Kevin James (The King of Queens) is back in Solo Mio, a romantic comedy directed by brothers Chuck Kinnane and Dan Kinnane. The film follows James as Matt Taylor, a man who had a dream Italian wedding… that is, until his fiancée left him at the altar. Now he is on a solo honeymoon across Italy, enjoying the sights, food, and culture.
The film also stars Alyson Hannigan (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Nicole Grimaudo (Amadeus), Kim Coates (Sons of Anarchy), Jonathan Roumie (The Chosen), and Julee Cerda (The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers).
In Solo Mio, Matt is heartbroken after his fiancée left him. However, he doesn’t give up and decides to make the best of his trip, making new friends and possibly finding new love. One of Matt’s new friends in Italy is Neil, played by Roumie. With themes of perseverance, the actor talks about his own experiences.
“I spent twenty years in the trenches before getting my break as an actor,” Roumie tells Nerd Reactor. “There were times that I wanted to give up, but I knew I couldn’t. Eventually, I had that moment where everything changed, and it’s like, ‘Okay, this is it.’ But you just have to plow forward in faith and whatever faith means to you as an individual. And to me, it’s something very specific, and so I had to ground myself in that faith, knowing that there was a reason I was given the skills as an actor to do what I do.”
Roumie portrayed Jesus in five seasons of The Chosen, and going from a historical drama to a romantic comedy was a nice change of pace.
“For me, this was a wonderful departure and a change of scenery for me quite literally,” the actor said. “First of all, it’s two millennia later in time that we’re telling this story, and I get to wear actual real shoes that aren’t sandals and open toed, so it was an opportunity to flex my comedic instincts and have the license and the freedom to be able to have Dan and Chuck directing and Kevin [James] and Pat and John Kinnane writing, giving me the freedom to run with the ball in certain scenes and just have some fun and improvisation. We did a lot of that throughout the film.”
Kim Coates also portrays one of Matt’s newfound friends. Julian is the type of friend who pushes others outside their comfort zones.
“It’s a romantic comedy, but there’s a twist in the end,” Coates said. “You’re going to cry. You’re going to laugh, and I would like to think that if Chuck and I had ever had an experience with a stranger who needed our opinion, help, or guidance to become a friend for life, what a piece of magic that would be.
Another theme for the film is that it’s never too late to find love.
“We have a really good friend of ours at home, a lifetime friend in Kevin Frazier,” Dan said. “He’s seventy years old, and he just proposed to his girlfriend recently. To us, that meant so much. That literally is what the movie is about. It’s never too late to find love and to start over.”
Solo Mio is a family production, with different Kinnane brothers working as directors, writers, and editors.
“I’m very fortunate to work with my family,” Chuck said. “From Jeff, Will, Pat, Brent, Dan, Peter, John, everybody, we always work together as a group. We were a family together on this movie, working with Kim, Kevin, and this incredible cast. You have those moments of doubt, ‘Am I doing the right thing? Is this going well?’ and I think, ‘To have those people to lean on, we all need that.’
“We were very fortunate. One of our heroes, Terrence Malick, I was able to speak with him one time, and here’s the auteur, and he’s saying lean on your collaborators. Making a movie should not be, I know it is for some, but it should not be a dictatorship. It should be a great collaboration of artists coming together, and everybody plays their musical note. You have this great composition, this great beautiful piece that’s created, and that’s what this movie was.”
