Jason Alexander had a problem.
He was ramping up a play in New York and another film in production, so how was he going to squeeze in a starring role in an indie comedy?
“The biggest thing was we were filming so close” to his other work, said “Stealing Pulp Fiction” director Danny Turkiewicz, whose film debuts in the Newport Beach Film Festival, which beings Thursday.
“I remember specifically a Zoom meeting we had to lock it in officially two weeks before (production). I had my roommate outside my door to make sure this was real. I remember him saying, `Look, this is such bad timing for this… but I love this script.’ ”
Turkiewicz, who wrote the screenplay, said the actor best known for his role in “Seinfeld,” was attracted to it because it was a change of pace from his character of George Costanza.
“It was so different than what he was getting because all of the scripts were so close to George Costanza” characters, Turkiewicz told City News Service. “It was the biggest compliment I could get.”
Turkiewicz’s feature debut, which premieres Saturday, about three goofball friends conspiring to steal a personal print of Quentin Tarantino’s classic movie, which came out 30 years ago, the same year Turkiewicz was born.
“I always wanted to make a feature that was always the goal, so it was a dream-come-true moment with Jason saying yes to it,” he said. “I’m still processing it. When I was growing up my parents had “Seinfeld’ on every night. He came on a few weeks before we filmed and he was so down to do everything I wanted from him.
“He comes from a theater background, too, so it was a little intimidating coming in because he’s a really serious actor who does a lot of comedy. But there was no time to have that feeling because were filming in 14 days and it was nonstop stuff… He was a dream to work with.”
Alexander also praised the work of his co-stars Jon Rudnitsky and Karan Soni.
“He said he hasn’t seen a comedic duo like that in over 10 years and coming from Jason that’s all we could ask for,” Turkiewicz said. “And, obviously, Jon and Karan — that line made their year as well.”
Turkiewicz, who grew up in Long Island, attended a film program one summer in Burlington, Vermont, that fueled his passion for filmmaking.
“I’ve always been into making films,” he said. “I was always the one in Spanish class if we had to make a film I was the one who directed and edited it.”
After graduating from Emerson College in Boston he moved to Los Angeles. Seven years ago a friend invited him to a midnight screening of “Pulp Fiction,” and he got the idea for a movie then.
“I turned to my friend who invited me and I said it would be pretty easy to go up to the booth and take this print with us, and he looked at me like I was crazy,” Turkiewicz said. “During the screening that was all I could think about it.”
He turned the idea into a short film first.
“And we filmed it right before the lockdown of COVID,” he said.
“We edited it during COVID and I never thought of it being a feature. I thought it was a funny enough idea for a short film. But it kind of took off and a lot of cinephiles picked up on it and loved it. Of all my shorts this was getting a ton of Letter Box reviews, which is weird and great at the same time. I thought clearly there’s an audience for this even though it’s a niche project.”
The pandemic lockdown ironically was “the best thing that happened. I was forcing myself to write.”
Though the lockdown period of the pandemic was “depressing… I was still able to find enough jokes to throw in there… It was very therapeutic. It was nice to hang around with these characters for four years.”
Turkiewicz said he has “always loved (Tarantino’s) stuff,” adding his films “inspire me to want to make films.”
He has reached out to Tarantino to see what he thinks of “Stealing Pulp Fiction.”
“We were waiting to hear back,” he said. “We have reached out, but nothing on that yet.”
Turkiewicz said he was excited that his feature will be one of the first films screened in the newly restored Lido Theater as part of the festival on Saturday. The film has other local ties as well with producer Becca Standt, who is from Newport Beach and an alum of Chapman University, and producer Josh Zakaria, another Chapman alum, and actor Alex Crawford, who is also from Newport Beach.