The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
John R. Proegler
Stanfield, Plemons talk about their complex characters, scenes shared in ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’
John R. Proegler, 76, of Mentor, passed away, Sunday, January 31, 2021 at home, surrounded by his family. He was born August 2, 1944 in Kankakee, Illinois to the late Walter and Lois Proegler.
John proudly served his country in the United States Navy as a jet fighter pilot. He created and operated his own business, an information service for the office furniture manufacturing industry. He was active at the Mentor United Methodist Church, as Lay Leader for several years, as a member of the Chancel Choir and as a founding member of the Men’s Chorus. He was an avid woodworker, making furniture for his home as well as for others. He also enjoyed working with stained glass. His great sense of humor brought smiles to everyone he knew. His community and family were very important to him, and he left a legacy of help and support and true friendship to all the lives that he touched.
Survivors include his wife of 54 years, Lynn Donahue Proegler; children, Eric (Jacqueline Risley) Proegler; Lara Proegler and Meghan (David) Paul; grandchildren, Daniel Proegler, Maria and Anthony Mauriello, Gabriel, Reid and Paige Crozier and Andrew Paul; siblings, Kurt (Carol) Proegler, Mark (Amy) Proegler, Joel (Christine) Proegler and Susan Bevis; brother-in-law, Jack Donahue and many nieces, nephews and other loving family members.
Preceding John in death are his brothers, Lolt (Gwenn) Proegler and Carl Proegler; mother-in-law, Mildred “Mid” Donahue and father-in-law, Franklin “Bud” Donahue.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic a celebration of John’s life will be held at a later date.
Contributions may be made in memory of John to Hospice of the Western Reserve P.O. Box 72101, Cleveland 44192, donate online at www.hospicewr.org or to Heifer International, 1 World Avenue, Little Rock, AR 72202.
Arrangements entrusted to the Brunner Sanden Deitrick Funeral Home & Cremation Center, 8466 Mentor Ave., Mentor, OH 44060
Please offer condolences at www.brunners.com.
Daytona is used to shirtless fans partying in the infield. But what about maskless ones? This is usually the biggest party of the NASCAR season.
DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. » Sam Maxwell and his band of Cleveland bros packed up their 1997 Four Winds motorhome with 105,000 miles on it, headed south in the thick of the pandemic and pinned their hopes on a party.
Traveling on a budget, the friends like to hit a premier sporting event each year, and this week — thanks only to interest spiked by playing FanDuel — parked in the infield grass at Daytona International Speedway. They came to soak in the Daytona 500 atmosphere, or whatever they found among the campers killing time with games of cornhole and flip cup.
“We’re still going to have a party one way or the other,” Maxwell said. “Whether there’s 100 people or just the four of us, we’re still going to have fun.”
The diehard Browns fans brought the party to them. They hit a thrift store, plunking down $25 for a ratty sofa — perfect to absorb spilled PBR — and even plucked a keyboard out of a dumpster.
They blew up red balloons and tied them to a sign: “Moms Drink 4 Free!!!” Their plan to liven up the bash was overheard by a neighbor, who pressed her face against a window screen and asked if there was an age limit for the moms.
At Daytona, in both speed and celebrations, there are no limits.
So one of the gang waved her down and busted out the Fireball.
In the middle of a pandemic that has killed more than 470,000 people in the U.S., the carousing was more casual than crazy this week at Daytona as race day approached. The roughly 30,000 fans inside the sprawling facility that usually packs more than 100,000 are expected to make the Feb. 14 Daytona 500 the largest-attended single sporting event in the nation since the coronavirus shut down much of the sports world 11 months ago.
Mask wearing? Not so much, and there’s more space between stock cars pack racing on the superspeedway than there is between most campers.
“I’m not really too concerned about it,” Maxwell said.
The track made all the usual window-dressing moves to prove safety is a priority, with temperature checks, distanced seating, cashless concessions and adherence to CDC guidelines. Speedweeks, the runup to the big race, is sponsored by a health care system headquartered in Florida and COVID-19 testing information sits above a link to official travel packages on the track’s website.
Yet in a week where Victoria’s state government imposed a five-day lockdown
— stripping the Australian Open of fans while play continues — Florida is going for two: The Super Bowl hosted 25,000 fans last week in Tampa, about 150 miles west of Daytona, and viral videos showed throngs of mostly mask-less fans and packed sports bars as the hometown Buccaneers won it all.
NASCAR went down this road last season when Bristol had about 22,000 fans for its All-Star race last July. Daytona is bigger, even with social distancing in place for the grandstands, a mandatory mask order and no access to garages or pit row. Asked for comment, the Florida Department
of Health in Volusia County said “event planners implemented several strategies to maintain healthy environments” and noted access to the infield was “limited to camping customers and essential staff.”
Those campers are having a ball. Even if Tent City — famous for its raucous parties — has been reimagined as a “Turn 3 drive-in” setup for the RV crowd.
Mark Minadeo of Boca Raton was attending his ninth Daytona 500 and bought a motorhome for Speedweeks.
“This is ridiculous,” he said of the view. “It’s completely empty. A lot of people don’t know what’s going
on. As you’re walking around as you ask people who work at the track, they’re like, ‘Yeah, you can go over there and watch the race.’”
Some traditions are start-and-park mode.
Revelers, park your wheelbarrows. The boozefueled races — some might say, the real races at Daytona — are an informal tradition of dumping your buddy in the belly of the barrow then sprinting, stumbling to the finish.
Dave Rotax of Bristol, Vermont, drilled a hole in his No. 9 Chase Elliott wheelbarrow tire and filled it with expanding foam — consider it a sort of steroid in for wheels — and had it on standby for ambitious racers.
There was one bird chirping all day in a tree inside the fan zone that served as the soundtrack for the day more than the Q-&-A sessions with drivers that often entertained the masses. The mood is in stark contrast to last year when NASCAR fans were revved for then-President Donald Trump’s visit. Trump banners dotted the infield and the makeshift bars that lined the roads served drinks like the “Subpoena Colada.”
Trump flags swayed here and there this week, and there was at least one notably profane one directed at President Joe Biden, but politics was greatly tamped down. The fan support was mostly reserved for cutouts of greats like Dale Earnhardt or paint schemes for champion Chase Elliott.
But perhaps that little patch of Cleveland was a sign of what’s ahead. They are 20- and 30-somethings who got hooked on NASCAR through daily fantasy sports. The majority had never been to a NASCAR race. But a hole on Brandon McCoy’s jorts revealed a deeper level of fandom: He had the NASCAR logo and “Turn Left” tattooed on his right leg.
He got the fresh ink just week.
Why?
“I knew I was coming,” he said, laughing.
In late 2019, a noteworthy film production set up shop in Cleveland. ¶ “Judas and the Black Messiah” — a Warner Bros. Pictures production hitting theaters and HBO Max on Feb. 12 — was shot at, among other Northeast Ohio locations, the Masonic Cleveland auditorium, Lane Metropolitan CME Church and North Presbyterian Church in Cleveland and St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in Parma. The production also traveled to Mansfield for filming at the Ohio State Reformatory. ¶ Asked when he was in town for the shoot during a recent Zoom-based interview, cast member Jesse Plemons hesitantly answers “November …?” He then has a little laugh, musing about that time, when he walked around with no fear of a certain virus. • “I really enjoyed Cleveland,” he says. “I’d never been. We were right downtown, and I found people to be really friendly and excited that we were shooting there.”
While Plemons (“I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie”) checked out the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, found a couple of music shops he liked and hit some bars and restaurants, fellow cast member LaKeith Stanfield (“Sorry to Bother You,” “Knives Out”) says he largely kept to himself while in Cleveland but had a good experience, especially when it came to the shoot.
“It was dope — we were welcomed, and it was a cool spot,” he says during a separate video interview. “It was nice to see all the community come together and be extras in the movie and help us tell this story. Everybody was just excited, and it was a beautiful time.”
The inspired-by-trueevents story told in “Judas and the Black Messiah” is that of Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, who — as the movie portrays events — was assassinated by the FBI.
While Fred, portrayed by “Get Out” star Daniel Kaluuya, is the “Messiah” referenced in the film’s title, the “Judas” is William
O’Neal, portrayed by Stanfield.
William, following an arrest and facing years in prison, is coerced by an FBI agent — Plemons’ Roy Mitchell — into infiltrating the chapter and growing close to Fred for the bureau’s purposes.
Stanfield and Plemons share several key scenes. While both of their characters can be considered villains in the film, they are written as something more complex than that and are inhabited by actors who appreciated that complexity.
Plemons says “cliched bad guys” never have interested him much.
“The world is more complicated than that,” he says. “People are more complicated than that.”
Similarly, Stanfield says, “If there’s a character who exists simply as a villain, then I have no kind of connection to (him) whatsoever. I find it disingenuous. I feel like real villains don’t exist in that capacity, so I wanted to provide a little bit more color to it if I could — just to make it more realistic in my mind.”
The relationship between William and Roy isn’t simple, either. While Roy empathizes with William’s plight and doesn’t seem to wholly buy into the conviction of his boss, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen), that the bureau must ensure a “black messiah” doesn’t arise from the streets, he does have a job to do. Meanwhile, William appears to lose sight of the idea that Roy isn’t truly his friend.
The actors say they greatly enjoyed working together.
“He’s a great human being,” Stanfield says of Plemons. “By the way, he’s nothing like Roy Mitchell (laughs). He’s a sweet guy.”
Plemons says the two didn’t get much time to rehearse, which may have served the movie.
“For this film and the dynamic between our characters, it really worked that we were just sort of thrown into it and could go for it,” he says. “I think even in the first scene, I threw something different in than what was written to just sort of test the waters, and he threw something back at me, and I knew it was going to be fun and he was an actor that likes to play around and isn’t just trying to beat one choice to death.”
Stanfield says Plemons was so easy to connect with that a late scene hit him strongly.
“It felt like Roy was betraying me because we were such good friends,” he says. “It was dope to be able to play around with somebody that’s just so invested in the craft and so good at what they do.”
Speaking of actors making an impact on “Black Messian,” Kaluuya gives a powerful performance, adding to a resume that also includes memorable supporting roles in 2018 films “Black Panther” and “Widows.” Stanfield, who had a supporting role in “Get Out” but works more closely with Kaluuya in this film, calls him “amazing” and “inspiring.”
“Ever since his table read — when I first heard his rendition of Fred — I was in tears,” Stanfield says. “I was in tears.”
That’s especially noteworthy considering a misconception had when King first reached out to him about being in “Judas.”
“I just assumed I’d be playing Chairman Fred,” he says. “And then when Shaka revealed to me he wanted me to play William O’Neal, I was a little bit crestfallen at first. And then I grappled with it for a couple of days and realized it might be an opportunity to help tell a story in a unique way.”
“Judas” is King’s first film for a major studio, and, Stanfield says, he met the moment.
“He was patient, took his time and listened,” he says. “I feel like he chose people for the roles that he really believed in. He let us have our own creative license to express ourselves and helped guide the performances in the way he wanted them to go.”
Plemons says the director was one of the reasons he chose to do the film.
“It was only a few minutes of talking to Shaka where I realized I hadn’t seen any of his work, but I was convinced if I was wrong about this guy as a filmmaker, that was a gamble I was willing to take,” he says. “He was so incredibly passionate about the project, so wellinformed, had really specific ideas about it.”
Plemons, who’s in his late 30s, became known to many as a cast member of “Friday Night Lights” in the mid-2000s. He has myriad TV and film credits and has worked with some top talents, including Vince Gilligan (“Breaking Bad”), Paul Thomas Anderson (“The Master”), Steven Spielberg (“Bridge of Spies,” “The Post”) and Martin Scorsese (“The Irishman”).
What’s his secret to getting cast so often and in so many well-regarded projects?
“I don’t’ know — when I find out I’ll tell you,” he says with a laugh. “Luck of the Irish? I’ve got some Irish in me.”
Noting he’s often asked how he chooses projects, he adds, “The majority of them don’t feel like choices at all. It just feels obvious.”