by Dov Kornits
“I mean, honestly, it was a script that I enjoyed, and I think when we were making it, no one really had huge expectations,” says Peter Facinelli about his mid-career renaissance as Dr Carlisle Cullen in The Twilight Saga. “We were hoping that we’d get enough numbers so that we could maybe make the second one. There were three books at the time, so we were like, ‘wouldn’t it be cool if we got to make the second movie?’ No one had any expectation that it was going to blow up the way it did and become part of the zeitgeist.
“Most of the bigger studios passed on it, and there was a little studio called Summit that took it on. It wasn’t a tiny film, it was a $30 million film, but it was still comparatively smaller than a lot of the other films that were out there being made by studios or mini studios.”
We first copped onto Peter Facinelli in 1998, when he appeared in two films in the cinemas, the indie Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 and the surprise hit Can’t Hardly Wait. But they were two of five films that he had released that year, and the actor has maintained that batting average ever since. So, how did he cope with the recent SAF-AFTRA and Writers’ Strikes?
“I was fortunate, where I’ve made a good living at it, so I didn’t have to get another job. I’ve had friends that couldn’t afford rent, and I had friends that had to get other jobs, and for me it was just boredom. But when I looked out at other people that were really struggling, then I really couldn’t complain.
“But yeah, a lot of racquetball, going to the gym, some Zumba classes, yoga. I would obviously picket and part of that comradery of having other people to picket with. And then other than that, there really wasn’t anything to do. I’m glad it’s over. I have a film starting tomorrow, so I’m excited to go back to work,” he tells us about an unnamed action thriller being directed by Australia’s own Marc Furmie.
But we’re here to discuss On Fire, a feature film inspired by wildfires that have burnt through communities around the world, including Australia. This time, the story focuses on a tightknit American family, including Facinelli, Fiona Dourif as his pregnant wife, Asher Angel as his athletic teenaged son and the legendary Lance Henriksen as his grumpy father.
Soon after the On Fire shoot began, co-writer/director Nick Lyon got Covid. “I signed on as the actor,” says Facinelli today. “I thought it was a poignant story. When I read the script, it reminded me of the fires that happened in Australia. It was all over the news. And since those fires, it feels like it’s been in the news too often and so many places, and I keep reading about them. And this film just struck a chord with me. I thought, this is a film that tells the story from the survivors and the victims’ point of view, and you get to see what they go through and this harrowing story. I like the idea of this family that was working together to overcome something. And all of those things made me excited to be a part of it with no thought at all to direct the film.
“And then as we were filming it, Nick, the director, ended up getting Covid. I had directed before. So, they said, ‘can you direct tonight because Nick tested positive.’ I did. And then Nick gave the thumbs up for me to do so, and I had already been working a couple of weeks on it, so I was already familiar with the cast and the crew. I wouldn’t say it was easy to step in, do double duty, but at least it wasn’t on the first day. So, I felt more comfortable. And then because Covid doesn’t go away in one day, I ended up finishing up the rest of the film. And at that point when we got to the editing room, Nick invited me in. He said, ‘let’s work together to carve this out’. And so we did and we celebrated it with a co-director credit.
“I’m proud of it. When your director goes down, it’s never fun. And then having the trust in the other actors with me and to go on the journey with me to finish up the film, it was a fun experience. A lot of work. I mean, normally I would’ve finished in a few weeks and I ended up spending another nine months on it because of the heaviness of the CGI and the score and the cuts. But I wouldn’t have traded it because I really enjoyed the process of being able to find this film in the editing room and to be able to shape it and to work with Nick; it was fun to be able to do it with somebody too.”
Shooting the film in Texas (for Northern California), Facinelli and his fellow cast needed to embrace their imaginations, especially when it came to the fire that is central to the story. “That’s when the acting really comes in because we have to pretend that there’s stuff there, and then you have a team of actors with you who all have to be reacting to the same thing at the same time. And then when you get to the editing room, a lot of it was CGI mixed in with stock footage and footage from actual fires that we actually went and shot.
“CG’s gotten so good that when I watch the film now. I don’t know which is the stuff that we shot and which is the stuff that we created. While we were actually filming, we were in the middle of the woods, so we weren’t even allowed to light fire… the last thing we would want to do is start a wildfire on a movie about wildfires… we had one day of a controlled fire where we lit a stunt man and that was for a very specific scene, and we had firefighters there and EMTs. It’s always nerve wracking when you have a man that you’re setting on fire and you’re at the helm of it. You want to make sure that everybody’s safe and you don’t want to have to do it too many times. And the stuntman’s really excited! They amp themselves up!
“But we had smoke and we had lighting effects,” Facinelli explains further about the approach for On Fire to capture authentic performances. “When you work out the scene, you’re seeing the fire’s coming from a particular angle. So, when you’re running away from fire, you’re explaining to the actors, ‘okay, you’re running out of a house and the whole house is going to be on fire, so you have to know what your intensity level is, as well’. I remember doing a scene in Twilight, and we were battling werewolves and they were throwing these sack of fur at us, and then at one point, one of the actors just broke into laughing. It was just so ridiculous. But that’s why you go to acting school. You have to really focus and use your imagination, and these sacks of fluffy fur are posing a threat and they’re the werewolves, and you have to imagine that they are, and that’s what you get paid the money for.”
On Fire is available now on DVD and Digital on Demand
