Red Foxes on Set: Marist Faculty and Students Appear in Mark Ruffalo’s HBO Series

Warning: This article may contain spoilers for HBO’s I Know This Much is True. 

There are few luxuries more coveted than appearing on television. Even the simplest cameo –– a glimpse of the back of one’s head, a friend’s pixelated figure, or even a familiar street –– can truly excite. 

The largest production in the Hudson Valley’s history, HBO’s Mark Ruffalo-led miniseries I Know This Much is True premiered Sunday, May 10. The show’s first episode opened with a clear view of a recognizable figure on campus: Kevin Lerner.

His senior-year college roommate, Daniel Fienberg, works as a TV critic for the Hollywood Reporter. Fienberg watched all six episodes before the premiere through a screener.

“He somehow hadn’t even noticed me … Even though in that first scene — literally the first shot of the entire show — I’m the most prominent thing you see until Ruffalo’s character shows up,” Lerner said.

Lerner is first spotted pushing a cart through a library, where one of the twins played by Ruffalo is — SPOILER ALERT — severing off his own hand. Along with Lerner and his husband, who can be seen playing a flight attendant in a scene shot at Stewart Airport, thousands of Hudson Valley residents had a chance to make it on camera.

Many of the more than 2,000 background actors hired for the series were active Marist professors and students. Addrain Conyers, Della Sue, Joseph Campisi and Jeff Bass were among the faculty present. Lerner makes two appearances in the first episode, running up a flight of stairs shortly after his initial cameo. Gerry McNulty, internship director in the School of Communication and the Arts, is briefly seen walking down a hallway immediately following a Ruffalo-outburst.

While the local stand-in for 1980’s University of Connecticut was actually Vassar College, the Marist Community provided a touch of authenticity that Director Derek CianFrance actively sought. Rita Powers of Rita Powers Casting Group worked on casting for CianFrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines, which featured the real Schenectady Police Department.

“I cast a lot of kids from Marist, anywhere from one to two hundred,” Powers said. “When you watch this show, it’s real police officers, real people that work in the hospitals, and real college students. If I did a casting at the police station and the hospital, I was gonna do one at the college. We even went out to Union Tavern on a night out to find kids for a club scene.”

This hyperrealism is a staple of Cianfrance productions; Powers had to return for I Know this Much is True. Powers — whose operations are typically based out of New York City and the Jersey Shore — moved to Beacon in February 2019 as HBO’s production quickly engulfed Dutchess County and the rest of the lower Hudson Valley.

Several local spots got a makeover for the show. The crew transformed the Sonic located south of Marist on Route 9 into an old-school McDonald’s. An industrial park in Wappingers served as an early 20th-century textile mill. Poughkeepsie’s Delafield Street doubles as the home of Ruffalo’s character in the series. Vintage cars and camera crews lined the street for most of the production—a process that started in February and wrapped in November 2019. 

“In Manhattan, people are annoyed that you are closing down their street. Here, everyone wanted to be involved, everyone was excited that we were here,” Powers said. “It was the most amazing work, and the crew was like family.”

The cast and crew shared a few mid-production karaoke nights at Mahoney’s Irish Pub and celebrated their wrap party at Mill House Brewery.

Working diligently with the Hudson Valley Film Commission, Powers managed large open casting calls, reaching 3,000 attendees at their peak. Many of the larger scenes in the production required a wardrobe fitting for every single extra. Based in the village of Wappingers Falls, the wardrobe department dressed background actors in a myriad of styles from several decades. For sequences set in the early 1900s, those casted required long shaggy hair and scruffy unkempt beards.

One such beard belonged to Marist Digital Marketing and Social Media Director Brian Apfel.  A theatre minor in college, Apfel was “always intrigued” by performance and production. “I was at First Friday [in Poughkeepsie] and the casting agency had a table set up with flyers looking for men with beards. I walked by and they rushed ahead, you know, since I had the beard,” Apfel said with a chuckle.

Brian Apfel, director of Digital Marketing and Social Media, pictured with Crystal the monkey. Source: Brian Apfel.

Apfel was called for about five days of shooting, both on-location and on soundstages. The long days were never a problem, as he signed up as an actor to learn more about the production process, not caring too much if he actually made it on camera. 

“The attention to detail was amazing, like the time and effort that went into putting dirt under our fingernails or spraying us with sweat every time a scene ended,” Apfel said.

In between shoots, Apfel was instructed to refrain from trimming his hair or his beard to achieve a look of travel-weariness and poverty. On his last day of shooting, the hair and makeup department broke out the razors.

“I was looking forward to a haircut—which I did not get. They wanted us to look a little more cleaned up so they picked around half the guys to lose their beards and — rest in peace — mine got cut off as well,” Apfel said.

He was worried his nearly two-year-old daughter may not recognize him without his distinctive beard, but luckily she didn’t mind.

Alongside the various faculty and staff members, current Marist students joined the set. For this task, in addition to open calls and casting events, Powers employed Matt Savoca ’20 part-time in the casting department. 

Savoca’s brother, Kenny, worked as a production manager for the project, and shared a building with Rita Powers Casting. After first working as an extra himself, Savoca got a call from Powers, asking for help with casting college students.

“I started on the series in April 2019, took a break for finals, and worked through the summer,” Savoca said. “It was interesting seeing one of my professors in class one day, and then on set and in costume the next — it was like seeing a different person. I cast a little less than 30 students and around 10 professors for the scene [at Vassar].”

Marist extras getting ready for a scene. From left to right: Caroline Fiske ‘20, Shayna Fielding ‘19, Nora Proce ‘19, Blake Portmann ‘19, Theresa Romaniec ‘20, Jenna Roach ‘19, and Niccole D’Arco ‘19. Source: Theresa Romaniec.

Everyone Savoca cast got their own wardrobe fitting. Marist students tried on everything from vintage denim jackets from the 80s to period-accurate 1920s trousers. “The entire HBO team wanted everything to be authentic, and cared about everyone there,” said Theresa Romaniec ‘20. “I even wore 50s undergarments under my costume for scenes they shot on actual film.”

For film students like Romaniec and Savoca, an experience like this one is invaluable for getting a taste of the industry.

Plus, they got to hang out with Mark Ruffalo.

Several times — even on days he was not scheduled to perform on camera — Ruffalo visited the set and interacted with background extras, often thanking them for giving up their time for the production. 

The series based on the Wally Lamb novel will continue airing on HBO, Sundays at 9 p.m. EST.