This is Later with Lee Matthews The Lee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. Peter Prinzonelli is the star of the Twilight movies Nurse Jackie, and he's got a new film out called on Fire. It's about a man whose life is completely burned up. But I'm not being figurative when I say that, Uh, Peter, this is as timely as if taken from the headlines from seven weeks ago. Yeah. Well, even when I started reading in the script a year and a half ago, it was time.
I mean this, this uh, this, this subject matter has been in the news all to too recent. Yeah, you know, too prevalence in the years. You know, we had the Australia fires, we had fires in Paris, we had you know, fires in northern California. It seems like there's a lot of fires that happened in Texas. We shot this movie in Texas to double for one point. So yeah, and in the news. It's one of the reasons why I took on the script. This
is all inspired by by true true events. So we're trying to tell the victim story, drop you into what they were experiencing. So we could try to figure out a way to solve the issue, the bigger issue here. Peter Franz and Ellie is the star of Inspired by true Events, by the Way, on Fire. The movie is out now and in theaters everywhere, but it's not the whole world is on fire. It's just a man living out in his in his in his country, and the fire start out there
where he lives. Yeah, I played dad, who's uh, you know, he's saddled with bills. He's got a dad who's sick, he's paying his medical bills. He's got a wife who's pregnant, he's got a son that's going off to collegees not to pay for that. And then he's just got a new construction job, you know, business that he doesn't know if it's going to take off or not. So he's he's already stretched out to
his maxim and stress. And then he's in this one growing evening he's thrown into this journey with his family because the wildfire breaks that out and he's just trying to survive the night. So all of those problems become manhills compared to just trying to survive the night. And there's a nine one one operators. There's an arc of this nine one operator that's kind of trying to help us through it, and it kind of gives a spotlight onto the heroism the craziness
of their jobs. So if you know number one operator or at the end, we give a lot we give a lot of tribute to firefighters as well. If you know firefire or nine one operator, same movie, This movie is dedicated to them. Peter Fencinelli, you know him from Twilight, Nurse Jackie as well On Fire as the movie that's out now. When you were shooting this on the Texas countryside, did I mean was there a risk of starting a fire? Because you really have to have real fire, don't you.
No, Actually, we're proud that we've made this movie with no practical real fire. There's one day we filmed a stunt person on fire, so that was a very controlled fire. The rest of the movie is as a mixture of c g I real real footage from fires and some stock footage of fires and the CE. You guys gotten so good nowadays that I can't tell the difference between the three. Uh, And it's fun. I was watching a video the other day of a real fire and I said, wow,
our fire actually looks better than that. It's a real fire. That was like, that's pretty interesting. So so it's exciting because you feel like, you know, you'll feel like you're dropped into this world and hopefully we come together get pause, like how we could fix this issue that's a bigger issue and have more sympathy for victims that are going through. It's because there's a
lot of caution cautionary tale as well. You know, people get these emergency alerts and they don't think it's going to come their way, and then it just shows you in this movie that with a shift of the wind, it's at their doorstep, but it becomes a little too late, you know, and they get trapped in it. So there's a lot of takeaways under the umbrella of this family survival drama. So it's exciting. It's you know,
you sit on the edge of your seats while you're watching it. But at the end of the day, it celebrates fire prize at the game, like I said, but it gives you a feeling of hope and rebirth at the end. You know, well, you know, we we have our share of that here in Oklahoma because the topography here is not that much unlike what you what you have in Texas, and it doesn't take much. I mean, we had a policeman pull somebody over on the side of the road.
It was a particularly dry day and just the heat from his engine ignited a fire, burned his unit and started an hour's long prairie fire that took them forever to put out. And yet you see the smoke coming and you think, Okay, I'll keep an eye on it. Uh it's usually too late. You see that smoke coming, you better get Yeah, yeah, it's pretty scary, know And you guys got uh, you know, you got bigger issue to you gout, you know, not a bigger issue, but
other issues like tornadoes, and you know you want to deal with. But but it happens. I mean, it's all It's happening all over. It's not just California, it's not just Texas. Worldwide this issue. Peter Franzinelli is with us. He is with the new movie on Fire, and it's about a man's struggle through one of these terrible, terrible wildfires that we've all been seen and been through and and uh seen footage of. Uh. So while you were shooting this then there was no real danger. You didn't have
to get too close to to anything really really hot. Now, I mean the the hard part for actors in this film. The challenge for actors in this film really was, you know, you're reacting to things that aren't there. You know, you're running away from Britain building, You're running from uh you know this this these fire, the fire that's whipping around and bend and and so. But but you know that's where you have these actors that did a really great job, my co stars, uh, because when you're working
together, you've got to look into each other's eyes. You all got to feel the heat of that fire in your skin and it's not there. Yeah, to react up as something that is to really act and use your imagination and if someone's like half asking it or just not not fully committed, you feel it, you know. So so having good actors was essential to this movie. And when we have some great actors. Fiona ds is an actual angel from Shazam, Lance Henrickson who people will recognize and know. Uh.
But we had a good core group. There's a lot of a lot of fun, a lot of a lot of shooting nights which is you know, hard sometimes but but yeah, it was a great experience. I imagine the c G I is a lot less expensive and dangerous as far as production costs. Yeah, for sure, for sure. And you know, create it like you could look up in the sky and nothing is there on the day, but when you've dropped it in like the embers floating, it all kind
of come together, you know. In this film. I was only meant to be an actor on it. I came on Nick Lyon was the director and he wrote it as well, and then during production he ended up getting COVID and we couldn't shut down because we were two small movies shut down. So Nick turned to me I directed before, and he said, you know, and we were working so well together, he said, I know,
you know what I'm looking for. Can you finish up? So I took on the double duty of actually finishing up directing the film and acting and it's starting and said, I'm on every scene and also running the shows. A lot of working and then we went in you know, nine months. I was in the post production in the editing room and we're working with my composer and trying to get the music right for it. And I've directed before, so there's a lot of fun to take on the challenge of this film.
I'm working with Nick and we carved out the film that you'll go to see this weekend and you'll enjoy it. The film is on fire, Peter Fansinelli, and you did get a co directing credit, I guess, yeah. Yeah. We celebrated that collaboration with a code directing credit. Nick was real cool. He said, you know, you worked so hard on this, let's take a code directing credit because I couldn't have done this all without you
and had so much input in it. So appreciated that. Peter Fansonelli, the star of Twilight, Nurse Jackie and now on fire in third theaters everywhere. It's a little close to home, but I'm sure you'll find something relatable about it when you see it. And thank you for joining us, Peter. Oh, thank you, sir. Yeah, I appreciate that. It's got a lot of good takeaways in this film. Under the Umbrella a very exciting family survival drama. So I hope people check it out this weekend.
Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoon is from five to seven. An iHeartMedia presentation