Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bluefield, WV

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June 7, 2011

Athens actor awaits premiere of ‘Super 8’

By Charles Owens Bluefield Daily Telegraph

ATHENS — Scott Martin isn’t feeling a lot of pressure surrounding Friday’s big-screen debut of “Super 8.”

Martin, a local actor last seen in the motion picture “Unstoppable,” spent about two weeks last fall in Weirton filming a small role in the eagerly anticipated J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg production. Martin won’t know until Friday if his character — named either “Sid” or “Sal” — made the final cut of the film or not.

“Actually, in ‘Unstoppable’ I figured I was in it somewhere,” Martin, who lives in Athens, said. “There is not a lot of pressure on this. Best-case scenario is I get a couple of nice scenes. Worse-case scenario is I just enjoy the film. It’s kind of a win-win for me.”

“Super 8” is being billed as one of the biggest movies of the summer. However, the plot of the movie remains largely a mystery. Martin, who filmed several scenes opposite star Kyle Chandler, says Abrams and Spielberg kept a close lid on the plot throughout filming. He can only discuss a few details about what happens with his character — provided the character even makes the final cut of the film. In one scene, he is in a mobile home playing poker with several other characters when something rips the antenna off the top of the mobile home. Movie trailers and commercials would suggest that something is a monster — possibly an alien.

“I worked for two weeks, and had some pretty good scenes,” Martin said. “They were all with Kyle Chandler, who is like the adult star in the movie. About the most I can say is it is going to be scary at times, but it is also going to be funny at times. To me it struck me as a cross between ‘Close Encounters’ and the ‘The Goonies.”

Most of the movie was filmed in West Virginia. However, the community portrayed in the movie will be a fictional Ohio town during the summer of 1979. In the movie, a group of young children filming their own “Super 8” witness a spectacular train crash, and the subsequent escape of a monster or alien from the train.

“It was great,” Martin said of his two weeks on the film set. “It was the first period piece I ever worked on. It takes place in the 70s — I think it is 1979. It was just like jumping back in time when I was a little kid and walking down Main Street in Princeton. This one toy store had Rock ‘Em Sock’ Em Robots and GI Joe dolls in the window. They went to the extreme. All of the car lots had period-piece cars. I was really impressed with the level of detail. They spent some money on this film.”

While he didn’t get to meet Spielberg, Martin said working with Abrams was an incredible experience.

“He is very nice,” Martin said of Abrams, best known for creating the television series “Lost” and helping to reboot the big-screen “Star Trek” franchise. “When you see a photograph of J.J. Abrams he looks exactly like his pictures look. He is always smiling. That’s him. He is very open and very nice.”

While he won’t know until Friday if his character made the final cut of “Super 8,” Martin is pretty confident he will be visible in the Tuesday, June 14, premiere of “Memphis Beat” on TNT. He gets to “beat up” star Jason Lee, the actor best known for his role on “My Name is Earl.”

 “I’m in ‘Memphis Beat’ on TNT,” Martin said. “New episodes start next Tuesday. I play a cat named Richard Turner, and he makes all kinds of illegal bullets in a trailer. He’s another bad guy. It’s a cop show  They put tattoos all over me, and I got to beat up a cop. I punched Jason Lee out and they haul me into the interrogation room.”

Martin also recently auditioned for a human [non-zombie] role on AMC’s hit television series “The Walking Dead.” He hopes to learn soon if he will be selected for the role. Martin, an admitted fan of the zombie apocalypse series, had previously auditioned for the role of Merle Dixon, a popular character from season one of “The Walking Dead.”

Martin also is still slated to appear in a motion picture called “Selma,” although filming on the movie isn’t expected to begin until 2012. He previously starred in “Killer Joe” and is the creative force behind the soon-to-be-released film “Godfather’s Pawn,” which was filmed in and around Godfather’s Pawn in Princeton.

Martin said he hopes to work with Abrams again, adding he would love to have a role in Abrams’ upcoming “Star Trek II.” In the meantime, Martin is relaxing at home in Mercer County.

“I’m just chilling,” Martin said. “I’m just sitting on the front porch in Athens waiting on the phone to ring.” Martin has been involved in acting and film since graduating from Concord College in 1992.

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