Big screen arrival

By Courtney Anderson
Herald Staff Writer

LOS ANGELES, REYNOLDS May 14, 2008 09:11 pm

— Reynolds High School alum Nicholas James had just $200 in his pocket when he left for Hollywood a few years ago.
He spent some time sleeping on couches, but now the 24-year-old — known to folks here by the last name Muscarella — has a role in a big-time movie, an apartment on Sunset Boulevard and tales of his time at the Sundance Film Festival to tell.
James plays Denny Harper in “Prom Night,” a horror flick showing at least through next week at Shenango Valley Cinemas in Hermitage. His character is a “cool guy” and a star football player, James said. And — spoiler alert — he makes it through to the end of the movie.
There are a lot of scary movies out now, James said, and while he admits some are cheesy, “This one’s good.”
The blond, 2001 RHS graduate said he uses the stage name because “I don’t look too Italian and people trip over that name all the time.”
Recreating a prom was something James said was particularly fun.
“They had a huge wall behind the dance floor that was a TV screen showing a montage of the yearbook and it showed a picture of me in a football uniform,” he said.
Seeing her son up on the big screen was a thrill for James’ mom Vicki Muscarella, too.
That his character didn’t get killed was just one little thing that made Mrs. Muscarella happy.
She said the whole family went to see the movie when it opened and that they’re really proud.
“I’m anxious to see what he does next,” said Mrs. Muscarella, who lives in West Salem Township with her husband Greg. “He’s very talented. I know he’ll do good out there. I always had that feeling he’d do something good.”
James said he was studying management and marketing at Penn State’s Behrend campus in Erie and he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do for a career.
“I just wanted to be a little bit of everything,” he said.
Growing up, he and friend Rocky Habel wrote and videotaped themselves performing skits, James said. His mother said he’s always been a comedian.
“I just decided to go for it,” James said, adding that he figured he could always go back to college and that he didn’t want to get “caught up in the undertow” of having to get a real job.
James has taken classes with acting coach Vincent Chase, most known for his namesake character on HBO’s “Entourage.” He’s met some famous actors in Chase’s classes, including Shia LeBouf, who starred in “Transformers” and shares the screen with Harrison Ford in the upcoming “Indiana Jones” movie, and Bill Paxton of “Twister” fame.
And he met the entire cast of “Entourage,” and actors John Malkovich and Emile Hirsch at Sundance, James said. He hopes to be there in the near future promoting his own films, James said.
He just finished a film called “Fired Up” for Screen Gems, he said.
James works three nights a week doing bottle service at a bar, which leaves the whole week open to do whatever he wants to do. That usually includes auditioning, studying acting and lying out by the pool, he said.
James credits the support of his family for his success.
“I have such amazing parents,” James said. “I would never be here now if it weren’t for them.”
James’ grandparents are Helen and Ken Shaffer of Transfer, Mertz Muscarella of West Salem and the late Dave Muscarella. His brother Mike and wife Lorie live in Fredonia.

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