Irish Filmmaker John Smith Talks The CONsequence, Sylvester Stallone, and more

John Smith is an actor, director, and writer from Dundalk Co. Louth, Ireland. As a child, John developed his strong passion for movies, and he was particularly inspired by Sylvester Stallone. In 2011 John decided to move to the United States, and in 2014, he started taking acting classes with Shelly Lipkin. He then acted in several short films, web series, and commercials and is represented as an actor by Ryan Artists in the Pacific North West.

In late 2017, John wrote and directed his first short film, The CONsequence, in which he acted as Sean, one of the main characters. In that same year, John won Best Director for The CONsequence at The International Independent Film Awards.

In late 2018 John followed up with another short film, The Last Ride, a thriller-horror movie, which he wrote and directed. Since then John has been developing The CONsequence into a feature film as well as other numerous projects. In 2020 John, alongside his creative and business partner, Steve Durland opened up their own production company called SMKPO Productions.

What got you started in filming? When did you know that you wanted to be a writer/filmmaker?

I’ve always been fascinated in film and TV since I was very young. At a very early age, I would put the cassette tape into the VCR to watch First Blood or Enter the Dragon which led my aunt telling my mother there was something wrong with me because I wouldn’t watch cartoons. So early on I was hooked and knew I wanted to be involved. I always was creating stories and movies in my head and imagining what that world would be, but growing up in Ireland with my background as an Irish Gypsy and trying to get into films seemed an impossible task. So I leaned into my other passion, which is Football, or as Americans call it “Soccer”.

I wanted to play professional soccer in America and then transition into the film industry. Unfortunately, I suffered too many injuries from football. Still, when I moved to America, I was lucky enough to get involved in acting classes, and I found my home. While acting, I would always be paying attention to what the directors were doing and thinking “what if the actor did it this way”. I paid close attention to the work that would go into making films. After years of acting, I wanted to tell the stories I had in my head, so I knew I would transition into directing and writing, and I haven’t stopped since. I love being involved in films, and being on set. That’s when I feel most alive.

What film or filmmaker inspires you?

Oh, that’s tough because there have been so many films that have inspired me. Films like the Rocky franchise, The Terminator, Aliens, Snatch have been very influential. I’m just a lover of movies, and I love so many different genres, but if I were to pick a top two, it would be First blood and The Last of the Mohicans closely followed by Apocalypto and the films I named above.

There is a massive amount of filmmakers that I love, but Sylvester Stallone mostly inspires me. Stallone is my biggest idol in the film industry. His story is fascinating, and the struggles he went through to get Rocky made is just mind-blowing and so inspiring that he didn’t give up. He has created so many iconic films and characters, Rocky, Rambo, Cobra, Lincoln Hawk, and a lot more. Not just as an actor but as a director and writer, his style and action sequences are brilliant with the realism he creates.

His films are some of my favorites that I grew up watching. So he would be the top of my list of actors or filmmakers I would want to meet and work with, and if I am lucky enough for that to happen, I will probably cry. I gravitate towards actor/directors more than anything because that’s what I want to do also.

Let’s talk about your upcoming film, The CONsequence. What was the driving force behind the story?

I developed the short concept in late 2017, and we started in early 2018. I always knew I wanted to do a film about Irish and Italian crime families set in America. As a lover of the genre, I wanted to do something different with a modern and authentic take on Italian and Irish immigrants that grew up abroad, but living and setting up their organizations in the states and try to show the audience something that we haven’t seen over here before. As I began preparing for the film, I would watch some of my favorite mafia shows Suburra and Gomorrah and writing the script became a challenge to contain it to a short story.

I cast the actors, a minimal crew and found the right locations that would make the film look how I imagined it. We weren’t lucky enough to have a budget but what I had was a cast and crew that loved the story and put their best efforts into making the film. We were fortunate and got to use the Music of Mbrascatu, an Italian Indie/folk group based in Portland, Oregon, and their music was a perfect fit for our film.

For me personally, it was a hard production due to my dad becoming ill and my mam passing away during filming. But I wanted to make my mom and dad proud, so when we resumed, I wanted to make sure I made it the best I possibly could, however, I’m still waiting for my dad to say he’s proud, but he likes to keep me waiting.

We organized an event for people to come to see the screening at Kell’s Irish Pub in downtown Portland. Gerard, Garrett, and the whole McAleese family were terrific in helping us and letting us use their brewery for locations, and the owner even had a small part as my uncle. The reception for the film was great, and the audience loved what we did. However, they all shared the same complaint, which was “it is too short, and we want more” which is great because the short was twenty-four minutes long.

I won the Best Director at The International Independent Film Awards, which was a nice reward for the work we put into the film. Shortly after I spoke with Steve and told him, I have a burning desire and a lot more of the story to tell, and I couldn’t stop thinking about this world that we created so I developed the story, and we wrote it as a feature and started our own company SMKPO Productions.