Asheboro man is lead actor in locally made ‘Rowdy Friends’

When somebody on Sunset Avenue in Asheboro recognizes JD Cranford, that’s understandable. When he’s on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood and a woman recognizes him, he feels “almost like a superstar.”

Cranford stars in the independent film “Rowdy Friends,” the creation of director Jacob Hatley and his cousin Tom Vickers, editor. Both were involved in writing the script.

An Asheboro native and independent filmmaker now living in the Los Angeles area, Hatley called recently to announce the premiere of “Rowdy Friends” at the Sunset Theatre at 6:30 p.m Saturday, Sept. 12. In attendance will be Cranford and other members of the cast.

It’s Cranford’s tattoos, primarily on his face, that make him stand out in a crowd. But Hatley and Vickers found him to be “an interesting fellow.”

It was a random meeting, according to Cranford, during the shooting of another film in the area to which, he said, he “never paid attention” but just happened to be nearby. But the filmmakers were paying attention to him.

“They got my name and we met,” Cranford said. “They were interested in having me in a documentary 10 years ago.”

That film, “Clovers,” followed Cranford, Jennifer Paschal and Sharon McNeill as their lives intersect in an Asheboro gaming room called Clovers. The film is categorized as cinema verite, meaning, according to bing.com, “it emphasizes authenticity and realism, showing people in everyday situations with natural dialogue and spontaneous action.” 

Hatley and Vickers were so impressed by Cranford that they wanted to do a film based on his life. He had been traumatized, twice, by house fires — the first of which killed his son and the other destroyed most of his possessions. He said the fires led him to “tattoos and hard drugs.”

Hatley said when they tried to contact Cranford about their film idea, they learned that he had been arrested and was in the Davidson County Detention Center. So they went to get him out, camera in hand.

The Sheriff’s Office agreed to let them film Cranford getting out of jail. That included the bond woman talking to him and, in no uncertain terms, convincing him to go to a halfway house in Badin.

The filmmakers follow Cranford to the halfway house, meet the residents there and begin writing a script. Two of the residents — Brian Maynor and Joseph Armfield — were given parts in the movie.

“They wrote the script basically of my life,” said Cranford, noting that they added some fictional parts. “I never robbed a bank.”

But the filmmakers observed the halfway house residents to write the script while creating the story and “wrote as they went along.”

While the film strays from Cranford’s actual life, he’s quick to point out that, in reality, “the halfway house helped me out. I’ve been clean ever since. It helped me get the tragedies out of my head.”

Hatley said of “Rowdy Friends,” “We premiered at the New Orleans Film Festival where we won the Audience Award For Best Narrative Feature. We then went on to play the Cucalorus Film Festival, Beverly Hills Film Festival and the New York Festival of Cinema.”

He continued, “The film couldn’t have been made without the generous participation and help of so many people in the community. It was a true homegrown, independent production — the entire budget of the movie was less than the coffee budget for most major studio movies. 

I shot it and my cousin, Tom Vickers, edited it. We co-wrote and co-produced it along with my sister, Adair Moorefield. 

“For me, what’s most important is that we made this film in a functioning halfway house using the actual residents as our actors. I think the commitment to tell the story that way, along with each resident’s willingness to put themselves on screen, is what really makes it a unique movie about characters you never usually get to spend time with on the big screen.

“The only performer in the film that had any experience was Shay Walker, who is a really great actress that was in Disney’s ‘Wendy.’ She flew in and shot for a week with us and really became part of the family, and helped make everyone who had never been in front of a camera before super comfortable.”

Cranford, who is now doing roofing work to fund his trips to film festivals, is high on “Rowdy Friends.”

“It’s a big deal,” he said. “It’s a good film.”

Now learning to navigate his new-found celebrity, Cranford will be at the Sunset Theatre premiere to interact with his “fans.”