Star shot before film began

BUZZY indie movie “Cicada” has gotten glowing reviews, and features actress Cobie Smulders, “SNL” comic Bowen Yang and “30 Rock” actor Scott Adsit.

But the movie starring Matthew Fifer and Sheldon D. Brown was changed shortly before production, when Brown — who’d already been cast — was injured in a drive-by shooting and the aftermath of the traumatic incident was written into the script.

Brown was hit by a stray bullet in Chicago just three months before filming began and spent a month in the hospital with a catheter, a bag connected to his kidneys and a fractured pelvis. He also lost 40 pounds.

Police never caught the perpetrator. “After I was shot, I didn’t know if I was going to be performing again,” Brown told us. “That’s what I really love to do. A part of me just really wanted to prove to myself that I could get back at it again.

“I was afraid to step back in the real world. I spent three months inside my apartment. I couldn’t really walk anywhere. I looked drastically different than how I remembered myself. It was a lot I was processing at the time. I wanted to find a way to reconcile and deal with that.”

Brown — who received a writing credit on the project — was able to incorporate his own story into the film’s plot.

Brown still had an ostomy bag during production, which is shown in intimate scenes. In the movie, the two men navigate their own issues and are able to come together to heal.

“Most black queer people have to be brave,” Brown said. “I could have sat there and said, ‘Why did this happen to me?’ . . . I knew as soon as I woke up the next day after being shot I was meant to be on this planet storytelling.”

Fifer, who wrote the film and co-directed with Kieran Mulcare, told us of the script: “Writing it was incredibly cathartic.”

The Hollywood Reporter said that the movie, which was made for under $50,000, “puts Fifer and Brown on the map.”