Fort Worth will get some star power Saturday night when it hosts the world premiere of a new movie called The Actor.
"You're literally in the city that the movie was shot, watching it. So I think it just makes it more special," said Richard Blake, the writer, director, and star of the movie.
In The Actor, Blake portrays an actor battling his own moral standards after he witnesses a neighbor's murder and stumbles upon a load of cash the victim was hiding. He keeps the money, and in doing so, begins the performance of a lifetime to hide who he really is.
The Actor comes from Fort Worth-based Amberock Productions. Blake and his wife Amber started the production company in 2016 while they were living in Hollywood. The pandemic shut down production. So in 2021, the couple moved to Amber's hometown of Fort Worth and brought the production company with them.
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"I know the area and we came and we loved it. I was in the middle of this script. So during that time, I was sort of frustrated and angry but not sure and uncertain, but I kind of took all of that and just put it into this screenplay, and then lo and behold, we ended up staying," Blake said. "We bought a place downtown. We live in the city I love it. And, I said, 'Let's move our company here."
The Actor is their third project and while there's some Hollywood in the film, there's plenty of Fort Worth, too.
"We shot exterior shots in LA, and we shot a couple of travel scenes that the movie feels like it has a pretty big scope. But, you know, I was in Hollywood for 20 years so, you know, you cheat on everything. So we shot every scene, all crew, everything is from Fort Worth. So I mean there are tons of Fort Worth locations in it," Blake said.
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Main Street, downtown, The Tower, The Fort Worth Club, First Christian Church, Paris Coffee Shop, Magnolia Avenue, Roy Pope Grocery, and Pop's Gym are among the locations where the film was shot.
"It's just a fun movie. Don't take it too seriously," Blake said. "I wanna go back to a simpler time where we just got to sit down for two hours and watch a story and, you know, you either kind of like it or you love it or you watch it again."
The film drops on AppleTV, Amazon, and other streaming services on Friday. An invitation-only red-carpet screening happens Saturday night in downtown Fort Worth.
