On September 6, 2017, we attended the highly anticipated premiere of “The Good Catholic” at the Crosby Hotel.
In addition, an open bar consisting of freshly popped popcorn, Evian still water, and soft beverages were available to all patrons before the main event. Some of the first but certainly not least to enter included Zachary Spicer, who plays the central protagonist of the film “Daniel” and Johnathan Mann, an associate producer of the film. Both were undoubtedly warm and excited, agreed to sit down and talk to The Knockturnal about their involvement, logistics, in terms, of production and the overall vision Director/Writer Paul Shoulberg set out to manifest, of which, comes from a place strikingly near to his heart. Following the screening, a group of about 100 attendees mingled outside of the theatre to indulge in cold glasses of wine and an unlimited assortment of delicious cocktails while gaining a chance to reflect upon the film.
Interview with Johnathan Mann, an Associate producer of “The Good Catholic.”
JaJuan: So what exactly inspired you to get involved?
Mr. Mann: Well, I knew Zach Spicer and I thought he was a wonderful actor and has a real winning spirit, makes friends and just has an incredible energy in everything that he does, so if he wanted to make this film and create this company, I wanted to support him and make it happen and when it came time to get started and they needed some support for casting, I was able to jump right in and help them at that point, so I’m really excited to see how everything has progressed. With “BroadGreen Pictures” picking up the film, it’s really escalated and with Rex Reed’s review, it’s all really coming together and we’re so excited to be here tonight for the fruition of the work that went into this from the company, Zach and especially, Paul Shoulberg, who wrote and directed this really wonderful film that I think many people are going to enjoy around the country and around the world, we’re really excited.
Interview with Zachary Spicer, Actor who plays “Daniel,” the main protagonist of the film
JaJuan: Would you mind providing me with a brief synopsis of “The Good Catholic.”
Zachary: It’s a small town, young priest who really loves his life that he has created within the church and within the confines of the small town that he lives in and then one day, he meets a very unpredictable young woman in confession and has all of his beliefs and structure confronted and then he has to deal with that.
JaJuan: And the genre of the film can be classified as comedy, correct?
Zachary: I mean it’s funny but I also think that Paul, the writer and director, likes to call it an existential drama/comedy, which doesn’t fit very well on iTunes. But yeah, I think it has moments of comedy and it has moments of great introspection as well.
JaJuan: What exactly attracted you to this role?
Zachary: So Paul and I, we went to college together. He was getting his graduate degree in playwriting and I was in undergrad and I was studying archeology.
JaJuan: May I ask what school you guys went to?
Zachary: Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Yeah, so we met back then and he wrote the first plays that I ever acted in. I had no intentions of being an actor and fast forward 10 years, he would always give me the first draft of everything he had written and when he handed me this, it was right after his father passed away. It’s all based off of the true story. His father was a priest, his mother was a nun in the church and they fell in love and the rest is history but I read it and it just struck me a way. It was the best thing he had ever written. You know how they say “writers just have to write what they know” but in this case, it wasn’t about just writing what you knew, it was writing what you had to write. He felt a need to tell his father’s story and that really just came to life in all of the dialogue between four characters. That’s really all this movie is about. We don’t have special effects, there are no car chase scenes or anything like that. It’s just the relationship of these four characters bouncing off of each other.
JaJuan: That’s really remarkable though how you and Paul grew up together and now to see all the hopes and dreams you guys aspired to have come into fruition.
Zachary: I mean yeah it is, we built our production company Pegasus from the ground up around this movie, so we had never made a movie before and we were just trying to figure it out at each step of the way and we just constantly came in contact with good people, who kept telling us it was a good story, keep going and it landed us here in New York with an opening.
The film is now playing.