What if your life came crashing down in the middle of the hottest day of the year? In ‘Notice to Quit,’ that’s exactly where the story evolves for its lead, Andy (played by Michael Zegen), who begins the film caught in the middle of his own eviction crisis when his semi-estranged daughter (Kasey Bella Suarez) comes to shadow him for the day.
Set over the course of 24 hours, the story follows Andy’s personal and professional life falling apart, but also, how he repairs it to possibly create something even better. And there are a few hilarious moments in between. To chat more about the experience and what audiences can expect from writer-director Simon Hacker’s new feature, Zegen sat down to dive deeper into ‘Notice to Quit.’
This is your first leading role. Is the experience what you expected?
To be honest, I didn’t know what I expected. It was not easy, I’ll tell you that just based on the plot itself. It takes place on the hottest day of the year, and it’s this father-and-daughter relationship, so it’s mostly us.
You’re dealing with weather, and it rained a bunch, so we had to figure out how to get around that. We’re dealing with a child who has her hours, who has to have breaks and has to have tutoring at some point. Then we were battling the sun because like I said, it takes place on the hottest day of the year, so it must be really bright and sunny. And no matter how early we started, it always felt like the sun was on its way down.
Another thing was we shot on 35 mm, it would have been a lot easier if we shot on digital, but I think it was well worth it because it looks gorgeous. It really felt like we went through a war here and we’re on the other end of it, and I can’t believe it’s coming out in theaters.
On top of all that, you also shot around every borough of New York City, right?
Yes, and that’s not even counting Roosevelt Island, where we shot at this abandoned hospital. But yeah, we shot all over. And that was another tricky bit is that one day we’d be shooting in the Bronx and the next day we’d be shooting in Bed-Stuy or Brooklyn, and I’d be taking subways at six in the morning. We didn’t have a lot of money for transportation, so I was self-reporting to set, and that was fine by me actually. It gave me time to just reflect and go over my lines on the subway.
There’s one particular shot I thought looked really challenging to shoot. That running scene at the end…
Yes, it was a huge challenge because it all had to line up correctly with the camera, which was on a tricycle sort of thing. I took a few takes, it was like five or six before we got the shot. And by that point, my legs were not well. I was feeling it, I really was.
How would you describe your character in ‘Notice to Quit’ and what he goes through?
I think when you first see him, he is a scumbag. I did try to lean into that a little bit, but you always have to show some sort of humanity, some sort of heart, because he is the focus of the movie and you want the audience to like him eventually. You want to see him evolve and you want to see him change. Luckily, it was all in the script, it wasn’t so much me. Simon [Hacker] is a really good writer, and it was all kind of there.
Audiences will see your character not only fighting for his job and to keep his apartment, but handling a lot of different personal relationships throughout the film as well. Which character dynamics were fun for you to explore?
I get to work with Robert Klein, which was incredible. I’ve always been such a fan of his, and we were very lucky to have him and he couldn’t have been more professional if he tried. And working with Kasey Bella Suarez, who played Anna, my daughter. I mean, she was like 10 or 11 when we started doing it, and she was so wonderful and just so normal.
She doesn’t have stage parents or anything like that, and she’s not jaded by the business yet. But I loved working with her, we had a good rapport, I think it’s believable that we’re father and daughter. I wanted to be an actor since I was a little kid, and just thinking back to where I was at her age, I couldn’t do that. She’s just so talented that she’s going to be huge.
What do you hope audiences walk away thinking or feeling after getting to watch ‘Notice to Quit’?
I want ’em to have a good time, and there are some underlying themes to this. There’s the father-daughter relationship, there’s resilience. He’s a hustler, and he doesn’t stop hustling and I definitely recognize that in myself, I’ve been a hustler for a long time. But at the end of the day, I just want people to come see this movie and laugh and have a great time.
‘Notice to Quit‘ releases in theaters Sept. 27.
