The ‘Preppie Connection’ Has a South Fork Connection, Too
Although the people who were prep school age at the time of the Choate Rosemary Hall cocaine scandal are now pushing 50, the story, about a scholarship kid trying to fit in with a fast-moving elite crowd by selling drugs to them, has a timeless quality.
The year was 1984, and a total of 14 students were expelled in the wake of an arrest of one of the students at John F. Kennedy International Airport. He was attempting to bring $300,000 worth of the drug into the country from Venezuela.
Joseph Castelo, who has a house in Montauk just down the road from Duryea’s, is trying to capture that story and that moment in his new fictional film, “The Preppie Connection,” in which Dylan Blue, a recent grad of Southampton High School, is featured.
It will be screened as part of the Hamptons International Film Festival on Saturday and Sunday in East Hampton.
“It is a very personal film for me,” Mr. Castelo said. “I went to boarding school in the early ’80s, and when I arrived it was a culture shock and a real challenge for me in how to assimilate and navigate in that environment.”
He said filming the movie brought him back to that time. “I didn’t start a coke ring, but I understand the urge to fit in and create an identity for yourself.”
It was important for him to keep the flavor of the time and still make it feel modern. He said he scored the film with music from the early 1980s but used contemporary covers. He wasn’t trying to recreate an era in the universal sense. “I wanted the film to look and feel like a memory.”
This is not Mr. Castelo’s first outing at the festival. “American Saint,” a 2001 film, won a Golden Starfish award that year. He has had a house in Montauk for many years, heading there for weekends and summers with his wife and two daughters.
Mr. Blue, who is taking time off from college to give acting his full attention, said he hasn’t yet seen a final cut of the film but saw a trailer that impressed him. “It reminds me a lot of the Hamptons social structure, the differences between public school and the Ross School.”
His character is part of the lead character’s former life. “He gets into Choate on a full scholarship, struggles to fit in with the students, and comes to me, his best friend from public school, to sell them drugs.”
Mr. Castelo said he admired Mr. Blue’s performance in the film and complimented his range. One of the youngest cast members, he was playing very close to his age. “He was completely committed to the film and the production. . . . He brought an interesting tone to the character with Dennis. He saw he could be a comedic foil to Toby, then he becomes a more serious character as the film goes on. It’s a testament to range.”
The shoot took two months. Mr. Blue said he was happy to be in a role that showed a more serious side, as his prior roles had been primarily comedic. The other cast members, mostly in their 20s, are older and spend most of their time in Los Angeles. “They are all good enough to become household names, especially Logan [Huffman] and Tom [Mann],” he said.
While he was mature enough to hang out with them, there was “a bit of a disconnect” because of the age difference. “We lived in a Staten Island house the producers put us up in while filming. Tom and I talked a lot then, about his plans and what acting means to him. I’m sure we will see each other again.”
When The Star last spoke with him, Mr. Blue was about to play a supporting role in a Comedy Central series, “Big Lake,” which lasted for only one season. He now lives in Brooklyn and has just signed up for classes at the Barrow Group in Manhattan. “You have to bring in your own material and decide what you want to work on. It’s the first time that has even been posed to me.”
Screening times for “The Preppie Connection” are 5:15 p.m. on Saturday and 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, both at the East Hampton Cinema.