Drew Turney
If you’d looked really carefully in ”Made”, Doug Liman’s 2001 follow-up to ”Swingers”, you would have seen Danny Abeckaser as an uncredited party promoter.
Abeckaser was going method – he was a real club and party promoter at the time, and as he talks to Moviehole in Los Angeles, he explains the unlikely road to producer (he was the brains trust behind Jesse Eisenberg-starrer Holy Rollers) and actor, culminating in the role as Dino, Michael Shannon’s best friend in hitman drama ”The Iceman”.
How do you got from party promoter to actor?
When I was around 13, 14 I really wanted to get into acting, then I hit a point where I just wanted to experience life, so I went out and got into night life business.
Everything was going great but I started getting a little bored. I realised I was missing something so I decided to try and get back in to acting and also producing, making my own movies and telling the stories I wanted to tell.
Having a background in events and parties must be similar to producing a movie – you’re organising a very big event?
Basically, yeah. It’s introducing people and putting them together. And if you take an actual event from beginning to end you’re almost doing the same thing as movie – except a movie’s a lot harder.
How so?
There’s so much to do that you don’t realise, but it’s the most satisfying thing. Once you do a great event it’s over. A movie is for life – you always get to go back and enjoy it and so many people you don’t know get to enjoy it and speak to you about it. It’s much more gratifying.
After Holy Rollers and now The Iceman you’ve spent a bit of time crime dramas. Anything in particular you like about the genre?
They’re my favourite movies. Like Scorsese, I grew up on that kind of thing in New York.
What makes Dino important in the story?
When I read the script my character was supposed to be a really, really small role, they developed it a lot more. He’s so different than everyone else in Richard’s [Kuklinski, played by star Michael Shannon] life. He’s simple, and he knows and sees the human side of him. Once people are going to see that they’re going to kind of sympathise with him. So I felt like my character was really important, even though I don’t get to play a gangster like I wish I did. But I loved every moment of shooting the movie.
