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This is Later with Lee Matthews The
Lee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear Weekday

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Afternoon's on the Drive. Peter Prinzonelli
is the star of the Twilight movies Nurse

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Jackie, and he's got a new
film out called on Fire. It's about

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a man whose life is completely burned
up. But I'm not being figurative when

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I say that, Uh, Peter, this is as timely as if taken

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from the headlines from seven weeks ago. Yeah. Well, even when I

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started reading in the script a year
and a half ago, it was time.

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I mean this, this uh,
this, this subject matter has been

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in the news all to too recent. Yeah, you know, too prevalence

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in the years. You know,
we had the Australia fires, we had

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fires in Paris, we had you
know, fires in northern California. It

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seems like there's a lot of fires
that happened in Texas. We shot this

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movie in Texas to double for one
point. So yeah, and in the

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news. It's one of the reasons
why I took on the script. This

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is all inspired by by true true
events. So we're trying to tell the

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victim story, drop you into what
they were experiencing. So we could try

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to figure out a way to solve
the issue, the bigger issue here.

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Peter Franz and Ellie is the star
of Inspired by true Events, by the

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Way, on Fire. The movie
is out now and in theaters everywhere,

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but it's not the whole world is
on fire. It's just a man living

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out in his in his in his
country, and the fire start out there

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where he lives. Yeah, I
played dad, who's uh, you know,

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he's saddled with bills. He's got
a dad who's sick, he's paying

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his medical bills. He's got a
wife who's pregnant, he's got a son

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that's going off to collegees not to
pay for that. And then he's just

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got a new construction job, you
know, business that he doesn't know if

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it's going to take off or not. So he's he's already stretched out to

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his maxim and stress. And then
he's in this one growing evening he's thrown

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into this journey with his family because
the wildfire breaks that out and he's just

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trying to survive the night. So
all of those problems become manhills compared to

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just trying to survive the night.
And there's a nine one one operators.

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There's an arc of this nine one
operator that's kind of trying to help us

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through it, and it kind of
gives a spotlight onto the heroism the craziness

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of their jobs. So if you
know number one operator or at the end,

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we give a lot we give a
lot of tribute to firefighters as well.

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If you know firefire or nine one
operator, same movie, This movie

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is dedicated to them. Peter Fencinelli, you know him from Twilight, Nurse

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Jackie as well On Fire as the
movie that's out now. When you were

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shooting this on the Texas countryside,
did I mean was there a risk of

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starting a fire? Because you really
have to have real fire, don't you.

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No, Actually, we're proud that
we've made this movie with no practical

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real fire. There's one day we
filmed a stunt person on fire, so

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that was a very controlled fire.
The rest of the movie is as a

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mixture of c g I real real
footage from fires and some stock footage of

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fires and the CE. You guys
gotten so good nowadays that I can't tell

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the difference between the three. Uh, And it's fun. I was watching

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a video the other day of a
real fire and I said, wow,

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our fire actually looks better than that. It's a real fire. That was

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like, that's pretty interesting. So
so it's exciting because you feel like,

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you know, you'll feel like you're
dropped into this world and hopefully we come

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together get pause, like how we
could fix this issue that's a bigger issue

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and have more sympathy for victims that
are going through. It's because there's a

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lot of caution cautionary tale as well. You know, people get these emergency

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alerts and they don't think it's going
to come their way, and then it

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just shows you in this movie that
with a shift of the wind, it's

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at their doorstep, but it becomes
a little too late, you know,

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and they get trapped in it.
So there's a lot of takeaways under the

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umbrella of this family survival drama.
So it's exciting. It's you know,

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you sit on the edge of your
seats while you're watching it. But at

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the end of the day, it
celebrates fire prize at the game, like

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I said, but it gives you
a feeling of hope and rebirth at the

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end. You know, well,
you know, we we have our share

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of that here in Oklahoma because the
topography here is not that much unlike what

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you what you have in Texas,
and it doesn't take much. I mean,

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we had a policeman pull somebody over
on the side of the road.

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It was a particularly dry day and
just the heat from his engine ignited a

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fire, burned his unit and started
an hour's long prairie fire that took them

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forever to put out. And yet
you see the smoke coming and you think,

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Okay, I'll keep an eye on
it. Uh it's usually too late.

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You see that smoke coming, you
better get Yeah, yeah, it's

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pretty scary, know And you guys
got uh, you know, you got

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bigger issue to you gout, you
know, not a bigger issue, but

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other issues like tornadoes, and you
know you want to deal with. But

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but it happens. I mean,
it's all It's happening all over. It's

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not just California, it's not just
Texas. Worldwide this issue. Peter Franzinelli

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is with us. He is with
the new movie on Fire, and it's

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about a man's struggle through one of
these terrible, terrible wildfires that we've all

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been seen and been through and and
uh seen footage of. Uh. So

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while you were shooting this then there
was no real danger. You didn't have

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to get too close to to anything
really really hot. Now, I mean

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the the hard part for actors in
this film. The challenge for actors in

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this film really was, you know, you're reacting to things that aren't there.

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You know, you're running away from
Britain building, You're running from uh

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you know this this these fire,
the fire that's whipping around and bend and

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and so. But but you know
that's where you have these actors that did

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a really great job, my co
stars, uh, because when you're working

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together, you've got to look into
each other's eyes. You all got to

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feel the heat of that fire in
your skin and it's not there. Yeah,

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to react up as something that is
to really act and use your imagination

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and if someone's like half asking it
or just not not fully committed, you

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feel it, you know. So
so having good actors was essential to this

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movie. And when we have some
great actors. Fiona ds is an actual

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angel from Shazam, Lance Henrickson who
people will recognize and know. Uh.

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But we had a good core group. There's a lot of a lot of

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fun, a lot of a lot
of shooting nights which is you know,

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hard sometimes but but yeah, it
was a great experience. I imagine the

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c G I is a lot less
expensive and dangerous as far as production costs.

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Yeah, for sure, for sure. And you know, create it

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like you could look up in the
sky and nothing is there on the day,

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but when you've dropped it in like
the embers floating, it all kind

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of come together, you know.
In this film. I was only meant

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to be an actor on it.
I came on Nick Lyon was the director

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and he wrote it as well,
and then during production he ended up getting

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COVID and we couldn't shut down because
we were two small movies shut down.

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So Nick turned to me I directed
before, and he said, you know,

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and we were working so well together, he said, I know,

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you know what I'm looking for.
Can you finish up? So I took

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on the double duty of actually finishing
up directing the film and acting and it's

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starting and said, I'm on every
scene and also running the shows. A

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lot of working and then we went
in you know, nine months. I

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was in the post production in the
editing room and we're working with my composer

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and trying to get the music right
for it. And I've directed before,

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so there's a lot of fun to
take on the challenge of this film.

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I'm working with Nick and we carved
out the film that you'll go to see

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this weekend and you'll enjoy it.
The film is on fire, Peter Fansinelli,

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and you did get a co directing
credit, I guess, yeah.

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Yeah. We celebrated that collaboration with
a code directing credit. Nick was real

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cool. He said, you know, you worked so hard on this,

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let's take a code directing credit because
I couldn't have done this all without you

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and had so much input in it. So appreciated that. Peter Fansonelli,

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the star of Twilight, Nurse Jackie
and now on fire in third theaters everywhere.

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It's a little close to home,
but I'm sure you'll find something relatable

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about it when you see it.
And thank you for joining us, Peter.

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Oh, thank you, sir.
Yeah, I appreciate that. It's

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got a lot of good takeaways in
this film. Under the Umbrella a very

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exciting family survival drama. So I
hope people check it out this weekend.

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Thanks for listening to Later with Lee
Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and

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remember to listen to The Drive Live
weekday afternoon is from five to seven.

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