Entourage Star Returns Home in Feature Film
IMTA Press Release
May 18, 2007
Brooklyn Rules open nationwide May 18
“I'm looking for something that, after I read the script, I'm just talking about it to everybody. That's how I know I'm really into something.” – Jerry Ferrara
For a guy who plays a character named Turtle on the award-winning HBO comedy series Entourage, IMTA alum Jerry Ferrara’s Hollywood star is moving upwards at anything but a slow pace. Ferrara, who attended the 2000 New York IMTA Convention, appears to be moving into the fast lane in 2007 with a fourth season of Entourage currently filming (scheduled to begin airing in June), two starring roles in independent films that premiered in April at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival, and a starring role in Brooklyn Rules opposite Alec Baldwin, Freddie Prinze, Scott Caan and Mira Sorvino. Not bad for the Brooklyn-born, once-upon-a-time aspiring actor who described himself as “the worst waiter in the history of the San Fernando Valley.”
Brooklyn Rules, written by Emmy-winning “Sopranos writer Terence Winter, is set in Brooklyn circa 1985 against the backdrop of John Gotti's rise to Mafia power. The story revolves around three lifelong friends whose different ambitions place them in grave danger and threaten their relationship and their lives. “A lot of scripts about Brooklyn are insultingly bad,” says Ferrara. “But this one was right on the money. We basically shot all over the neighborhood where I grew up. If you grew up there, especially in the '80s, there is no way you can say we did not nail that time period and what Brooklyn was all about back then.”
In Where God Left His Shoes, one of the two Ferrara-starring films at the Tribeca Festival, a failed boxer (John Leguizamo) struggles to find a job and an apartment for his family on Christmas Eve. The film was written and directed by Salvatore Stabile who also is a co-producer for the new television series, Drive, that stars 1997 IMTA alum Riley Smith. The other festival film, Gardener of Eden, tells the story of Adam Harris (Lukas Haas) whose aimless life takes on new and surprising turns when he accidentally captures a serial rapist. The film was directed by Ferrara’s Entourage co-star Kevin Connolly and produced by Leonardo DiCaprio.
“I feel like one very lucky guy out here in L.A.,” says Ferrara. “But I owe everything I am to Brooklyn.”