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regional theaters across the country and
also has performed in two highly publi-
cized Broadway and Off-Broadway pro-
ductions: the controversial Terrence
McNally play Corpus Christi, and a well-
received re-staging of Stephen Sondheim's
youthful musical Saturday Night.
It was while he was performing in
Saturday Night that Zola was spotted
by an agent from ICM (one of the top
two talent agencies in New York and
Los Angeles) and asked to read for the
part of Anthony in Pearl Harbor..
"I really didn't expect to get it
because I had no film credits, but I
found out there was a lot of interest in
me after the audition," he says.
"And finally, on Shabbat, at 10 in
the morning, I got a call from the
agent at ICM. He said, 'You got the
part,' and I almost fainted."
Zola would soon discover that
shooting a Hollywood blockbuster has
challenges that live theater doesn't pre-
pare you for.
He often was thrust into some very
life-like war scenarios. "My first day of
shooting, my first close-up, [director]
Michael Bay comes up to me and says,
`Alright, this is what you're going to do.
You're going to run to the wing of that
plane, you're going to jump up, you're
going to yell to the pilot and three
planes are going to fly at you. You're
going to hit the deck and they'll fly by.'
"I didn't think they were going to be
real planes, I thought they would be
digital planes. He yells, 'Action!' and I
run to the wing. I jump up, I start
yelling at the pilot and all of the sud-

Avenue advertising job to accept a
low paying 1972 movie gig.
By the early '80s, he was collabo-
rating with Simpson on Flashdance,
a surprise hit that put the producers
on the Hollywood A-list.
Bruckheimer gleaned ideas for
films by voraciously reading four
newspapers a day and 90 magazines
a month. He says his drive to suc-
ceed was motivated by his parents'
immigrant experience. "They were
always scraping together a nickel,"
he says. "I didn't want to be poor, to
tell you the truth."
Given his family history, one
would expect Bruckheimer's World
War II movie to be set in Nazi-occu-
pied Europe, not the Pacific. His
mother's half siblings died in con-
centration camps, while his uncle,
who was fluent in German, served as
an interpreter in U.S. intelligence.
But then again, Bruckheimer
knows a good story when he sees

den three real replica Japanese Zeros
are flying at me! They almost hit me
and I duck and watch them go by.
"Bay yells, 'Cut!' He says he wants it
`closer,' and I'm thinking he wants more
of a close-up of me to show the good
work I'm doing. Instead, he meant for
the planes to fly closer. So we shoot the
scene again, and now the planes are
coming at me and if I don't hit the deck,
they're going to take my head off."
While acting with warplanes was
quite an adjustment, interacting with
big Hollywood stars would also take
some getting used to. "My first day on
the set I sit down for lunch by myself,"
Zola recalls. "I was, just looking down
at my food because I didn't want to do
anything that might get me fired.
Literally, that was my goal for the first
few weeks: 'Don't get fired.'
"And I look up, and Ben Affleck sits
down right next to me. I was totally
freaked out."
Fortunately, it didn't take Zola long
to get comfortable. "It was a great
opportunity to be in Ben's company.
To see what it is about this guy. And I
realized he's just an actor like me. He's
very approachable."
Zola has moved from his apartment in
New York City to Los Angeles, where he
continues to audition for films. His next
movie is a small-cast feature that is set to
begin filming next month. ❑

Pearl Harbor, rated PG-13, opens
today at area theaters.

one. While other producers feverishly
developed Holocaust-themed proj-
ects in the wake of Schindler List, he
paid attention to a Disney executive
who described visiting the Arizona
memorial at Pearl Harbor.
"We thought that would make a
great
eat backdrop for a movie,"
Bruckheimer says. "It was the first time
we were ever defeated on our own soil."
These days, Bruckheimer does not
belong to a synagogue, but he is
returning to his roots by developing
his first Jewish-themed film, Operation
Moses, based on the mass airlift of
Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1985.
Will the movie be an action film?
"Absolutely," Bruckheimer says. "I
[envision] a number of explosive
sequences."
Which brings Bruckheimer back to
the subject of the critics. "Even if
they don't like my movies, the public
does," he insists. "That's why I make
my pictures. ❑

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