5 Questions with Alex Goldberg
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
I'm half Black, half Jewish, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY.
The two movie theaters I went to the most growing up were the UA in Sheepshead Bay, and the Plaza Twin on Flatbush Ave.
As a little kid my father turned me onto Airplane! and I took it upon myself to find out about and watch all the Zuker-Abrahams-Zuker movies.
Later on, I studied film at Columbia University School of the Arts where I met many of the collaborators I still work with today.
2) What was the initial idea for this project and how did it evolve from there?
I'm a huge fan of the Yankees, and figured if I wanted to play for the team, be a real Yankee, it would have to be in a film of my own making. And then I thought well of course this guy is suffering both existential and physical pain because that's how I like to imagine my athletes: tortured, fearful and/or unable to express their true feelings. Maybe that's how I like imagining most people.
I wanted to introduce a familiar character in a familiar setting where we rarely see them be honest and then have them do the completely unexpected thing by revealing their true self.
I started out by writing all the scenes Jose talks about in the film, and quickly realized that this version of the story would be too unfocused and wiley (and also impossible to produce). Limiting almost all of the action to the press conference, one world in which to play with limited tools and make a speech engaging the whole way through, created the restraints that hold the film together.
Ultimately, I decided the film would be more effective, and less silly if you could believe that the guy could actually be a baseball player.
(If you want to see me play a Yankee, the closest you'll get is this music video I was making around the time of writing the film where I demoed/experimented with some on the field ideas I ended up not doing in TOMMY JOHN: https://youtu.be/d0wQ5EgQB30)
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And the easiest part?!
Casting proved to be the biggest challenge. Finding an actor who understood the tone, could play it straight, get some laughs, and get emotional... and look like a legit athlete. A lot of people came in and just balled tears the whole monologue. I came close to giving up and shaving my head and auditioning myself a few times. Thankfully, Casting Double led by Geraldine Baron and Salome Oggenfuss with the help of Carly Lovejoy came through and found Jaime Zevallos.
Once we got on set though, Jaime was so fearless, and engaged with the material that it made my job a lot easier.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
On the sports front I recently watched Inside Moves (1980) by Richard Donner. It's an odd little movie about a guy who tries to kill himself by jumping from a tall building and ends up finding a home in a bar of disabled misfits. But then the leader of disabled misfits makes... the NBA. It ends up being a heartwarming story about what happens when the leader of a gang of outcasts abandons its followers and joins the "normal" people.
Near the end of the movie, the guy who tried to kill himself is watching a T.V. interview with the disabled guy who makes the NBA who says something like it's a dream come true. The suicidal guy shouts, "DREAMS! DREAMS!" at the tv. That's becoming my new catchphrase.
5) What’s next for you?
Writing/developing projects in quarantine including a short about a guy who gets a mail order son. It will probably be called Male Order Son.
DREAMS! DREAMS!
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