Kent is ‘real’ setting for Paz movie ‘Bleed for This’

Matt Bower
Posted 12/9/14

Kent Hospital served as more than just a facility to house and care for patients last week. The hospital doubled as a movie set as scenes for “Bleed for This,” the upcoming film about local …

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Kent is ‘real’ setting for Paz movie ‘Bleed for This’

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Kent Hospital served as more than just a facility to house and care for patients last week. The hospital doubled as a movie set as scenes for “Bleed for This,” the upcoming film about local boxing legend Vinny Paz (formerly Vinny Pazienza), were shot there.

The film stars Miles Teller as Pazienza, Katey Sagal as Vinny’s mother, Louise, Ciarán Hinds as Vinny’s father, Angelo, and Aaron Eckhart as Vinny’s trainer, Kevin Rooney. It tells the story of Paz, who was born in Cranston and went on to win five world boxing titles at lightweight, junior middleweight and super middleweight. Following a serious car crash in 1991 in which he broke his neck, Paz was forced to vacate the title and was told by doctors he would never fight again. According to the Vinny Paz website, www.vinnypaz.com, Paz spent nearly three months in a hospital bed with a halo screwed into his head before eventually returning to the ring over a year later, where he defeated former world super welterweight champion Luis Santana.

When asked what drew her to the role, Sagal said it was a great script and a great story.

“I have children myself, I’m attached to all of them,” she said of being a mother and being able to connect to the role. “I told Miles he could be one of my kids.”

Last Thursday, film crews occupied the hallway on Floor North, a medical and surgical care floor at the hospital. Scenes of Pazienza’s parents seeing him for the first time at the hospital following the car accident were shot.

“We’re recreating Vinny’s stay in the hospital after his accident,” said Executive Producer Bruce Cohen, who is known for his work on “American Beauty” and “Silver Linings Playbook,” among other projects. “It’s significant that this is the same hospital where Vinny was brought. It’s where Angelo and Louise see him for the first time after the accident.”

Cohen said it’s the most emotional scene in the movie.

“Will he survive? Will he be paralyzed? Never mind, will he ever fight again? It’s pretty powerful,” Cohen said. “It’s remarkable what the hospital was able to do.”

Cohen said when he’s dealing with a real story; he starts with seeing if he’s able to shoot in the place where the story happened.

“When scouting locations, we wanted to start in Rhode Island and we realized this was the perfect place to shoot the movie,” he said, adding that the scene of when Angelo sees on TV that his son was in a car accident was shot at the Italian Social Club, where it actually happened.

“Rhode Island is an incentive state with a very good program that allows films to shoot here,” Cohen said.

The Rhode Island Motion Picture Production Tax Credit provides a 25 percent motion picture company transferable tax credit for all Rhode Island spending, or “25 percent of state certified production costs incurred directly attributable to activity within the state.” To receive the credit, the production must be filmed primarily in Rhode Island and have a minimum budget of $300,000.

“We were able to land the ‘Brotherhood’ TV pilot in 2004, and in 2005 we helped spearhead the tax incentive,” said Steven Feinberg, executive director of the Rhode Island Film and TV Office, who added that a sunset clause for 2019 was put in two years ago.

Feinberg said Rhode Island is competing with countries such as England and Canada, as well as various states such as New York and Georgia.

“We’re always looking to be creative in commerce and get the most bang for the buck,” he said.

Feinberg said his office worked together with the set and production designers to ensure the hospital unit was authentic by removing things like flat screen TVs and the call button and switching out the bed.

“The production design looks fantastic, it’s unbelievable what they’ve done. The interior [of the home] was very much the way it would have been in their own home,” he said of the location used as the Pazienza’s home.

Feinberg said crews had to look for homes that were the same in appearance of the Pazienzas’ home, “but from the interior, no one would know if they’re in Providence or Cranston.”

Feinberg said on Dec. 16 and 17, film crews will be shooting big fight scenes, complete with 6,000 extras.

“The fights have been choreographed just as they happened,” he said.

Dr. Mike Dacey, president and chief operating officer at Kent Hospital, said having scenes from the movie shot at Kent has been a learning experience.

“We were approached about a month ago. It all happened fairly quickly,” he said. “No one realized how many people are involved with a film crew. We had to make some parking accommodations, but everything has been very smooth and the film crew has been great to work with.”

Dacey said shooting scenes at the hospital did not disrupt patient care.

“We used an area of the hospital that would minimize disruption to patients,” he said. “The timing was fortunate because we just opened a new unit, so we were able to transfer patients from the unit where they’re shooting to the new one.”

Dacey said it was a fortuitous series of events.

“Vinny was a patient here and had a good outcome,” he said. “It’s a good Rhode Island story and we’re happy to support it.”

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