Feb. 12 movie to feature Butler actor as police officer
He's been a prison guard, a gambling addict and a murder victim.
But it all looks good on the resume of Butler actor Jonathan Scialabba, who will next be seen as a brutal cop in the upcoming movie, “Judas and the Black Messiah.”
Because of the pandemic, the Warner Brothers movie will be released to both theaters and on the HBO Max streaming service Feb. 12.
Scialabba, who graduated from Butler High School in 1995, will play a Chicago police officer in the movie based on real events in 1969.
Scialabba said, “What happens in the story is, Fred Hampton was a member of the Black Panthers. He was 21 when he was killed, like Malcolm X.
“The FBI and Chicago Police Department did not like a lot of things that were going on with the Black Panthers. They recruited Bill O'Neal off the streets. They had him for stealing a car.
“He infiltrated the Black Panthers and became Fred Hampton's right-hand man and an informant to the police department,” he said.
Hampton was killed in his apartment during an early morning raid by the Chicago police.
“They came in like gangbusters, just shooting, and left pretty much everybody dead,” Scialabba said.
In the movie, Scialabba portrays Chicago Police Officer Valentino, who sparks a violent confrontation in a deli.
He filmed his scene shortly before Thanksgiving 2019 in Cleveland, which was standing in for the Windy City.
To prepare for the role, he perfected his Chicago accent and learned to shoot a pistol.
“I never shot a handgun in my life. But living in Butler, everybody has guns here, everybody shoots guns,” Scialabba said. He spent two hours on a local gun range getting comfortable shooting a .38 and had another shooting session with a retired security guard as a mentor in Center Township.
He had an easier time mastering a Chicago accent.
During filming, he said, the dialect coach came by to give him some pointers on talking like a native but left impressed with his mastery .
Scialabba said the coach probably had to spend more time working with British actor Daniel Kaluuya, who was playing Hampton.
Scialabba's extensive preparation for what is a relatively minor part doesn't surprise his agent, Stephen Black, the president and owner of The Talent Group of Pittsburgh.
Black said, “He is a strong actor, very versatile. He's got incredibly strong training from one of the best acting schools in the country, the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre in New York City.”Black also attended the school a few years before Scialabba.Scialabba grew up in Butler County, the son of the late Donald and Judith Scialabba, who owned the Spillway bar on Route 38 until 1998.After becoming involved in theater in 1993 or 1994, he played Bernardo in his high school's production of “West Side Story.”He remembers, “In off-Broadway or college, I never acted in front of as many people as I did when I went on stage in 'West Side Story.'”After graduating from Erie's Gannon College, he moved to New York and spent two years at the Neighborhood Playhouse School.“I lived on Long Island and commuted every single day to Manhattan,” he said.After graduating, he stayed in New York another three years, working as a bartender to supplement his acting earnings.He portrayed a young Ty Cobb in an off-Broadway play, was an extra in the soap opera “As the World Turns,” appeared in productions put on by his friends and himself, appeared in a Crystal Pepsi commercial that he has never seen and unsuccessfully tried to land himself an agent.Finally, he said, in his mid-20s he was fed up with New York, reeling from 9/11 and realized he wanted to come back to Butler and start a family.“When I came back, I was really burned out on New York, not acting, but I wanted to come home,” he said.Back in Western Pennsylvania, he got a job at the Cheesecake Factory on Pittsburgh's South Side, and got acting work.He played a murder victim on the 2014 Lifetime Movie Channel series “Those Who Kill.”“It was a really tough role,” he said. “The scene was a very violent scene. I'm in a cage and he's torturing me and he has my wife on an apparatus.“Then he kills me and it's very gory,” he said.It wasn't the gore, but the cold, that he really remembers about the role.
In the next episode, he played his character's corpse.“I played a dead body. The hardest part in playing dead is the slate was so cold. It was December in the North Side of Pittsburgh in a warehouse, and I'm nude on this slate,” said Scialabba. “The hardest part was to keep my teeth from chattering, it was so cold.”His move back coincided with a movie boom in Pittsburgh.He remembers auditioning unsuccessfully in 2005 for the movie, “10th & Wolf,” a movie about the Philadelphia mob filmed in Pittsburgh.“I couldn't get a film audition when I was in New York,” he said.But the attempt did make him familiar with Pittsburgh casting agents and helped him land his agent.In fact, Black said Scialabba might have been ahead of the curve in moving back to Pittsburgh. Now, it's a trend.“Surprisingly, because of COVID, productions are moving back to Western Pennsylvania,” Black said.“Things in Los Angeles and New York are pretty shut down right now. And the tax incentives are adding to a migration that has already begun. There are good crews and talent here, and productions aren't dealing with high costs.”Scialabba filmed near Niagara Falls in 2016 for a part in the movie “Marshall.”He said he played a prison guard, but his co-stars were Chadwick Boseman, Sterling K. Brown and Josh Gad.“I'm a small-town actor but I'm working with these actors. Sterling K. Brown is on 'This Is Us' and was in the O.J. Simpson miniseries, but they were all so down to earth,” he said.“Gad was famous as Olaf in 'Frozen,' and Sterling K. Brown kept singing 'Frozen' songs all the time. He was really funny.”He added, “Chadwick Boseman, I never met someone who was so focused. He was just laser-focused.“He was playing Thurgood Marshall, and I think he just found out he was going to be in 'Black Panther.' And he was sick around this time but nobody knew,” he said.Boseman died of colon cancer in 2020.For one of his latest appearances, Scialabba didn't miss working with another famous co-star.Scialabba said he's been interviewing for the past 12 years to appear in a Pennsylvania Lottery commercial.“But I didn't fit with their vibe,” he said. “I'd be interviewing with Gus the Groundhog, but he's really not there. I'm not right for that stuff.”But last March, he auditioned and landed the role of a gambling addict in a commercial for 1-800-Gambler, a helpline for people who suffer from gambling addiction.“I read the script. Basically I'm a gambling addict at the end of his rope,” he said.Because of the pandemic, the commercial's shooting was rescheduled three times, and all the other actors playing his character's wife, children and boss were cut from the script.'In the commercial, my credit card is declined. I'm at a gambling table with all the money in the middle. I put in my last $1,000 and get a losing hand,” he said.“At the very end of the commercial, I look like an addict. I am in tears and I say 'I need help.'”Scialabba said he hasn't seen the ad yet because right now, it only exists as a 15-second ad that pops up before videos appearing on a smartphone. He thinks it may turn up on broadcast television this spring.“I filmed it. I have not seen the commercial yet,” he said. “It's a three-year contract and I'm making good money, but I'm not seeing it.”The money will come in handy. While the Cheesecake Factory has reopened, its bar hasn't, and Scialabba has been working as a waiter.He also has a second job with the Pa. Liquor Control Board. And he's waiting for callbacks from auditions.He recently auditioned twice for a Netflix show called “Archive 81,” which is based on a horror podcast.He and his wife Katrah live in Center Township with their three children, Stella, 15, Jude, 13 and Lucy, 9.
