For our inaugural story of our new series, Critt's List: Conversations with Kentucky Neighbors & Friends, may we present our talented Midway, KY neighbors and friends, Steve Zahn and Rick Gomez of Macaroni Arts Productions. We were happy to dress Steve and some of the cast of his new movie She Dances, in theaters tomorrow, March 27, 2026! Catch Steve and Rick on the red carpet and on Late Night with Seth Meyers among other shows, in Crittenden jackets. Here, they speak to Steve's son, Henry Zahn, an accomplished playwright and writer himself, about the new film, Wendell Berry, creative partnership, and whats to come for Macaroni Arts:
Actors Steve Zahn (The White Lotus, War of the Planet of the Apes, Sahara) and Rick Gomez (Band of Brothers, Leave, Justified) are currently shooting the fourth and final season of the hit Apple TV show, Silo, of which they both star in. I was able to meet with them at Steve’s flat in the East end of London to discuss their production company, Macaroni Art, and the sale of their first feature film, She Dances, in theaters May 27, 2026.
We sat in the front garden, a secluded oasis of greenery hidden away within the “village” off Victoria park. Steve lit some kindling in his brand-new anti-smoke fire pit (he was very proud of this purchase). Initially, there was a lot of smoke. Rick, with a wide grin, explained it takes time. Once the flames start licking at the sides of it, the smoke filters through a ring of small holes beneath the lip of the opening. We waited patiently for this effect to take place. Once it had (and two glasses of syrah were poured), we began.
Alright… thank you both for sitting down with me.
Rick – Hey, it’s better than standing up. If you were like “Let’s do a stand-up interview,” that would be hard.
Let’s start with your production company, Macaroni Art, and how it came to be.
Steve - It started naturally, then grew into something that was more… tangible. Like an LLC. At first Rick and I met doing The Crossing, a television show we shot in Vancouver.
Rick – That was 2017.
Steve – Right. And we hit it off. We were constantly talking about what we thought would’ve made that show [The Crossing] better until we thought “Why are we doing this? Why don’t we just do our own thing? Why not us?” Rick had his script he’d written called I’m No Holliday... and I was in a real bad spot at the time and…so, when I read the script, I said, “Yeah, that’ll be great. Let’s do it.” That was the beginning.
Rick – We shot for four days. We turned the cut around probably in another four days. Then we had something tangible. After that we decided to make three more. And by the end of those three, that’s when we started the company. We filed for our paperwork I think six weeks before the pandemic shut everything down.
That’s tough.
Steve – But before that point, Rick had written a script called Hot Fruit. It was a series at first.
Rick – It was going to be a series. I wrote the pilot for it.
Steve – But it evolved into this movie.
Rick – It was the first time that I wrote with Steve in mind. That really cemented our creative, working relationship, which led to us writing our first screenplay together, She Dances.
Steve – And the thing that I’m proud of is that… as an artist, you think you’re insane. We’re very insecure. So, it’s nice to go, “We’re going to do it this way” and then be validated not only selling the movie but by also having people really like the work… with something like She Dances, we were able to make it our movie. We had artistic control.
When you say that you sold it, what does that entail? Who did you sell it to? And what does that mean for the life of the movie going forward?
Rick – We sold to a distributer called Pinnacle Peak. They have a plan of how they’re going to roll it out. It’s kind of beyond me.
Steve – It’s guaranteed to fifty theatres.
Rick – Right. Which is big for a small movie.
Steve – Especially nowadays. Films aren’t even getting money up front.
Rick – And with streamers being what they are, a lot of films just go right to streamers.
Really?
Rick – Yeah. A big deal could be selling your film to Netflix. It has a Netflix premier, but that’s it… so we get some time to have a theatre run.
Steve – A traditional run.
Rick – Which is great because the movie plays really well in a theatre setting.
Am I right in saying the movie was shot entirely in Kentucky—a lot of it in Midway?
Rick – It was. Our production office was on Mainstreet in Midway.
What made you choose Kentucky? What was the benefit?
Steve – There’s a great tax incentive there. But also, the subject matter of the film—which is a dance competition—there’s a lot of valuable resources that we had in Kentucky: knowing choreographers, dancers, locations, people. We got lucky.
Rick – It was all those pieces coming together in a way that you just… you couldn’t beat it. The texture of Kentucky has its own personality. It was right for the film. When you add all those things together, all those resources, all the dancers and dance companies and choreographers and spaces and theatres and distilleries… it’s a lot.
________
The fire had died. The bottle was spent. We collectively decided, while there was still some daylight, to finish the interview at the Empress—a rather old, storied pub across the street. Inside was empty save a few post-work friends enjoying a quiet pint. We took a table near the back, ordered some drinks, some bread and butter, a tray of olives, and took it from where we left.
________
When preparing for this discussion, I was reminded of—I wish I’d written it down—a few years back when I was lucky enough to meet Wendell Berry, the Kentucky poet and novelist. I remember him talking about when making art, depending on the medium you choose, whether it be film, playwriting, poetry, painting, etc., you have a very certain, very limited lens—like a camera lens—through which to tell your story. And depending on the lens you choose, dictates both the perks and limitations that come with it. For instance, when writing a novel, there’s no shortage of creative avenues an author can take when forming a perfect sentence. However, the author will always be bereft of any sort of audio or visual (as in cinema) accompaniment. You can’t go outside the lens you choose. Otherwise, you’ll lose the goodwill of your audience. So, with that in mind, why was film the most effective medium through which to tell your story?
Steve – What makes it exciting is that there are so many different elements to telling our story. It’s not a pen and paper. It’s music. It incorporates so many different things: dance, light, writing, acting, color, sound. There’re so many different things that go into making a film. The sky’s the limit as far as the rules you can break.
Rick – I think to the Wendell Berry of it all… I’ve been thinking about this a bunch lately, but as a kid the medium that caught my imagination was film. That’s always been the thing I leaned into because it’s always what was accessible to me. My father was a cinephile. Him and I would watch projected films on sheets: early Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields. We watched Hitchcock and Ford and all these other filmmakers that were seminal and important. My brain was filled with moving images as an art form.
Steve - We had the same experience growing up.
Rick – And that’s why it feels natural. Film feels like the thing that I lean into because I think it’s what I had the most exposure to. But when I meet people who were exposed to fine art or painting, that’s what their medium is. There’s this thing of influence that you’re drawn to. But there’s something special about film in that it embodies so many practices.
Steve – It’s the most collaborative art form in the world.
Rick – And yet if it’s too collaborative, it falls apart. It’s one of those weird magic tricks.
Steve – It’s in finding the right tone. That’s what’s difficult about it… and exciting too. When it works, there’s nothing better.
Yeah. I think that’s something most people don’t realize about film and theatre, is how collaborative it is. Whether it’s lighting, props, set design, makeup…
Rick – It’s endless.
So, with the artistic, collaborative decisions that went into She Dances—with wardrobe, for instance—with your character Steve, a lot of your wardrobe came from Crittenden. Why was that right for your character?
Steve – Initially it fit what we planned. We had long conversations about what he should look like. We wanted him to be put together and look good. He’s a guy that thinks about what he’s wearing each day.
Rick – I’m really fascinated by the fact that… as I understand it, good stories create compelling elements from contrast and juxtapositions. And so, for me the conversation was, this guy’s going through something that he doesn’t show anybody, and what he shows instead is what he thinks is perfect… and Crittenden clothing was perfect for that.
Steve – It was all a cover. It was all a costume. He can’t deal with this other thing in his life.
Rick – And so it’s subtle. You see it in the kitchen scene when his jacket comes off, the shirts unbuttoned—a bit undone—and you start to see the thing. The real thing. That there’s a crack in the veneer.
Steve – There’s a vulnerability.
Rick – You can start to, in a very limited amount of time, imagine what he was ten months, twelve months ago, before he got back on track. The character’s still hiding things that he has to figure out, which is kind of the crux of the film.
What’s next for Macaroni Art? Hot Fruit?
Rick – We’ve got a couple different things going on. There’s another show we want to do, maybe in Kentucky, called Big Time. Hot Fruit is on the docket. We have another script I think we’ll be writing soon.
You guys are busy. That’s exciting.
Steve – It is exciting! We could be on the edge of something great.
Rick – It didn’t cost a lot of money to make our movie. So, now we have a shot, you know… when you’re at bat you realize it doesn’t have to be a grand slam.
Steve – We could hit a single into center field and be happy with that.
Rick – Or a double.
That’s a lot of baseball.
Steve – No kidding.
