I recently got a chance to catch up with Megan Clare Johnson (Director), John Heard (Home Alone) and Cindy Williams (Laverne and Shirley) of Stealing Roses. It’s a romantic comedy about love amidst the challenges of access to health care. Made by Little Studio Films, Alexia Melocchi (Producer) believes that Hollywood needs to make more movies about long-term couples. "Socially I believe that it was a great opportunity to start a dialogue on the state of health care in America", she says. Here’s what the Director and key cast had to say:
Chaney: What’s the story about?
Megan: It’s a romantic story about a man and his wife and their passion and chemistry with one another amidst hardship. Walter makes $17,000 a year. His wife Rose is critically ill with no money for medical treatment. Walter decides to rob a bank with his friends. Ironically, his son, a cop tries to stop him.
Chaney: What does the title, Stealing Roses mean?
Megan: Every few nights, Walter would visit the city Rose Garden and steal roses for his wife - it’s her favorite flower. It’s the one thing he could provide for her, hence the name.
Chaney: What inspired you to create the movie?
Megan: Every writer works with what they connect with and when you begin writing a screenplay, that’s where you start. I really wanted to write a love story, and so I chose a couple aged in their early sixties. I wondered what it would be like being married for 35 years to a loved one, and if that person falls critically ill, what they would do without any money. I’m aware there are 46 million uninsured people in the US, which is a problem. I usually write family stories and comedy. I thought about where and how these characters would come from and develop. It finally came about, and I wrote the story in 3-4 weeks.
Chaney: Describe the chemistry on set – did Megan appropriately set up the scene well enough where you played the character that had been together for 35 years?
John: We spent the entire week before the shoot in a hotel room together. The only problem was that Cindy wanted to watch reruns of Laverne and Shirley.
Cindy: Stop it John. It was fortunate that I was working with John because I felt like I had known him all my life for some strange reason. He was like a bad brother. There was kind of an in-built history. He is just such a consummate actor that he plays that part with the right amount of comedy, drama and eccentricity. It's just so easy as an actor to relate to him on all the levels that I needed to feel like we have been married for that length of time. Even though I like to take him out and horse pump him every now and then. It was all in the script as well, the intimacy, the closeness, the familiarity.
Chaney: What inspired you to do the movie considering you both have played in so many other mainstream films - Cindy notably Laverne and Shirley and John notably Home Alone. After all, it’s a healthcare movie, there’s some politics involved. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
John: There’s some similarity with the caring dad role in Home Alone’s Peter McCallister. Besides, I think one of the things that gets overlooked is health care and the insurance industry that has ruined the relationship between doctor and patient. You know when I was a kid, my mother didn’t need health insurance to take me to the doctor and the simplicity of the film speaks to a certain class of people. Walter has owned a shoe store, is trying to work every day of his life but he is still poor.
Cindy: It’s unacceptable that everyone doesn’t have health care insurance because until its happened to you or a loved one, you just don’t know where to turn. So many people have fallen through the cracks. The film describes the perfect character, in the middle class just across the board because it’s a struggle that everybody is fighting.
Chaney: Why did you choose John and Cindy for the role?
Megan: When we found out we had some actors, Alexia and I started meeting with everybody in LA. We met Cindy and John in a fancy hotel in LA. I remember when I met Cindy, I felt like I knew Cindy for years. Cindy was wondering why we were meeting in this fancy hotel for an ultra low budget film. I always wanted John in the film. Sometimes you know the chemistry will be right. Right away we knew. We even got John’s friends (Victor Polizos, Jude Ciccolella, James Gleason) involved – the guys who helped him rob the bank.
Chaney: Just for the record, ultra low budget – how much are we talking and what’s the name of the fancy hotel?
Megan: The budget is under a million dollars. The hotel's name is L’Ermitage.
Chaney: I want to go back to health care issues. So if we look at how the media has portrayed the issues in the past – films such as Michael Moore’s Sicko targeted the insurance industry and how people pay so much but might not get the treatment that they want after all. Is Stealing Roses taking a similar or different stance?
Megan: It’s a different take on a similar issue. There’s a scene in the movie when Walter goes to a social worker trying to fight the system. He can’t afford health insurance, he’s too young to get Medicare (only 61) and not poor enough to get Medicaid. I think this summarizes part of the issue - people falling through the cracks. It’s really about people working hard their whole lives, playing by the rules and no one is helping them. They are running into walls. It’s comedy, its drama, so we are not hitting your head with a baseball bat about the issue. As a current health care consultant, I know what its like working with executives on the inside for care delivery. It’s convoluted, there’s lots of paperwork and people get lost in the system.
Chaney: I have done some work in the health care space and I recognize some of the issues such as heavy paperwork, and user un-friendly policies. What’s your take with Obama’s health care reform and how do you see that implemented?
Megan: I think it’s the step in the right direction, a single payer option. We need universal coverage and if some people get uncomfortable about substandard care and they want to have private coverage, they can get supplement coverage – thus having both.
Chaney: I have spent quite a lot of time in England and over there it's single payer for everyone but long waiting lists for specialized treatments. What do you think?
Megan: Some political parties have used that as fear factor. They say look at England and Canada - you have to wait three months for an MRI. Maybe if we have both options as mentioned earlier it will alleviate the fear. Perhaps, we all go to the doctor way too much. Maybe we are all overmedicated. In the film, Rose, gets throat cancer. If she had gone more regularly, symptoms would have been caught much sooner and it could have been prevented. But people don’t go for regular checkups because they don’t have insurance.
Chaney: To wrap, what are your next projects?
Cindy: Just finished a run in the Odd Couple with Jo Anne Worley in New Jersey’s Surflight theatre.
John: Awaiting greenlight on a script about a saxophone player who I will be playing.
Megan: Working on an adaptation of a book into a movie.
Stealing Roses is currently in post-production and the Producer is in talks with distributors. Stay tuned in the future for the release date.
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