|
Local actor stars in CBS TV movie set to air this Sunday
By Justin Goble
National television audiences will get a good look at a local professor this Sunday night.
Terry Nienhuis, who teaches film production classes at Western Carolina University, will star as a ferry boat operator in the Hallmark Hall of Fame feature “The Water is Wide,” which airs on CBS at 9 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 29. The film also stars relative new-comer Jeff Hephner along with acclaimed actors Frank Langella and Alfre Woodard.
“The Water is Wide” is based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Pat Conroy that tells of the author’s experience as a young school teacher determined to bring literacy and self-respect to predominantly black children on a small island off the South Carolina coast.
Cullowhee’s Terry Nienhuis stars as a ferry operator in “The Water is Wide,” an adaptation of the novel by Pat Conroy that will air on CBS this Sunday night, Jan. 29, at 9 p.m. The film also stars Jeff Hephner, Frank Langella and Alfre Woodard. Nienhuis, who teaches film at Western Carolina University, said while starring in movies causes some complications with his teaching schedule, the experience allows him to be a better teacher. “It helps me do better what the university pays me to do, which is to show young people how film really works,” he said.
Nienhuis’ start in acting began unexpectedly. He first became interested in the late ’70s when a student introduced him to a play he was unfamiliar with.
“Well, it started in 1977, when I had a student give me a copy of the play ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’ by Tom Stoppard,” Nienhuis said. “He said, ‘I thought you might like this.’ I was just amazed by it, and the student told me, ‘We’re having auditions tonight.’ I had been in two plays in high school, so I really had no true stage experience. But I went to that audition, and that was the start of my stage work.”
From that point, Nienhuis racked up more than 50 stage roles. Film parts began to come along when WCU upgraded its film department in the ’80s and hired people with professional experience. It was through these contacts Nienhuis was able to get in touch with a talent agency, which subsequently started finding him auditions to go to.
“In the mid-1980s, the university hired Steve Ayres,” he said. “He had an enormous amount of experience in dramas and films. In 1989, he started getting his students involved with the biggest talent agency in North Carolina, the Jan Thompson Agency. They started representing the students. And then they started representing me. They started sending me to TV and film auditions. I’ve been doing that for 16 years now, and I still have JTA calling me from time to time and sending me to auditions.”
It was through JTA that Nienhuis learned about the role in “The Water is Wide.”
“My agent called me in October of 2004 and said there was a part in this Hallmark Hall of Fame movie,” he said. “I had done three of those already, and two of them with John Kent Harrison, the director of this movie. So I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I went to the audition, and within three weeks I got a call back telling me they wanted me to play this role.”
Though he had an edge over the others going out for the part, there were some possible conflicts with his position at the university. With help from other professors and some technological assistance, Nienhuis said he was able to accommodate his role as an actor and his position as a teacher.
“It was shooting in Wilmington, so I was going there and coming back whenever I could,” he said. “I was trying to do this and teach my classes at the same time. I had the cooperation of my colleagues, and I was doing a great deal of teaching on-line.”
How to conduct a distance-learning class was just one of the many things Nienhuis had to learn while shooting “The Water is Wide.” Playing the role of a ferry operator called for him to learn his way around a boat. Fortunately, he said he had some help.
“I had to drive a boat, and that was complicated enough,” he said. “They had me standing inside the cab of the boat at the wheel while a very experienced boat operator was underneath powering the boat. Though I had to learn a great deal about maneuvering a boat, I never really had to drive it. It’s still not a day at the beach when 45 people are standing there waiting for you to do it right and hoping you don’t run into them.”
One may assume working with such acclaimed actors as Langella and Woodard would prove equally as complicated. However, Nienhuis said sharing the screen with the actors came easy since they didn’t suffer from the cliched Hollywood trappings.
“It was not a challenge,” Nienhuis said. “The actors tend to be very nice people. I had a few scenes with Langella. I spent some time with him, and I rode to the set with him a few days. He is very down-to-earth. There’s an unwritten rule on movie sets that you don’t bug stars with requests for autographs and things like that. So the actors don’t really get bothered.”
“This for me was the longest period I’ve been on a set,” he said. “Before this, I had a two-week period on a set in Louisiana. This one was 11 shooting days during a four-week period.”
Being on the set so long allowed a familial atmosphere to develop among the cast and crew, Nienhuis said. To him, that was one of the best parts of the whole experience.
“It was just a lot of fun,” he said. “I was there for a month, so it started to feel like family. You feel like you are a part of a group effort, which is very satisfying. I was invited to L.A. for the screening, which I chose not to go to. The real attraction of going would be seeing all of those people again. There was a strong sense of group identity.”
Nienhuis said his experience on film sets helps his teaching because it gives him first-hand knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes. This not only allows him to explain the filmmaking process to his students; it puts him in a position to help those interested in getting into the film business.
“You can’t really understand it unless you’re in the middle of it,” he said. “I understand it so much better than I used to. I have a lot of students who want to get in the film business. So I ask the people on the periphery, ‘How’d you get started?’ On the set of this movie, I talked to the assistant directors and production assistants to get a sense of the process they had to go through to get this work. There’s a lot of really exciting film production work at Western being done by professional people. So any time I get involved with a film, I can bring back valuable context.”
Along with being able to offer his students a glimpse of the work going on behind the camera, Nienhuis said he felt he was able to offer them some idea of what it is like to interact with another actor during the course of a scene. While he is glad to offer whatever tips he can, he did say actors have to learn that part of their craft by actually doing it.
“You have to be sensitive to the environment and learn from people who do this every day,” Nienhuis said. “I did some scenes with Hephner. He has a very understated style. You can’t really bluster. You have to match his qualities. That’s one of the ways you learn the business. The same thing works at Western. Projects done there also cast experienced actors to fill roles to give students experience with seasoned actors so they can get a sense of another person’s style.”
Many of his students aren’t aware of the difficulty because it’s the job of the filmmakers and the actors to make it all look effortless, Nienhuis said.
“Hollywood makes it look easy,” he said. “They don’t call it the ‘dream factory’ for nothing. They make it look easy so the paying customer can be swept off their feet. We all go to movies and just see the finished product. It’s hard to see the scaffolding behind it. People don’t see how painstaking it is. A two-minute scene on screen can take eight hours to film. The director might splice two shots together that might not be shot in the same day. The scaffolding behind it all is very complex.”
Despite being part of the “dream factory,” Nienhuis was quick to point out acting in a film is far from easy. Most aspiring actors are unaware of the early mornings and long hours, and it takes a good work ethic to make it in the film business, he said.
“It’s hard work,” he said. “There’s some days when the transportation people would pick me up at 4:30 or 5:30 a.m. Then it’s a lot of hurry up and wait. On top of that, you’re working 12 to 14 hours a day.”
In the end though, Nienhuis said his duty as a teacher is always paramount in his mind. The fortunate thing about acting is that it helps him do that job even better.
“I have the world’s best job (as a professor),” he said. “The university always comes first. I’m 60 years old. I can retire any time I want to. I like doing film work. You have a finished product, which is very satisfying. It also helps me do better what the university pays me to do, which is to show young people how film really works. I really do adore teaching.”
|
