All I know about Kansas City is that they like to hire horrendous former New York Jet head coaches. And Don Mattingly once got busted there for pissing in public outside a bar. Understood – I love a good al-fresco pee as well, Donnie Baseball.Today, however, “The City of Fountains” (Wikipedia with the assist) moves into my top 11 favorite cities, as its film festival becomes the eleventh fest to accept The Beneficiary. And with that, I vow to never urinate on your hallowed soil, KC.
Today’s Festivus space is dedicated to another star of my film:
Lew Temple. Lew is best known for playing Cal, the cranky cook in The Waitress. In my film, he plays the pawn shop gun dealer.
Lew won me over in an instant, after he mentioned he’d played minor league baseball. I went full-force sports geek on him all afternoon, and found his story about the leap from ballplayer to actor to be as cool as it gets.
Lew played in the minors for the Astros, alongside a future pro named Casey Candaele. Casey’s mother had played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which was depicted in the movie A League of Their Own.
When A League of Their Own was in pre-production, Casey was hired to help the female actors with their baseball skills. He brought Lew along with him, and Lew, after teaching Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell how to bunt, began to catch the acting bug. The producers gave him a line in the movie, and he was hooked.
While he tends to play tough creeps, Lew is one of the nicest actors I’ve ever worked with. The universe has blessed the man who can both turn a double-play and teach me a few cool technical acting tricks for our scene. Consider me crazy jealous, sir.
