Michal and I wanted to take a moment to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We hope you all have a wonderful time with your loved ones this holiday season. Be safe and we’ll see you in 2009. 
Stef & Michal
Ben attended the Los Angeles premiere of “The Wrestler” at the Academy Of Motion Arts & Sciences on December 16, 2008 in Los Angeles, California.
Have you ever sat in a movie theater staring at a blank screen after the credits had completed their roll? Stunned silence. You You look around and people are staring straight ahead. Among a crowd, they are alone with their thoughts. No one gets up to leave when the lights come on. I look to my right and Rosie is staring straight ahead with tears coming down her face. On my left Pat is sobbing. Two seats down Ron sits staring forward, perhaps engaged in a losing bout to control his anger. I don’t know. Finally the surreal daze is broken when the director of Johnny Got His Gun, Rowan Joseph, goes to the head of the theater and asks if anyone has any questions.
Johnny Got His Gun is not a movie. It’s an experience. I confess I didn’t know what to expect when friends Ron and Rosie (CS2 Single-Payer Healthcare Advocates) invited my wife and me to join them at the GoggleWorks in downtown Reading to see this picture. When I read that the star of the show was Ben McKenzie from the Fox TV show The O.C., my level of expectation was lower still. The O.C. is one of those titillating prime time smash series that enables TV to earn the reputation as the veritable wasteland that it is. Totally vacuous characters, one more slimy than the next. So what could I expect from an actor who dishes up this kind of fare on a regular basis? Not much. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Scans from the ‘LA Times’ and ‘Reading Eagle’ articles were added to the gallery:
The casting of “The O.C.’s” Ben McKenzie as a horrifically wounded World War I soldier in “Johnny Got His Gun” might be a nightmarish notion for fans of the TV show, but the presence of this all-American-looking teen idol in a skeletal, heartfelt antiwar drama lends a jarring, current resonance.
“It’s a very small, little passion project for a few people; I just hope it adds to the conversation a little bit,” said McKenzie on a Friday evening in a cafe on noisy Sunset Boulevard. “Some of the proceeds will go to the Fallen Patriot Fund, which helps out [Operation Iraqi Freedom] veterans. But I don’t have any grand illusions that this will spark some kind of national conversation over the Iraq war; we’ve been having that conversation for some time and this is not going to tip the balance. It’s just another little bit for people to think about.”
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Rowan Joseph said not much about his life has changed since he left Reading after graduating from Holy Name High School in the 1970s.
He’s still acting, writing and directing. Only now he’s directing actors such as Ben McKenzie (recently of “The OC” and “Junebug”) and producing movies that play to a national audience.
One other thing that has remained constant is that Joseph sees the relationships he has formed to be as valuable as the talent he has.
“I’m doing the same things I was doing in high school,” Joseph said. “My life hasn’t really changed that much.”
Except, of course, for his name.
Growing up and performing in Reading, Joseph was known as Joe Rowan and he was a regular performer with the former Reading Civic Opera where he credits actors Larry Longlott, Bruce McLean and the late Betty Lou McLean with both friendship and mentoring.
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