Live to Tell the Story

“There’s so much little time in the day, and every day, you get older, and there’s so much I wanna accomplish before my life is over,” says Peter Facinelli, who made his directorial debut on Breaking & Exiting released literally the day before. It’s a Saturday late afternoon in mid-August. He just flew into New York City in the midst of the movie promo cycle, and looks a bit exhausted since his flight got delayed. “Film and television are a director’s medium because as an actor, you come in and do your part and you give it over to the director, and as a writer, you give it over to the director so it’s really the director’s vision, and the director is telling the story, visually. I’ve been acting for almost 25 years now and I’ve given my work over to other people so I know how hard that is to trust the director. Sometimes, it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s not in your control so I wanted to be able to have the control over telling the story visually myself,” he describes of the new role as a director. “I had 3 female producers, 2 women that were producers Martine [Melloul] and Cecile [Cubilo], and then Jordan Hinson who wrote the script was also one of the producers. I felt very comfortable and felt at home being around them because it reminded me of having 3 sisters,” says Facinelli who grew up in Ozone Park, Queens, which was, according to him, “an interesting neighborhood because it was very Italian-American but also had Hispanic mixtures, as well. My 3 best friends were Cuban. It was like West Side Story that they kind of beat the crap out of each other but I was friends with both sides. And, my 4th best friend was Puerto Rican.” (Facinelli is first-generation American, having a dual citizenship and 2 passports: “I grew a little mustache and put my hair back for my Italian passport so it’s been fun.”)