On an August afternoon, actor Crispin Glover sits in a pew in the sanctuary of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Iowa City. Down in the basement, a couple dozen extras dressed in period clothing are biding time playing cards and reading, while outside, an antique ice wagon sits on the corner of North Linn and Jefferson streets, closed to downtown traffic.
For the past few weeks, Iowa City has been at the heart of Death of a Brewer, a feature film dramatizing the fierce clash between immigrant brewers and Temperance Movement crusaders that shaped the community in the late 19th century.
Directed by Mokotsi Rukundo, a filmmaker from Iowa City, the period drama stars Mena Suvari (American Beauty), Crispin Glover (Back to the Future), Tyler Posey (Teen Wolf) and Mount Vernon native Jefferson White (Yellowstone). But the production has also tapped into local talent: Dozens of Iowans have been darting in and out of scenes as extras, and some — like Iowa City West High graduate Ella Vakiner — are even pulling double duty behind the scenes.
“It’s kind of a waiting game. When you’re an actor, whenever they pull you, you go, then wait again,” Vakiner told IPR’s Talk of Iowa, sitting patiently in full costume in the basement of the church during a filming day on Aug. 12. She’d spent her time that morning shuffling between wardrobe duty and stepping in front of the camera. “I’ll be fixing suspenders, I’ll be sewing a button on someone, then I’ll go back into the scene and I’ll sit and I’ll do the actor thing. It’s way crazier than I would have ever expected the film industry is.”…