A still from 'Once A Mormon.'
Sammy Ketcham, left, Chase Pollack and RIchard Karn in an intense encounter in 'Once a Mormon.'
Elder Hinckley and Elder Mihaas, two young Mormon missionaries, are used to coping with rejection — doors slammed in their faces, soft drinks thrown at them out the windows of cars. But when they approach a brash recluse in rural Wisconsin, the unexpected happens. Director Ryan Allsop’s short Once a Mormon will be shown as part of a group of comic shorts under the heading “Wisconsin’s Own Gone Wild” on April 4 at Music Hall. And while Once a Mormon has comic elements, it also has a serious, thoughtful side.
“I see it as a coming of age story told through the lens of a Mormon world that society often does not know about,” says Allsop. “I wanted to write something about finding out who you are, what your true identity is.” And he thinks in the end, the film does “peel back layers to see that we’re all struggling with the same things, to find love, happiness and acceptance.”
Allsop grew up Mormon in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where there is a Mormon church, but members of the religious group are not that common. “In the moment it didn’t feel that weird,” Allsop says, although “I did know I was very much a minority.” When he left Wisconsin for his freshman year at Brigham Young University in Utah, he experienced “big time” culture shock. “I realized, this was what my future was going to be like,” he says, and that what he really wanted was to go to film school.
The subtext of Once a Mormon reflects his own doubt as a young Mormon; he calls it a “what-if” scenario — if he had gone on the two-year mission the Mormon church strongly encourages.
Allsop ended up studying film at UW-Milwaukee and breaking away from the church. Thankfully, his family didn’t shut him out, as is often the case when family members leave the church, and he stresses that Once a Mormon is “not about mocking.” He worked on the script on and off for five years, between other projects, yet always coming back to it. His current home base is Waukesha.
Except for lead actor Richard Karn (Home Improvement) who plays the recluse, and actor Chase Pollack, who plays Elder Hinckley, all the cast and crew on the film are from Wisconsin.
Karn, whom Allsop approached with a cold email, liked the project and ultimately signed on as executive producer. “He was great to work with, very willing to get in the trenches,” Allsop says. They’re currently shopping it around to be developed as a series.
It was shot in three days on a property near Caledonia, Wisconsin.“This is a Wisconsin film, homegrown, and I want to keep it here,” says Allsop.
