On his inspiration to write this film, Spearman said, “I wrote it originally as a novel called Welcome, Sinners, which was also the first title of the film, until I got some push-back from distributors about the word ‘sin’ being associated with gay characters. I wrote the story because I’d had a series of relationships with guys who were married to men, to women, and I wanted to see if I could understand why it was happening; why I was drawing this to me, so I set out to explore the situation of an affair from both sides.”
“Every part of the process has some magic in it,” he said about the filming process. “I will say though, probably my favorite thing is to sit back and watch these brilliant actors bring it to life. I would actually ruin takes because I was reacting to what they were doing while I was watching it on the monitor. In particular the big gallery scene – I couldn’t have loved that more if I were sitting there eating popcorn.”
For Spearman, it was a great experience working with such leading men as Scott Bailey, Darryl Stephens, and Gregory Zarian. “These guys, the whole cast, was superb in my opinion. Darryl Stephens and Scott Bailey had instant chemistry. It was right there the first time I put them in a room together. They all, every one of them, has such a great imagination that all I had to do was get out of the way,” he said.
“Gregory Zarian loves to act and is always, always looking for ways to bring everything he can to a character. The actors, all of them, Keili Lefkovitz who played Karla, Jay Hugueley, Richard Lawson, Stephen Bowman, Leslie Zemeckis, Adam Klesh and the rest of them did all the heavy lifting. I just had to sit back and not get in the way,” he said.
On being a filmmaker in the digital age, he remarked, “Well, digital filmmaking has democratized the process. You can, if you like, shoot a film on your phone. The thing I have to be aware of is the texture of the film. The quality of the image. I remember the first time I looked through the eyepiece of a 35mm film camera, it was magical. Digital photography is different, cleaner and sharper, I have to keep that in mind when I’m designing a shot and more important the atmosphere or the feel of a film.”
For young and aspiring filmmakers and actors, he encouraged them to “get a team.” “You can’t do this alone. Be willing to turn over things, compromise, listen, and keep going and growing,” he said.
Spearman concluded about From Zero to I Love You, “Watch the film. I think the film speaks for itself and the message that we are more than what society, our families, our fears want us to be.”
From Zero to I Love You is available on Amazon Prime Video. The film earned a favorable review from Digital Journal.
