Renton gets something extra in opening film | Seattle International Film Festival
Published 3:32 pm Thursday, May 3, 2012
The producers were looking for a handsome older gentleman.
It didn’t take long for Don Bressler of Renton, the retired president of Renton Technical College and active in the community, to get the part in the film that will kick off the Seattle International Film Festival in Renton, “Fat Kid Rules the World.”
Bressler plays a doctor in the film. He’s an extra, mostly in the background, adding to the realism of the shoot at a hospital.
Wife Susan had emailed in his photo to the casting website one Sunday evening and within 10 minutes, Bressler was offered the part. Initially, Bressler said no, facing two long days of shooting. Then he changed his mind.
“I thought it would be interesting and fun,” he said. It was.
Bressler hasn’t yet seen the award-winning film, so maybe all his scenes ended up on the cutting-room floor. He wore khaki pants and a long-sleeved shirt. He didn’t have to learn any lines.
The shoot was last summer at an historic building in Des Moines that has served in many ways, including a retirement community. Bressler had no idea at the time that his “debut” would also be the opening-night film of the famed festival.
Renton has other connections, too.
About 100 Lindbergh students served as extras when the filmmakers came to their school to shoot for three days last summer.
And the Bresslers’ good friend, Heather Nasarow, co-owner of Renton’s only winery, the Cedar River Cellars, played a nurse for the Des Moines shoot at the Landmark on the Sound overlooking Puget Sound.
She was was in lots of scenes walking up and down halls and in the background, adding to that realistic air, just like Bressler.
She had what she described as “a lot of shots of her lower ratio,” meaning her derriere, she said, laughing.
“I don’t know if I’ll see my head” she said.
Nasarow hasn’t seem the film either, but filming it was fun. She is a classically trained vocalist and has been an extra in TV productions. She and her mother were extras in the movie “Benny and Joon.” She got to walk by actor Johnny Depp about 15 times – “every girl’s dream.”
“Fat Kid Rules the World” will show at 7 p.m. May 18 at the IKEA Performing Arts Center, followed by the opening-night gala at the Renton Pavilion Event Center. Tickets are $25 for the screening and the gala and are available online.
