Paul Iacono: Star of "Fame"

Adorable, dark-haired Paul Iacono has been focused on becoming an actor since the age of three, when he discovered a talent for impersonating Frank Sinatra and big-voiced singer Ethel Merman. After community theater, commercials and soap opera work, the New Jersey native landed a role in the highly anticipated reinvention of the 1980 movie musical Fame, opening on September 25th.

The story follows a group of students through four years at New York's High School of the Performing Arts, where 20-year-old Paul went to school in real life! Playing aspiring filmmaker Neil Baczynsky, Paul says that this vision of the film can appeal to anyone who has ever had a dream and realized how much work goes into achieving it.

In our exclusive interview, the cute young actor/playwright talked about the grueling auditioning process for Fame, bonding with his co-stars, working with an equally young director, how Fame is so very different from the High School Musical movies and his struggle to achieve his dreams and goals.

TeenHollywood: How did you get interested in acting? Did you just always know that you wanted to be a performer?

Paul: When I was about three years old, I was in the backseat of the car with my parents, and my parents were listening to the Sinatra CD that they listened to, over and over again. I'm Italian and I'm from New Jersey, so that's just how it happens. "The Summer Wind" was the song that was playing and, when they turned it off, I continued to sing the rest of the song a capella, via the backseat, completely unprompted. That was my first schtick, and I guess my parents figured they might as well do something with this weird little kid who sang Sinatra, but they genuinely had no idea what to do with the situation. They're not in the business. My father is a politician and my mother comes from a family of doctors in New Jersey. And, one thing led to another and I wound up doing community theater, and then commercials and bit parts on soap operas.

TeenHollywood: Did you have a specific moment where you realized that this was what you wanted to do as a career?

Paul: As I grew older, I began to grow an appreciation for theater and for film. It wasn't just a cute little kid schtick anymore. It became an actual passion and a craft, and the only thing that I was ever genuinely very good at. I barely know how to ride a bike, but somehow acting was the one thing that I could go to the Olympics with. So, I bailed out of small town Jersey, as soon as I could because I was tortured in middle school. I was the short, round, theater kid, and that equation just does not add up to much happiness.

I went to the School of Performing Arts high school in Manhattan, and I found my happy place. I found this niche of other social misfits and creative types, and people who shared ambitions, dreams and aspirations, and people who actually wanted to work towards something in life, as opposed to these mundane suburbanites who just had no ambition or drive. I studied there for four years, and musical theater was my major, although I had more of a focus on straight acting. I gravitated toward character roles, but that's who I am.

TeenHollywood: Did you continue to study acting in college?

Paul: I did a year at Marymount Manhattan College, which was a complete waste of time and money. I made a lot of mistakes, but I learned. I decided that school was not for me, so I took the safety net off and just jumped, and I had a year of the life of a struggling actor in New York, doing odd jobs.

TeenHollywood: What did you do during that time?

Paul: Luckily, my other creative outlet is writing, and I write plays. I used that year to write a couple drafts of this play and have two different readings of it. My best friend, at the time, was a guy named Connor Paolo, who's on "Gossip Girl," and Taylor Momsen is an extremely close friend of mine, and the two of them were in this play that I wrote. I was doing workshops of different plays, and my own play.

TeenHollywood: How did you get involved with Fame? What was that auditioning process like?

Paul: Fame came out of the blue and it was just like any other audition. There was nothing special about it. The fact that I attended the high school was a coincidence, but there was no lead in for me to get any further in the audition. But, it was just something that I was able to relate to completely, with where I was in life and the identity of dealing with the existential crisis of being a young actor in New York. Everything just completely hit it, right on the nose, and I wound up booking it.

The audition process lasted the entire summer. I went in for my first audition last year, and then, over the course of six auditions that summer, I found out I got the role on August 18th. From May to August, I was just Fame-d out, while I was waiting tables at a restaurant. This has just been the most amazing whirlwind of events and positive influences, and just self-discoveries. I could not be more grateful for that.

TeenHollywood: Had you been a fan of the original movie, prior to being cast?

Paul: I actually had never seen the film, straight through. I definitely watched it while I was auditioning for the high school, about seven years ago. But then, when I was auditioning, I was like, "I should watch the film, just to get a sense of it," even though we weren't emulating any of the original characters or treading any legacies. Our film is a completely new slate. The original film is a masterpiece. In 1980, Alan Parker made a graphically real, gritty, dirty movie about young kids, aspiring in the performing arts. That had never been done before. Now, it's such a staple. Unfortunately, Fame sometimes has this negative connotation of leg warmers, headbands and taxi cabs. But, in reality, that film is a stellar piece of work that paved the way for every other movie musical since then, like Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge and Chicago. I think that our Fame is going to set the standard that much higher, and will not only live up to the original film, but set the bar for the modern-day musical.

TeenHollywood: Why do you think people have responded so strongly to the original film, for so long now?

Paul: People responded because they could relate to these kids. All of those kids are real kids with human flaws. They're insecure young adults, aspiring in one of the hardest professions known to human beings. It's a completely universal, categorical, relatable story of people aspiring to a dream, whatever that may be. The theme and the motif of that will only perpetuate with time. It is such a fundamental element of where our society is today, and what it means to achieve instant notoriety, with things like "American Idol" and "So You Think You Can Dance." It's an amazing story that is absolutely still extremely relevant, probably now more than ever.

TeenHollywood: For younger people who might not have seen the original film before, what can you say about Fame and how this version is different from the original?

Paul: The original film is about a group of kids, all of which are, in some way, social misfits from the mainstream high school experience. They come to this school because they don't fit in anywhere else and they have a talent, an ambition or a dream. It's all about coming to terms with the reality of these dreams, and the actual hard work that it takes to achieve this pipe dream. It's all about how people think that the performing arts has this High School Musical, sugar-coated connotation to it, but in reality, it's one of the hardest professions known to man. Only a select few can really make a living off of it and do it for the rest of their lives. It's about the kids who genuinely have the drive and the ambition to pursue it, at full speed.

TeenHollywood: Is that something you can relate to?

Paul: That's something that I relate to because I'm an extremely driven person. I've always been that way. It's part of my identity. I wouldn't change it for the world. I think that there's nothing like having a fire under your ass and pursuing your purpose in life. And, that's what the kids in this film are doing.

TeenHollywood: How does your character fit into the story?

Paul: I play the ambitious filmmaker, Neil Baczynsky. He comes from a small, Jewish, working-class family in Manhattan. He comes from a family of butchers from Poland. He just absolutely has no passion for the family business and is ostracized from the family because of that. They don't get him, and that's something that I can relate to, coming from a family of politicians and doctors. He's this big dreamer, his head is always in the clouds and he doesn't exactly have the best relationship with reality, but at the same time, he's like me, in the sense that he's going to go balls to the wall, keep his eyes on the prize and never give up. It's a double-edged sword because he has that naivete of trusting people and, throughout the film, he learns the hardship of Hollywood and the business, and the fact that you can't trust everyone and everyone is not always looking out for your best interests.

TeenHollywood: What was it like to work with such a young, talented ensemble? Did you do anything to bond with each other, prior to filming?

Paul: Absolutely. When you're meeting nine other kids that you're going to share this ride with and you all know, in the back of your head, that this film is going to change your life, it's like you're becoming a part of a new family. I don't have any say in the matter, as far as who these people are, but these nine people will be in my life, for the rest of my life, because of this film. Sometimes these ten very big personalities clashed in very different ways, and we didn't always see exactly eye to eye, but there was such a level of love and respect that we had nothing but the strongest admiration for each other. We always helped each other go to the next level. We were ten very distinct, strong personalities, and we all just meshed beautifully. I've created relationships with this film that will last the rest of my life.

TeenHollywood: What was Kevin Tancharoen like, as a director?

Paul: Kevin Tancharoen is so stellar. He's 24 and he has figured it out. He rocks the system so hard. He knows how to do it.

TeenHollywood: Was it an advantage to have a younger director, who could relate more to all of you?

Paul: Absolutely! Kevin knows the drill better than any of us because he's a little bit older than us, so he's experienced it a couple years ahead of us. Kevin was a dancer turned choreographer turned director/producer. Kevin has lived the story of Fame, just as much, if not more, than the ten characters in the film. Being the intelligent man that he is, and someone with a lot of respect for every craft, it was just a beautiful fusion of chemistry. The 11th cast member was Kevin Tancharoen. Kevin was really the most excellent choice of director for this film, and I absolutely love him to death.

TeenHollywood: Did it ever feel like you were working with a first-time feature director, or did he just seem really confident and self-assured?

Paul: He was beyond confident, with a quiet confidence at that. He never once made a show or was a diva or had to have things his way. He was always willing to listen to ideas, especially with me. I like the ability to come up with things organically, on set, and he was always so engaged and so excited to be a part of that process. He's the kind of guy who comes into the room with a billion ideas, but isn't attached to any of them.

TeenHollywood: What was the most enjoyable thing about making this project?

Paul: The humbling experience of getting to work with such amazingly talented people, some being total newcomers and some being seasoned veteran performers and creators, such as Kelsey Grammar, Megan Mullally and Bebe Neuwirth. I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a newcomer, just because I've been doing this my entire life, but this is my first film and, coming from a background of theater, that's the holy trinity. Having the chance to sit with people who have made very reputable and prestigious names for themselves, in this industry, and just pick their brain about the business and the process was amazing. Kevin always took the time to sit back and explain his process. And, someone like me, who would like to pursue other aspects of the business, like writing and directing, that was absolutely the greatest thing in the world. Better than making the movie was being able to be there for the process and to watch this amazing thing being made, element by element

TeenHollywood: If the attention you get from Fame brings you more film opportunities, are there specific types of roles or genres that you'd like to do, but haven't had the chance to do yet?

Paul: My dream role is to play a super-villain in a Batman type movie. I watched Jack Nicholson play The Joker in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, and that made me want to do this. And, following that film, I watched every Jack Nicholson movie known to man. I was a 4-year-old watching The Postman Rings Twice and Terms of Endearment. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is perhaps my favorite film of all time. I would love to eventually play a bad-ass super-villain.