From The Vine star Joe Pantoliano on lockdown, mental health and filming in Italy
The name Joe Pantoliano will be familiar to many movie fans, but if it isn’t, his performances certainly will be. He had memorable roles in The Goonies, Midnight Run, Bad Boys, and The Fugitive; as well as being a part of the breakthroughs of The Wachowski Sisters and Christopher Nolan. That’s before you get on to his work on the small screen.
So often a stand-out supporting actor, this week the 69-year-old New Jersey native takes the lead in From The Vine, playing a burned out executive who travels to a small village in Italy to restore his family home. The Emmy award winner talked to City PM about making the film, cheering people up in lockdown, and his connection to some upcoming blockbusters.
How did you come to be involved in From The Vine?
it was rather quick. I had a conversation and a week later I was on an aeroplane to Toronto where I met everybody, and then the following morning I was off to Acerenza [the setting of the film]. That’s where the magic began. What you see in the film is truly some sort of miracle. It became a much bigger story than what I recollect from the page.
How does it feel playing a character who’s for focus of almost every scene?
I’ve done that a lot. In the big studio films I’m a supporting player, and that’s one of the reasons I do these small, independent films. They afforded me opportunities that wouldn’t have been there. From the Vine was a small budget so I was willing to be an investor, investing what would have been a salary into the possibilities of this film. You get tired, but it’s also invigorating to be that involved with a movie.
The shots of the Italian countryside are gorgeous, how was it filming there?
It was terrific. Technology has caught up with the possibilities of a town like Acerenza, which is up in the mountains. The city was designed 2,000-3,000 years ago, so you can’t get cars up the streets. The houses were designed for donkeys and horse carriages. In the old days of film it would just have been too much of a schlep to get all that equipment up the mountain. Sean [Cisterna, director], in the tradition of Fellini and neorealism, used a lot of the local people, and they were wonderful. The Italians are great actors. I joked that had I come from Acerenza , I would have saved a fortune in acting school.
Do you think this is the right time for From the Vine’s kind of uplifting story?
Yes, audiences have embraced it. Nobody wanted to buy this movie at first blush because they thought it was too soft and there’s not an audience out there for it. Everybody wants dystopian blood baths and this is a light hearted, feel-good story. [Before Covid] people didn’t need a movie to help them to feel good, they wanted to watch The Walking Dead. Then all of a sudden they live in The Walking Dead! So this became an opportunity to see a movie that will whisk you off and to say, ‘Oh, gee, that was beautiful’.
Two hit franchises that you were involved with in the past are returning: Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark, and the fourth Matrix film in December…
I don’t know anything about either, except what I saw in the trailer for Many Saints. I find it extremely interesting that takes place in the 60s. What David Chase and Larry Connor are putting together is maybe what moulded Tony Soprano into the monster he became. And with The Matrix, I have no idea. I know Carrie-Anne has gone back and Keanu and Jada and there’s going to be some new surprises.
What was it like being a part of the beginning of those stories?
With The Sopranos, it was already established and successful by the time I got there. The brilliant part about The Matrix was it was never done before. They took Hong Kong kung fu movies and westernised them. They did it with the dedication that Chinese and the Korean artists put in by getting the actors to learn the moves. Six months of training so that they could shoot it in continuity and nobody’s ever done that before with bullet time and all of this stuff that was invented based on an idea that The Wachowskis had. By the time Matrix 2 came out, every studio in the country were stealing these ideas poorly with quick cuts. It was just a bastardisation of a creative art form. So by the time the sequel came out, everybody was like, ‘Where’s the surprises’? It’s like they got anesthetised to the brilliance of The Matrix.
Outside of acting, you’re also a vocal mental health advocate…
I have a podcast with my daughter Daniela Pantoliano called ‘No Kidding? Me Too!’ where we talk about emotional management and being open and empathetic and honest and sharing it with others. It’s become very popular. A lot of athletes started talking about [mental health issues] and that’s fantastic. We’ve been talking about that since 2008. I made a documentary about this traumatic brain injury I had and past traumas and how unresolved adolescent trauma is what creates adult [problems], the co-occurring nature of addictions that fall in because you’ve been so hurt you don’t want to feel bad. So, you find things that make you feel less bad.
From The Vine will be available in UK Cinemas from 10th September & on Digital Download from 13th September