Nearly 60 years after appearing in “On the Waterfront,” Thomas Hanley is slated to return to the silver screen in a new independent film due for release later this year.
Hanley, who recently retired as a union worker at Global Terminal in Jersey City, appeared originally as a young boy in the famous 1954 film with Marlon Brando. Now he returns to acting by playing an elderly character known as “Pops.”
Although primarily filmed in Sullivan County in New York state, the crew is scheduled to film in Cliffside Park, N.J., shortly.
The script for the film was written by John Bale, a kind of reminiscence from when he was 18 years old. It centers around a father and son deciding the fate of their farm, and the strange turn of events after a visitor arrives at this moment in time.
“Part of me that didn’t want to do it. I didn’t think I could do it well enough.” – Thomas Hanley
________
It became a film after director Tom Balsamides’ wife, Tamara, was invited by Lorraine Davis Sorvino to see her son, Michael, in Bale’s play called “Stuck” at the Central Stage in New York City. After reading a Bale script called “Hunting Season,” Tom Balsamides said he wanted to make it into a film. Balsamides, who had received an award for Best Psychological Thriller in 2009 for a short film from the New York International Film and Video Festival, saw his chance in this script to explore new areas of human interaction. He called the upcoming film “very emotional.”
The principal characters include David, Pops, George, and Geraldine. In picking the actors, Balsamides said he reached out to people connected to “Stuck.”
Michael Sorvino is the son of the actor Paul Sorvino and brother of Academy Award-winning actress Mira Sorvino. Originally from Bergen County, Michael plays David, a recluse starved for human contact and yearning for excitement in his life after the death of his mother.
And David’s “Pop” is played by Hanley, who starred in the 1954 Academy Award winning film “On the Waterfront.” He was located again after Bale read a New York Times article about the death of “Waterfront” screenwriter Budd Schulberg in 2009.
“Dave Brady, vice president of Global Terminals in Bayonne, received messages for me to contact Bale for a part in his movie,” Hanley said during a recent interview.
Balsamides said, “Brady wouldn’t give me Hanley’s number, but agreed to pass mine along to him.”
Hanley, who recently retired from the docks after 37 years with Local 1588, International Longshoreman Association (ILA), hasn’t acted since his role as a teenager opposite Marlon Brando in the famous pigeon-tending scenes.
Born and raised
Hanley, who was born and raised in Hoboken and later moved to Bayonne, remembers working on the 1954 film for about two weeks at the then-high salary of $250 a week, but because his family was poor, he did not join the actors’ union.
“It would have cost $70,” he said. “We needed the money.”
It was one of those decisions that cost him later, since he didn’t receive residual payments from the classic movie. But Hanley became a strong supporter of clean and honest waterfront unions over the years, and like his father, he strongly opposed corrupt unions.
This is his first acting job since he starred with Brando.
“I’m not claiming to be an actor,” he said. “I was a young kid when I started, 14 then. Now I’m 70.”
Took some convincing
The director said it took some convincing for Hanley to do the role, and then more to get him on the set once the filming date loomed.
Hanley said he has been interviewed numerous times, especially when one of the other actors in the film died.
“A few years ago, when “On the Waterfront” turned 50, there was a great exhibit in the Hoboken Museum,” he recalled.
Several scenes in the film were shot in Hoboken.
It took a while for the director to find him.
“They went over to Global, but Global wouldn’t give them my number, but they passed their number onto me,” Hanley said. “When I asked, they asked if I was interested and I said yes. I’m interested in writing a book, so I told them I would do it. They told me it would be an artsy, independent kind of a movie. I had some angst about doing it. I do not consider myself an actor.”
He added, “Part of me didn’t want to do it. I didn’t think I could do it well enough. But I try not to let my fear hold me back. So I did it. Some say I did okay. I’m trying to believe that. That’s how it came about. I went up to New York state for a few days.”
Hanley said he likes living in Bayonne, and likes being part of the community.
“It reminds me of growing up in Hoboken,” he said. “People in the neighborhood know each other. I lived in North Arlington when I was married, but I was always a neighborhood boy.”
Hanley said he liked the people he met on the film.
“All the people I met on this project were nice people,” he said. “There was a good camaraderie that made me feel comfortable.”
Balsamides said Hanley was “really down to earth.”
“When I cast him, I gave him an audition in New York City to play ‘Pops,’ and he was perfect,” Balsamides said.
But he could sense that Hanley had second thoughts.
“He calls me up two weeks before the shoot, and tells me he hasn’t acted in ages, and I sensed doubt,” Balsamides said. “I told him I’m the director and if I had to hold his hand through the entire process, I would, and I can even hold up the cards and zoom in so the camera won’t see it. I told him, acting is supposed to be fun, not stressful. So he came.”
Other locals involved
The movie even taps Hudson County for members of its crew. The gaffer, Brian Arthur, is a Hoboken resident.
Balsamides said he hopes to release the film by the end of the summer. “We’re trying to get it into the major festivals,” he said.
He said he sees the film as being about people’s lives and relationships, and the numerous things that connect people’s lives. He said part of what attracted him to the story was his interest in these relationships, and how “we all affect each other, even when we don’t know it.”
In some ways, this film is a kind of ironic vengeance story. A hunter kills Pop’s wife, and later, the hunter is killed by Pop’s son. Although Pops thanks the son, the tale isn’t as simple as vengeance.
“The film is trying to express interrelationships,” he said, “and discovering yourself as person. We have a cross dresser who thinks he’s gay, but he’s not gay. Pops can be a farmer and an artist, and we have a tomboy who acts like a guy but is attracted to guys – and that’s fine.”