Actor Colin Michael Day knew catching a break in the film industry would be hard. He didn’t expect to risk his life in the process.
Day, who co-stars in the new indie film “The Loneliest Road in America,” was shooting a bar scene for the movie using area residents as extras. The production crew agreed to pick up the tab, but that wasn’t enough for one drunk local.
“He pulls me over and says, ’do you know how many men I’ve killed?” Day recalls. Then, the man asked him, “Do you wanna draw right now?”
The actor lived to shoot another day, but the experience gave him a great anecdote – and his first film credit.
Day helped make that happen by taking matters into his own hands. He co-produced the film along with filmmaking partner Mardana Mayginnes. The pair made the film based loosely on their own trek from Colorado to Los Angeles to start their respective film careers.
The Denver native plays Jamie, a Coloradan torn between an unhealthy relationship and a fear of where he should start the next chapter in his life.
‘There’s a little bit of familiarity with the characters, of trying to find yourself,” he says.
“Road” screened earlier this year at Florida’s Delrey Beach Film Festival and the Method Independent Film Festival in Calabasas. Since shooting wrapped, Day has busied himself on the L.A. stage in “Love Bites” and “Block Nine,” the latter nominated for an L.A. Weekly award for Best Ensemble Comedy.
Day’s character in “Road” may appear confused as he head out west with his pals, played by Abby Leigh and Chris Hayes. But the actor says he knew exactly what he wanted to do when he plotted a course to Hollywood.
He just didn’t initially set out for an acting career.
Day was studying business at the University of Denver and playing on the tennis team when he took a few acting classes on a lark.
That “throwaway” class led him to study the Stanislavsky method, the kind of challenge which stoked his competitive fires.
“If there’s a challenge to it, I enjoy it even more,” he says.
He would love to work more in Denver but says even projects shot in the Mile High City are cast back in L.A. He still hopes to shoot a future film here via his production team, knowing the city’s downtown area and atmosphere make it a great place to shoot.
And he has no regrets about leaving the business world behind, even if he’s using some of that savvy to help juice his film career.
He realized his transformation from business major to actor was complete while working in a University of Denver stage production.
“I was playing this crazy character and had to learn a cockney accent. I had a limp and grew a beard [for the part]. I was being completely taken over by a character And I loved it … I felt so free,” he says.
(Photo: Actor Colin Michael Day, co-starring in the new indie film “The Loneliest Road in America.”)
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