Movies & TV / News
Matt Bogart On Starring Role In Stargazer, Working With Martin Scorsese On Vinyl
Image Credit: Freestyle Digital Media
The 411 Interview: Matt Bogart
Matt Bogart is an actor and producer who has been in the movie and TV business, according to his imdb page, since at least 2005. Bogart has appeared in such movies as Summer Nuts and Livin’ On a Prairie, and such TV shows as Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Smash, and Vinyl. Bogart’s latest movie is the comedy drama Stargazer, which hits all major digital Video On Demand platforms and DVD starting April 30th, 2024 from Freestyle Digital Media. In this interview, Bogart talks with this writer about making Stargazer, working with director Alan McIntyre and co-stars Kate Ginna and Lei Nico, and more.
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Bryan Kristopowitz: How did you get involved with Stargazer?
Matt Bogart: Rob Ackerman, one of our screenwriters, is the best of friends and involved me in first readings of the script. I soon took on a creative producer role and found our director, Alan McIntyre, and we were off and running.
BK: How did you approach your character Spike? Is Spike a bad guy or just misunderstood?
MB: Everybody wants something. Spike is just a guy who wants to revive and sustain his career but makes a few bad choices attempting that goal. Does that make him a bad guy? I believe Spike may have thought this would be an easy take but he ends up being taken on an unexpected ride while also being persuaded by outside forces and his male ego.
BK: What was it like working with Stargazer director Alan McIntyre?
MB: Alan McIntyre read our script and immediately knew how to make it come alive, a great observer and listener, always calculating new visions, incredibly collaborative and a no nonsense master technician with his camera and gear. He knows filmmaking and it was a great relief and pleasure to place our film in his hands.
BK: What was it like working with your Stargazer co-stars Kate Ginna, who plays Grace, and Lei Nico, who plays Diana?
MB: Kate is as beautiful a human as you surmise from her performance in our film. She has been nothing less than inspiring, patient, intelligent, and always strikes the perfect tone. Kate is a star. Lei Nico brings her unabashed positive attitude to the party and to the role of Diana. Lei is incredibly enthusiastic and collaborative, having procured our choreographer & dancer, Robert Vail. Kate, Lei and I had a great time working on this film together.
BK: What was the hardest part of making Stargazer for you as an actor? What was the easiest?
MB: Certainly filming during Covid offered challenges, but I personally found our verbose script to be a challenge to shoot, especially if we were jumping in and out of sequence. Also, we shot most of the scenes in their entirety, sometimes our cameras rolled for 15 minutes per take, and we all felt empathy for our camera operators. That being said, the easiest aspects came from the trust, respect and camaraderie of our creatives and crew to tell this wonderful story. We all worked hard and banged out this beautiful and complicated feature film in less than 15 days.
BK: Is it appropriate to call Stargazer a comedy or is it more of a comedy-drama?
MB: I would say it’s a fantastical dramedy. Haha. I believe we cover a lot of ground here and in a very economical manner.
BK: You’ve worked on a number of TV shows in your acting career. Do you prefer working in film or television or does it matter?
MB: I enjoy working in both TV and film where the stakes are always very high. I suppose I’m partial to the pacing of working on films and the epic story-driven puzzling that makes for wonderful collaboration with all artists.
BK: What was it like working on both Law & Order and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit?
MB: It’s always an honor to be a guest and join such esteemed principal casts of revered shows, especially being handcuffed by Ice-T and jailed by Mariska Hargitay, Dennis Farina, and Chris Meloni.
BK: What was it like working on the HBO show Vinyl?
MB: I met and worked with Martin Scorsese, and he watched me film my scenes as Robert Goulet. Does it get better than that? Yes, it does, because I hung out with Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, and Max Cassella for several days. It will always be a career highlight for me.
BK: Any moviemaking heroes?
MB: Monty Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Daniel Day Lewis, Martin Scorsese, Danny Boyle, Ang Lee and so many others.
BK: Any upcoming projects you can tell us about?
MB: I filmed a version of the musical Jersey Boys starring Nick Jonas as Frankie Valli, an indie film I shot with my brother Dominic called Mistake, about an intersex child, and live-capture filming of the Broadway musical of Jane Eyre, where I play Edward Rochester and also serve as Associate Producer and Associate Director.
BK: What do you hope audiences get out of Stargazer?
MB: I hope everyone takes the fun ride with Grace and also realizes there are smarter choices to be made, much history to be rewritten.
BK: What do you think Spike is doing now?
MB: He’s definitely kicking himself for taking advantage of a great relationship with Grace and probably sitting at home looking for work, crying over his .01 cent residual checks.
BK: Have you ever been deliberately naked in a library in real life?
MB: If so, it’s probably on security camera footage somewhere.
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A very special thanks to Matt Bogart for agreeing to participate in this interview and to david j. moore for setting it up.
Stargazer will be available on all major digital Video On Demand platforms and DVD starting April 30th, 2024. Buy it on DVD here.
Check out the official Stargazer website here!
Check out the official Stargazer Instagram page here!
Check out my review of Stargazer here!
Check out Matt Bogart’s official website here, official Twitter page here, and official Facebook page here!
Matt Bogart headshot courtesy of Matt Bogart. All other images courtesy of Freestyle Digital Media.
