25 Actors: Day 6 - Ryan Segovich

 As part of the 25 Days of Sine Fine Films extravaganza leading up the 25th Anniversary I have decided to write a series of posts celebrating the 25 actors who have been the most dedicated by participating in the most productions.   

Actor of the Day: Ryan Segovich

Ryan joined the company in the winter of 1996 when he agreed to play Prince Gergio in Destiny II.  He has participated in 8 productions as cast and/or crew.

When I decided to write and film Destiny II, I needed a young person to play Gergio who was the tyrant king in Destiny that took over Ketlan's throne.  The original actor did as a favor because he and his wife were friends of the family but I wasn't able to get him to return and like I said I needed someone younger anyway.  I have a tendancy to cast people's younger siblings as their character's younger siblings because it's good for the two character to look related.  So when I cast Keith Segovich as King Ferdinand I immediately thought about casting his younger brother Ryan to play Ferdinand's younger brother Gergio. Make sense to me. 

Filming with Ryan I realized two things: 1) he's a really good actor and 2) he's hilarious.  Ryan was focused when I needed him to be, really good at the character making him both unlikeable and yet somehow still likeable, but he was also able to kick back, relax, and goof off with everyone else.  I was very glad I'd cast him in the part and that he's agreed to do it. 

When I wrote Destiny III, I specifically wrote the parts of Captain Ternep and The Great El Banyo for Ryan and Rachel Zoralee to play.  They're both hilarious actors and great people so I thought they'd make a good match as rivals. I was right.  

From his over confident attitude to his grand gesturing, Ryan owned the character of Captain James Jonathon William Ternep II, despite the fact that his coat as too tight and his had was too small and kept falling off.  

He was even willing to do a costumed photo shoot for Ternep with a few others as inspiration for one of the books I was writing about the Destiny characters, including Ternep and Banyo. 

I didn't film with him again until The King of Elflin's Daughter when I needed a stand in for Calaban, played by Keith Segovich.  When Keith didn't show up to film the fairy dance because he thought it had been cancelled due to rain (silly actors, would I ever cancel shooting for a little thing like rain?), I frantically called him. Keith wasn't able to come but Ryan was and he was a total hero, saving the day by showing up and dancing with the female lead.  Thank you Ryan!  He also played an extra elf/peasant fighter on the first day of filming for The King of Elflin's Daughter.

When I was filming The Perfect Combination I had a day were I needed some extra people to play henchmen.  I called up Ryan and he agreed to come film.  I did a few times actually and if he was available he would always say yes and join the fun playing whatever extra I needed him to, whether it was a henchman or a police officer. 

By the time I filmed The Vigil I had already decided that Ryan needed a bigger part - a much bigger part.  I like to reward people that are willing to be extras and film whenever with bigger roles when I have the chance and honestly I don't know why I didn't cast him in better roles sooner.  Finally I cast him in as the male lead in The Vigil: Abner.  

The Vigil was written by Joel Pierson and is a story about how not only people cope with the sudden death of their friend, but also how the person who dies suddenly copes with their own death.  The female lead, played by Nina Samii, has just died and Abner, the ghost of a guy who died on that spot in the early 1800s, helps her come to terms with her death and get over her life. 

Ryan did an amazing job as the lively and friendly Abner and was able to steal the show despite his ridiculous costume that made him look like a pathetic attempt at the Halloween costume of a lumber jack cosplaying as Davy Crocket with a dead raccoon hat.  As the daughter of a costumer you'd think I'd have known what the costume of someone who died in Abner's time would look like, but obviously I didn't.  If I'd gone with the rest of the Davy Crocket look it would have been fine, but no I just went with the hat.  It ended up strangling Ryan too and they had a vicious fight which luckily the hat lost or I would have needed to find another Abner. 

I enjoyed working with Ryan so much that I wanted to write a movie just for him. So I did.  The movie was called The Devil in Disguise and was about an unemployed writer with problems in his love life who gets seduced by a demon into selling his soul to the Devil.  There's a lot that happens and more fun characters like a guitar-playing cowboy angel that has to help him in order to get her wings.  It's a weird mash up between Damn Yankees and It's a Wonderful Life with a heavy dose of Yibble randomness thrown in for good measure. 

Unfortunately that movie was never filmed for...reasons.  Pandora's Box reasons.  I wrote Pandora's Box for Nina and expected to be done with it by the end of June. I planned to film The Devil in Disguise in July and August.  However became addicted to writing and filming Pandora's Box and I wasn't able to secure a major filming location that was essential to the plot in Devil in Disguise so I ditched that movie and made more Pandora Crack. I mean Box.  Pandora's Box.

I'm sure Ryan felt at least a little upset when his big movie ended up not being filmed, but he never said anything about it to me (he could have yelled at me about it - that would have been totally justified and fair - but he didn't).  He accepted a big and important secondary character in Pandora's Box instead and joined in the fun of making SFF's first real TV show.  The character was only in a few episodes, Episodes 16-18 and 24, but was a memorable character and a pivotal plot point.  

Philemon Orion was the scientist of a rebel unit that was destroyed by the Army Faction and ended up joining the main rebels with Zarc and Turlo.  He and Zarc fell in love and the three of them - Zarc, Turlo, and Phil - decided to check out a secret laboratory Phil had heard about and been searching for.  The trio go check it out and together they all rebuild a cloning machine. 

When General Mira Merneckly arrives, seizes control of the machine and uses Turlo as a test subject Philemon reveals himself to be a double agent.  In reality Philemon Orion is General Philip Gamon, the chief scientist in charge of the secret weapons program in the Army Faction.  He's been working for Mira all along and played the rebels for fools.  The trio of episodes he's in is actually called "Fool's Gold".

The problem is Phil has actually fallen in love with Zarc and now that his treachery has been revealed he doesn't know what to do about it.  He tries to go back to being the cold and detached general he was before, but when Turlo goes crazy and Zarc is in danger Phil throws caution to the wind, betrays the Army Faction, and saves Zarc's life at the cost of his own.  His death is a very emotional scene. 

Ryan did an amazing job as Phil.  The character could have been two dimensional, but Ryan made Phil more complex, genuine, and real.  I mean, seriously, Ryan is amazing and as good as he was as Abner I think his performance as Phil is his best one.  I also discovered that putting to people who are great at ad libbing and goofing off on the same set means that it takes twice as long to get half as much done. Ryan and Jacob were constantly cracking me, Virginia, and each other up and I still laugh when I watch their bloopers. 

Phil, or rather his clone, makes a final appearance in the last episode, but that's not all we see of Ryan in Pandora's Box.  He was willing to be a random colonel running to save General Leffridge in Episode 5.  When I needed someone to play a villainous sidekick, General Ralin, for the big bad guy in Episodes 8-10 he was once again willing to come to the rescue and play the part.  

Fighting and filming on a very hot day in the middle of Allerton Park near a pond full of mosquitoes in a long sleeve, long pants black costume is not what he signed up for but he's filmed with me before so he had at least some idea of what might happen.  In total Ryan appeared as three different characters in eight episodes, so not too bad but not the staring role he should have had. 

When I filmed The Long Take, a project for my film class, during the fall of 1999 he again agreed to film with me as the dashing hero who fights the villain and saves the princess.  It's a silent movie about making a silent movie so there was no dialogue to learn.  Unfortunately I wasn't used to using real 8mm film and the first time we shot I under exposed most of the footage, so we had to reshoot the whole thing a month later.  He didn't complain (none of them did) and we successfully filmed a strange and silly movie with his help. 

Sadly I haven't filmed with Ryan since the summer of 2000.  I'm not even sure if I've seen him since then.  Life moves on, I started filming mostly at SIUC, he graduated from high school and lived his life. As he should.  As everyone should.  I was very lucky to have been able to film with Ryan as much as I did because he really is a very nice, kind, funny, talented guy who filmed over and over whenever I asked in whatever part I gave him.

In hindsight I don't really regret not filming The Devil in Disguise because reading over the script years later I realized it wasn't very good. Pandora's Box was much better.  However, what I do regret is never filming Ryan's movie and getting to see him play the real, true leading character.  I wish I had cast him in more major roles back then because I wasted his talent.  Oh well, I'll just make sure to give him the lead character if I ever get the chance to film with him again.