Jenica Bergere has been an actor for more than 25 years. Her credits includes everything from Safety Not Guaranteed to Shameless to Alexa & Katie. Bergere also knows all too well that she works in an industry where it is nearly impossible to get things done.
That is unless you take charge and you do them yourself.
No stranger to guerrilla filmmaking, Bergere made her directorial debut with her award-winning, film, Come Simi. She co-wrote, produced, starred in, directed and shot the movie in six days for $10,000. The fast and furiously-shot autobiographical tragic comedy also starred Molly Shannon, Tawny Kitaen, Fionnula Flanagan, Retta and Josh Funk.
And if that wasn’t enough, she did all this while nine months pregnant. Bergere even got her real-life OB-GYN to let her use the delivery room for 15 minutes for free so she could shoot herself giving birth for the movie. That was just moments after ACTUALLY giving birth. (Yes. You read that correctly!) She swapped out her real-life husband Josh Jackson for actor Josh Funk. Under the influence of an epidural or not, being behind the camera confirmed what Bergere already knew.
She is a filmmaker.
Armed with this knowledge, Bergere recently directed her second film, Spare Room. The honest and raw drama centers around a young war widow (The Gifted and Scream Queen star Skyler Samuels) who is caring for her brother with Down Syndrome (Born this Way’s Cole Sibus). Ever struggling, she rents a room in her home to make ends meet. When a stranger (Westworld’s Martin Sensmeier) shows up to rent the room, their lives are transformed.
On October 12, Spare Room will have its premiere at Heartland International Film Festival and has already been accepted for the Savannah and Napa Valley film festivals. How did it all come together? Veteran producer James Portolese (Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, All Stars, Beast of Burden) who co-produced Come Simi brought the project to Bergere. He had been given the script by his college friend writer/producer Laura Greenman Heine.
When it comes to taking charge and making things happen, Heine is as fearless as Bergere. She spent two years raising $300,000 on her own, so she could make the film. She also knew that she wanted a woman to direct in order to tap into the raw emotion and strength it requires to be a caretaker. Heine herself is a mother of three and lives in Chicago. Her youngest was diagnosed with early onset bi-polar disorder when he was two. “Our lives became daily triage,” says Heine. “It was equally heartbreaking and soul-crushing to get him the help he needed while managing his behavior but also watching him suffer. And the piece no one talks about is navigating the judgment and prejudice from people who don’t consider mental illness a disease.” However, writing Spare Room was a form of therapy. It gave her strength. “Over those years, I realized I was stronger than I had ever thought. And in my weakest moments, I learned so much about character,” she shares. “Especially mine.”
Bergere immediately responded to Heine’s story and became obsessed with making Spare Room. When the duo met, they quickly realized they were united in their vision, and a beautiful partnership was born. Not only did Portolese come on board to produce, Hollywood casting titan, Mary Vernieu of Betty Mae Casting (A Star Is Born, Deadpool 2, I, Tonya, Star Wars: Episode VIII, Black Swan and over 200 more films) joined forces as a producer too.
Vernieu’s fierce instincts and experience immediately elevated the project and the four filmmakers never looked back. “I’ve worked with some incredible men over my almost thirty years in the business, but these women lack ego, are insanely talented, and are not only industry savvy, but their emotional I.Q.’s are off the charts, which helped foster such a loving, familial feel on set,” shares Portolese about working with these three powerful women. Heine also enlisted the skills that she employs as a mom. “I used the tenacity I had acquired by being my son’s advocate,” explains Heine whose son is now almost 12 and thriving. “And realized that success lies in the smallest of daily wins and losses.”
In between wrapping Come Simi and shooting Spare Room, Bergere gave birth to her third daughter which left her juggling being a hands-on mom, working actress, and director. Heine would follow Bergere around on set with her breast pump, begging her to take a break. Yet, Bergere’s passion and commitment to Spare Room not only kept the cast and crew on schedule for a brisk, ten day, no-room-for-error shoot, it also allowed her to navigate working with a special needs actor, break out talent, Cole Sibus.
Taking a step back from the technical discussions with production and crew to focus on evoking emotion and performance the story required from her actors was a real juggle for Bergere. When asked how she kept so many balls up in the air when sick, exhausted, or even lactating, what was her response? “I’m a woman.”
Laura Greenman Heine offered guidance on raising money and your idea from scratch.
Passion. had a script I was passionate about and knew I HAD to make. But I also knew being outside the industry and Los Angeles, it would be a tenuous balancing act of leveraging what little experience and connections I had to gain the trust and interest of investors. I had to make both the investors and industry professionals in LA believe in me and gain credibility and contacts.
Material. And so that’s what I did. I continued to travel to LA and work on whatever projects I could, and I continued to write, so I had samples of work that people responded to positively. And once I was able to get one investor, that led to more people being interested. I had contracts, a minimum buy-in and ROI (or return on investment) structure in place. I also had a steadfast personal responsibility to bring the film into the world. It was important for me to make something both creatively and financially successful so the investors could get their money back, hopefully make a profit, and most importantly, be proud of it.
Confidence. On a different note, I learned how important it is to project confidence. When I first took a writing class as a mom with young kids after having been a high school English teacher, I was convinced I wouldn’t measure up to the younger people around me. I worried that no one was going to think a mom from Chicago could hang in the LA Hollywood system. I let doubt and insecurity eat me alive, even despite receiving feedback to the contrary. It took growth on my part and the experiences with my son which allowed me to present myself in a way people would respond to positively. My writing had been there, but none of that mattered without being able to represent and sell myself as a credible investment.
Design your dreams. How do you build your dreams when you don’t have money? I believe it’s as simple as leveraging what you have. Whatever talent or currency you possess, combined with a positive attitude and certainty, can go a long way. At the end of the day, people want to be inspired and believe in something. And that kind of energy is contagious.
