Second Career
Alan Hruska retires from a life in law to make his first film, Nola, showing this week
Here’s a working definition of “glutton for punishment”: a man who works 44 years as a New York trial lawyer, runs a publishing house on the side, then retires to become a filmmaker at age 70. Why not just take up lethal kickboxing? Yet to hear Alan Hruska tell it, he’s never been happier than in his latest high-stress venture.
“This is the first time in my life I’ve ever been asked for autographs,” says Hruska, who’s touring the country in support of Nola, a bittersweet romantic comedy that marks his writing and directing debut. It opens Friday at Green Hills, and Hruska passed through Nashville last week for a round of press and promotional screenings.
A heartfelt, if plot-heavy, country-mouse tale with distinct echoes of Pretty Woman, Nola concerns a hard-bitten Kansas waif who escapes to New York and the company of a high-class madam, a newspaper columnist and a fry cook studying law. For the title role, Hruska lucked into rising star Emmy Rossum, who recently landed the coveted female lead in the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera. Established vets Mary McDonnell and Steven Bauer signed on for roles that flexed hitherto unseen talents—near-slapstick for dramatic actress McDonnell, singing for Scarface sidekick Bauer.
Hruska admits that launching a new career, especially in the youth-obsessed world of filmmaking, was tough. Through his legal connections, though, he met line producer Jill Footlick (Boys Don’t Cry) and sold her on his idea. That cleared a lot of hurdles. Apart from editing, he says, his favorite part of the experience was working with the cast. “A director’s role is superfluous if you have good actors,” he explains, with modesty unbecoming a filmmaker.
In January, Hruska starts his second film: a thriller that, like Nola, will draw on his knowledge of New York’s legal jungle. For now, he’s showing his film wherever it can find an audience: at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival, to U.S. troops stationed in Kuwait. “Audiences love it, and that has been my dream all along,” he says. “I’ve wanted to do this since I was 9 years old.”
—Jim Ridley
