ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with On Fire co-director and star Peter Facinelli about the environmental drama movie. Facinelli discussed portraying heroism and the film’s SAG-AFTRA interim agreement. On Fire is now playing exclusively in theaters.
“Inspired by true and harrowing events, On Fire tells the story of an ordinary man (Facinelli) that finds his world suddenly torn apart as devastating wildfires rip through the surrounding countryside,” according to the film’s synopsis. “With precious moments ticking by, he must flee with his son (Asher Angel) and pregnant wife (Fiona Dourif) if they have any hope of surviving the rapid forces of mother nature.”
“SAG-AFTRA approved an interim agreement for On Fire since the film is being released by Cineverse, an independent, non-AMPTP affiliated distributor,” reads a statement from the filmmakers. “Under the terms, members ‘may work on these productions without being in violation of the strike order,’ per the guild. The entire team of On Fire expresses their gratitude to SAG-AFTRA for allowing the cast to promote On Fire during this challenging time for the industry.”
Tyler Treese: The only reason we’re able to do this is because of the SAG interim agreement. Can you just speak briefly on that and how important it is that you are able to speak about this film?
Peter Facinelli: Yeah, it’s a double-edged sword. For me, it’s bittersweet because my heart goes out to actors who work so hard on a film and right now aren’t able to promote their films, and rightfully so, because we’re in a strike. I have a studio film in the can. If that movie came out, I wouldn’t be able to promote it. It would suck. But I totally understand the purpose and why we’re doing that, and I support that 1000%. On the other hand, I’m incredibly proud of this film having a distributor that’s with a non-struck company and having gone to the producers and said, “Hey, would you sign the interim agreement?” They didn’t have to. They could have just put this movie out under the old agreement and the actors would be getting nothing.
But they stood by us. They took that risk to support us in the strike so that if they do pick it up and when they do pick it up, they are bound by the interim agreement that we want to sign with the AMPTP — the same agreement, which allows us to get the residuals and gives us exactly what we’re looking for. So the fact that they supported us … I’m happy and excited to be supporting them.
I’m incredibly proud to have the SAG-AFTRA stamp that they’re supporting us to say, “Yes, we’re excited that you guys signed that agreement. You’re showing the bigger AMPTP companies that it’s not an unrealistic ask because these smaller companies are signing them. At the end of the day, I’m proud that this is one of the first films going to theaters that’s under the new agreement that we’re trying to get signed. So it feels like we’re being leaders in that respect.
This is an interesting movie for you in particular because you’ve directed movies before, but here you were co-directing. What was it like to work with your partner here and, you know, sharing that credit and sharing those duties together?
Originally, I meant to come on just as the lead actor in the film. I enjoyed the script. I thought it was about something that was very prevalent in the news, and I was working really well with Nick Lyon, who’s the director and writer. We were working very collaboratively together. I think he really respected me as a filmmaker and a writer and I respected him. We were taking scenes and elevating them and making the script stronger every time we were filming, trying to thread in more themes and more takeaways. That process kind of got cut when Nick got Covid, and it was a bummer. It was like we lost the captain of our ship, but we were too far out at sea to go back to port.
So at the end of the day, Nick trusted me enough to say, “Hey, I’m going to pass the baton. You finish up the film here. You know what I’m looking for. You know what this film’s about. I know you can do it.” And then I had the support of the crew and the actors to continue, and I did. Then Nick and I took that collaboration into the editing room and carved out the movie that you see now. So at the end of the day, we wanted to celebrate that collaboration with the co-director credit.
That’s incredible. What I really liked about your character of Dave is he’s this everyman that’s put into this terrifying situation. Even though it gets so intense, the film’s always grounded by this love of his family. Can you speak about that being at the heart of the movie?
Yeah, when you meet David at the beginning of the movie, he’s saddled with a ton of stress. He’s got a baby on the way, he’s got a dad who’s sick that he’s paying his medical bills for, he’s behind in his bills, he’s got a company that’s new that he’s starting and doesn’t know if it’s going to fail, and he’s got a son who’s going off to college and is trying to figure out how he’s going to pay for that if he doesn’t get a scholarship. So the beginning of the movie is already stretched to the max, and then all of a sudden, this event happens where he’s thrown into this harrowing experience. The whole night is about him just trying to survive with his family.
All of those problems that he had before become these molehills compared to the mountainous problem he has in front of him, which is survival. Watching that process of having his family grow through the film and lean on each other and come out of it with a new perspective of, “If we can get through this, we can get through anything,” is one of the takeaways that we worked on for an audience to walk away with. We have a lot of takeaways and that one being one takeaway with the family. Then we wanted to layer in some faith in there. You have to believe in something and believe in a higher power to get through moments like this.
And then we had a celebration of firefighters and their heroism and, and 911 operators and we want to show their heroism and how their jobs are so stressful. You think of them being on the end of a phone call or it’s not the same as running into a burning building, but the stress and pressure that they’re on under of trying to help all these people from afar is a very heroic and courageous ask of a human being, and we touch upon that. Then we try to leave off a little bit of hope and a little bit of message of rebirth and regrowth within the broader spectrum of this family survival film.
We see how acting can help a director, but how has directing actually helped you as an actor,0 from going from behind the camera to your continuing acting?
I learned a lot being a director on this and, particularly, my other directing jobs, too. But one of the things I learned from this one that helped me in my acting actually was when Nick got sick. Usually, as an actor, you’re trying to service the director, so you’re always going to them. After a take, you’re like, “Did you get what you need there? Do you want me to try this?” And you’re bringing ideas and you’re working collaboratively, but at the end of the day, I’m servicing his story, so I’m always respectful of that director and trying to give him the pieces that he needs to make the story. So you’re always going to him or her and trying to figure out, “Am I giving you all these things that you need to make sure you’re on the same page?”
And then, when Nick wasn’t there and I was directing, I had no one to go to — I had myself. So I just had to know intuitively, “Okay, this is what I need. I’ve got to go in there and get these pieces and this is what the scene’s about.” Then it became more about me trying to give to the other actors as much as I can to get performances out of them. I felt like I became less worried about observing my performance or what I was bringing to the table and more focused on giving as much as I can to make the scene work, to give as much as I can to the other actors to make their performances better. Because the better they were, the better they were making me.
I want to take that into every movie I do now, to be less about trying to service this outside force and more about giving to the scene and giving to the other actors. Then if a director has a note to shape something, they can just come give it to me, you know? But that was something that was nice to learn, even after 30 years of acting.
