White Plains Native Turns Heartbreak to Comedy and Beginning of Film Career
Most guys, after being dumped by the girl they thought was the one, spend the next few days, weeks or months sulking at home and seeking pity from friends. When his girlfriend, Stacy, broke up with him on Christmas Eve 1997, a day after he graduated from University of Rhode Island, Matt Markey did plenty of both. But he also found another way to cope with the heartache.
“I kept a journal because I thought that one day I would look back on these notes and laugh at it,” Markey, a graduate of White Plains High School, recalls. “As I kept writing, I kept putting pen to the pad, the events that were happening in my life were very story-esque.”
They went from diary entries to a short story, then to a longer story, then to a screenplay. On Thursday, nearly 14 years after Stacy told him she was moving on, Markey’s story – or at least a story based on his – was playing on the big screen at the ArtsWestchester building for around 100 friends, family members and local film junkies.
In his film, “Ricky,” the title character played by and based on Markey has his heart broken shortly after the film’s opening credits by Tracy, a gorgeous but dim-witted millionairess who spends her days sitting poolside with her snobby friends. Ricky’s so broke the only ring he could accord to buy Tracy is plastic and sold at a liquor store, but he’s convinced he can win her back by improving his etiquette and vocabulary and getting in shape. The audience soon finds out Tracy (Jessica Manuel) only went out with Ricky to win a bet with her friends on who could date a loser the longest and is in fact engaged to Brad (Ernest Heinz), an uppity alpha male.
Markey’s romance, which serves as the inspiration for the film, lasted a year rather than the six weeks depicted in the movie, and Markey acknowledges there was no actual bet.
“The bet was embellished, but she was kind of high society,” he said of Stacy. “I was lower class.”
But while he took some artistic liberties, Markey believes the spirit of the story remains true and says there are also plenty of parallels. On screen, Tracy’s parents make it clear they want her having no part of our protagonist, with her father telling him “I don’t have anything against you, as long as you stay over 500 yards away from my daughter.” Stacy’s father had the same level of affinity for Markey, the writer and lead actor said.
“One time she told me her father said ‘I’m not going to buy you a new car until you break up with Matt,’” he recalled. “Lo and behold, she did.”
While Ricky is determined to win Tracy back, his buddies are equally determined to do anything possible to keep his mind elsewhere. This is another instance where art and reality align, as Markey based the characters on the friends he had growing up in White Plains. The inspiration for his friend Nader Beaten (John Ruby), a memorable character who enthusiastically brings Ricky to strip clubs and seedy massage parlors, was fellow White Plains High School grad Rob Beaton, who was at the premiere Thursday and got a kick out of seeing himself portrayed onscreen.
“It was an honor for me to have someone playing me in a movie, somewhat, even though he had a pimpled face – which I actually had,” Beaton said, adding, “They over-exaggerated it a little bit.”
For his friends who lived through the real thing, seeing the celluloid version of Markey’s post-breakup funk was a lot more enjoyable.
“We saw it live, so we saw the real thing and now we’re kind of watching a caricature of it. It wasn’t a comedy going through it,” Stepinac grad Rich Vergara said. “You see how he kind of evolved and turned it to something positive.”
In addition to his broken heart, empty wallet and persistently rambunctious friends, Markey (circa 1997) shares another trait with the character he portrays: An unyielding obsession with the movie “Rocky.” Rocky quotes, references, montages and tributes are constant, and the movie’s tagline is “His love life was a million to one shot.”
Markey is looking to sell the movie – directed by Kevin Wagoner – and have it distributed on television, cable and DVD. He’s already got an idea for his next film, which he said will be based on a true story about two kids accused of a crime they didn’t commit.
Thursday’s ArtsWestchester-hosted screening was the second time Markey has shown the movie, the first being in L.A.
“This one was more important to me than the one in L.A.,” Markey said. “This is my hometown. These are my family and my friends and I wanted them to see all my hard work.”
A graduate of URI with a BFA in acting, Markey has lived in L.A. the past decade and managed to turn one of his toughest moments into the start of the career he’s always dreamed of. While the film was a 90-minute window to the past for those in the audience who knew him, high school friend Ernie Fargnoli saw one distinction.
“I don’t think it really depicted how annoying he was,” Fargnoli joked.
For more information on Ricky, visit www.rickythemovie.com. For more information on ArtsWestchester, visit www.artswestchester.org.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.