Big Screen
Jonathan Scialabba, whose credits include the television shows “As The World Turns,” “Those Who Kill” and “The Outsiders,” will make his feature film debut in “Marshall,” opening Friday nationwide.
This biopic is about a young Thurgood Marshall, before he became the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, as he battles through one of his career-defining cases.
“I play a prison guard in the film and have a couple lines in one of the first scenes with three of the movies stars, Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad and Sterling K. Brown,” said Scialabba, 40, of Center Township.
Scialabba spent a day filming in June 2016 with the three stars in New York near Niagara Falls, with staging from Buffalo.
“It was kind of an oddity,” he said. “There was not much casting in Buffalo, so they had to go to bigger cities. I taped for it in Pittsburgh.”
In “Marshall,” Scialabba's character introduces the two attorneys to their client.
“We were there all day for one scene and in a hotel all weekend. We rehearsed on Sunday and filmed on Monday,” he said.
He had to be clean cut and clean-shaven for the 1940s prison guard role.
“Prison guards/police officers would not particularly have beards or facial hair,” Scialabba related.
And he had facial hair to spare at the time.
“It was filmed during the Penguins playoff run, and I had a huge playoff beard I had to shave,” he said.
Scialabba previously lived in New York for five years before moving back to the Butler area. He is the son of the late Donald and Judith Scialabba.
He attended a competitive arts school in New York called the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre.
The 1995 graduate of Butler High School remembers playing Bernardo in “West Side Story” in 11th-grade. He also went to Gannon University during which time he acted in about 20 shows, he said.
He is a member of the television union AFTRA and the Screen Actors Guild.“I was in New York and I was kind of getting burned out, doing a lot of stage work, and I was coming back to see my parents a lot then,” he said.“As soon as I moved (to Butler), I got an agent in Pittsburgh.”He hasn't quit his day job, he said, as a bartender at the Cheesecake Factory, but he earns residual checks from his television appearances and works as a professional actor.“When it comes down to it, really it's like playing the lottery,” he pointed out. “Everyone's talented, but you have to be lucky.”He said he was invited to a “Marshall” red carpet premiere last Saturday night and a private screening Sunday morning in Buffalo but was unable to attend.“I plan on seeing the film over the weekend with my family,” Scialabba said.Scialabba lives in Center Township with his wife, Katrah, daughters Stella and Lucy, and son, Jude.“Even with one scene and a couple lines, I think everyone is excited to see a familiar face on the big screen.“For me, it is kind of a lifetime achievement or something I had always dreamed about. Even on a small level.”He predicts the product from Open Road Films “is gonna' be good, it's gonna' be real good, Oscars even.”
