When Naperville native and burgeoning film screenwriter Mary Jane Deer\u2019s screenplay proved too expensive to produce as it would require flying a cast and crew to the Caribbean, her mother encouraged her to write a different story.<\/p>\n
Consider something that could be a low-budget indie film, her mother said, something that could be shot in one location.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe literally wrote (her second effort) in a month and then her bosses (at Journeywork Entertainment) read it and said, \u2018This is amazing,\u2019 and they need a table read,\u201d said Ann Deer, who also works in the film industry.<\/p>\n
Now, the 23-year-old\u2019s mockumentary screenplay is being made into a full-length movie that\u2019s being shot in her hometown and directed by John Mossman, cofounder of The Artistic Home in Chicago and director of 2022\u2019s \u201cGood Guy with a Gun,\u201d which can be seen on Amazon Prime. In addition to writing the movie, Mary Jane Deer is also a producer and editor.<\/p>\n
\u201cLine Cooks\u201d follows Callie, a straight-A college student, as she takes a minimum-wage job as a line cook at a fictional Korean-taco fusion restaurant called Kimchi-Rito. Callie and her coworkers, who includes ex-cons and cartel members, experience the trials and tribulations of working in the restaurant industry as they prepare for a health inspector\u2019s visit at the end of the summer.<\/p>\n
Among its stars is Chicago actor, David Pasquesi, as the health inspector. He\u2019s best known as the vice president\u2019s ex-husband in \u201cVeep\u201d and as the majordomo in the \u201cThe Book of Boba Fett.\u201d<\/p>\n
This past week they\u2019ve been shooting in downtown Naperville, using the former Effin Egg restaurant on Chicago Avenue as the Kimchi-Rito set. The place is plastered with fake health certificates, menus and even a colorful mural sporting the Kimchi-Rito logo.<\/p>\n
Mary Jane Deer, a 2024 graduate of Indiana University with a degree in film, television and digital production and a Naperville Central High School alum, said being able to shoot the film in the town where she grew up has been special, as has being able to work with her mother on the project, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoing it with my mom (who serves as executive producer) \u2014 I mean, talk about your biggest advocate being there for you in all the fun and all the crazy,\u201d Deer said. \u201cIt\u2019s very funny because we just pulled neighbors and relatives and people we meet just to be extras. \u2026 So living in Naperville is really fun. You never know who you\u2019re gonna run into.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the script draws partly on Deer\u2019s experiences from the summer she spent working at a Korean-taco restaurant and interviews with people who work in the service industry, the subject matter was something with which cast members could also relate.<\/p>\n
David Stobbe, who plays restaurant manager named Kevin in the film, worked at a Potbelly in Chicago\u2019s Wicker Park when he was in college.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was constantly having to clean the grease trap because I was the only one that could bear the smell,\u201d said Stobbe, a Joliet native who has been in nearly two dozen plays in the Chicago area, including to at Aurora\u2019s Paramount Theatre. \u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever cleaned a grease trap. It\u2019s the worst thing on the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Years of that kind of work helped him embody his role, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt allows me to make it really hard for the teenagers in this cast, right? Because now I know like, \u2018Yeah, let this team clean the grease trap. Let them experience what it really means to get your hands dirty,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Pasquesi said he also worked in a restaurant in the mid-1980s. While he\u2019s never been a health inspector, he recalls very clearly what it was like when they showed up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember them coming in, and the feeling when they\u2019re there. It\u2019s not pleasant,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it must be weird for them because nobody\u2019s happy to see you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turning the restaurant into a movie set took more than menus and logos, Deer said. Every few days, the team has to buy a new batch of kimchi, Deer said. And they do a fair amount of cooking at home and then transport it food to the set, Ann Deer added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the other thing was just how much stuff is in a kitchen, an industrial kitchen, that I didn\u2019t think of,\u201d Ann Deer said. \u201cWe got some of it on Facebook marketplace, (from) restaurants going out of business, so it\u2019s all dinged up, and then it\u2019s perfect for us. We were able to rent restaurant equipment that was damaged and no longer functioning, which was perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the $140,000 film is complete, Mary Jane Deer hopes to showcase \u201cLine Cooks\u201d in a few film festivals with the goal of getting it picked up by a streaming service.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is truly a team effort,\u201d she said, reflecting on the film-making process. \u201cEveryone is putting their all into this film, and you just get to see how talented and varied people\u2019s skills are. It\u2019s hard work and enthusiasm that gets a dream team, small production like this to the finish line, so I am truly so overwhelmingly grateful to every person on this set.\u201d<\/p>\n