Via Zoom: That’s a Wrap! Director Nick Celozzi on ‘The Class’

CHICAGO – One of the more high profile local film productions this summer was “The Class.” The film essentially reunites Anthony Michael Hall of “The Breakfast Club” with John Hughes-land, and brings him back to high school … this time as the assistant principal. “The Class” was written and directed by Nick Celozzi.

The film wraps production on Sunday, August 8th, and the young cast portraying the high schoolers – Charlie Gillespie (Netflix’s “Julie and the Phantoms”), Juliette Celozzi, Lyric Ross, Hannah Kepple, Colin McCalla and Michael Sebastian – will also wrap their roles in this Breakfast-Club like homage. While in town the cast also participated in “”A Night with Anthony Michael Hall” [21] at the Tivoli Theatre in Downers Grove (IL), which included his co-star Debbie Gibson, the 1980s/90s teen idol singer-turned-actress.

Writer/Director Nick Celozzi of ‘The Class’
Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com

Nick Celozzi is a veteran actor, producer, writer and director. After graduating from Marquette University in the 1980s, he eschewed the family business – his father, Nick Celozzi Sr., was co-owner of Celozzi-Ettleson car dealership (“where you always save more money”) – to take a chance in Los Angeles as an actor. After doing character parts in TV shows and film, he began to expand into production, writing and direction. Thematically, he has used family stories for films such as “Momo: The Sam Giancana Story” (2011) and “The Legitimate Wiseguy” (pre-production), but has also expanded in other stories, such as “Shattered” (2017), “Secrets of a Small Town” (2018) and his film-in-production, “The Class.”

In a two-part interview via Zoom, Nick Celozzi talks about writing and directing his passion project, “The Class.”

In PART ONE, on why this film is defined as “pieces of himself” and how his cast exceeded expectations …

In PART TWO, the dream cast comes together and a bit about Nick, Sr. …

Anthony Michael Hall talks about his role in “The Class” with Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com … CLICK HERE [22].

[23]	By PATRICK McDONALD [24] Editor, Film Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com [23]