm playing myself.
And I, you know, I, I have, they did, Big documentary on me and it's coming out on OAN. and Vander steels. She's a report mainly a big time. They're big with the trumps. And, they came down and interviewed me about some stuff that I learned when I was in trouble. Actually, when I got locked up and I met some.
People from the fast and furious operation. And I knew a lot of stuff and I got too much. So they wanted to interview me about that. But I said, no, I want to promote my acting career. So they did a [01:03:00] three-part 30 minutes each I'm going to be an OEM and then the next couple of weeks, and it's huge. And you watch the first.
Pardon me? Sorry.
Melissa Serchia: That's coming out a couple of weeks
Michael Saquella: and you watch it. You're going to cry. some of the partners, some of the girls similar goes to the office. Some of the partners that are involved with me, we're all sat down to watch it. And all of them were grabbing a tissue box because it's true story.
It's like, you know how I started, I was a different guy. I was an idiot. I made lots of money and I got locked up and then I came out and then the things that happened. Afterwards, some kind of a gift. I got through stories that I wrote about it. And then I, it went viral and I showed the, I'm sure they're gonna post it.
What happened to me with this hat that I got? And I it's, like, I became a guardian angel for several people and I don't know how I did it. I'm a bum. I'm not the guy I used to be. I changed, you know?
Melissa Serchia: yeah. It was very exciting. I actually, I think more people need to know that and. You know your story, because [01:04:00] it is possible for people to change and, you know, you make that decision.
Everyone does, you know, you learn from them, some people don't, but you clearly have, and I think that's important. So I'm excited. I'm looking forward to this documentary to see, you know, second out and, yeah, I think that's really important today. So congratulations.
Michael Saquella: Yeah, we'll get the link to you.
I'll have the prestige. If we'll get your link.
Melissa Serchia: Definitely. And I do want to say, to everyone that's listening when they listen. but your movie three and round it's actually, it's pretty streaming pretty much everywhere. I mean, I'm looking at Amazon prime. I'd thought PlayStation, iTunes, Google play.
Michael Saquella: what were we talking about? Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa Serchia: I want to make sure everybody knows that they can watch that November time on Hulu. Netflix, not Netflix, Amazon prime. Yeah.
Michael Saquella: Spot PlayStation, Google [01:05:00] play red, a red box. Rudy Boomi. There's a bunch of them. It's not it. Doesn't go to Netflix and Hulu until. All the money comes in and the video on demand stuff and pay per view and all that.
After that, then it goes to Netflix and the pay. And then it goes to the HBO's and it's like a hallmark movie, more than an HBO. It'd probably be lifetime and hallmark after it runs on a pay-per-view stuff.
Melissa Serchia: Okay, perfect. Yeah. Plenty of places people can watch it. Is what I want to make sure we get that out there and we'll post links to, so people in there.
Yeah. And are you, where can people follow you? Like, are you on social media? Facebook, Twitter?
Michael Saquella: Yeah. Let me tell you how to follow me one. Listen to this. I'll be driving a black car in your neighborhood in about three weeks now. I like to make people laugh. Well, I like people going to IMDV first and you know that I am bb.com internet movie database, and put in Michael sequella.
M I C H a E [01:06:00] L sequella S a Q U E L a M. I prefer that first. And then afterwards I got Michael sequella actor on Facebook. I also have, you know, Twitter and Instagram. That's it just for
Melissa Serchia: perfect. Yeah, this part, I want to make sure everyone can follow you that way. They can stay up to date with everything you're doing, because you're doing some great stuff for the indie film market, and I'm really excited to see what you got coming out.
So
Michael Saquella: yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to be on your program and I really appreciate all the great questions.
Melissa Serchia: Yeah, you're welcome. I'm thinking we really appreciate you coming on and talking to us. thank you for being patient with that technical difficulties, earlier. So, you know, we got it off. We got it going and, no, it's been really fun chatting with you.
Michael Saquella: Well, I can't wait. Thank you so much. Yeah.
Melissa Serchia: So even though this has been [01:07:00] forever country podcasts with Michael suppo and some yeah. So have all the links and make sure to follow him on social media. Thank you so much. You have a great night.
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