This Underseen 'Sopranos' Reunion Was the First Time John Magaro Was True to Himself as an Actor

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John Magaro

Summary

Welcome to a new episode of Collider Forces with September 5 and Omaha star John Magaro.
During his Forces conversation with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff at Sundance 2025, Magaro revisits the film that inspired him to be true to himself as an actor.
He also discusses his experience preparing to play Geoffrey Mason in the Academy Award nominated film, September 5, and predicts his Omaha co-star, Molly Belle Wright, is Oscar bound.

John Magaro has quietly built one of the most impressive filmographies in Hollywood. So quietly, in fact, that he’s still often being dubbed a “breakout” with each new hit he delivers. Magaro insists his priority is being an artist, not a movie star. However, given the pace with which he’s churning out standout performances in phenomenal films, the latter is more undeniable than ever. John Magaro is a star and any production would be lucky to have him.

The two most recent films to have Magaro as a headliner are an Oscar nominee and a Sundance 2025 Grand Jury Prize nominee. The former is September 5, a film that masterfully brings the viewer into ABC Sports’ control room at the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics as they redefine live news when they have to shift from sports reporting to live coverage of the Israeli athletes taken hostage. The film recently scored an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and was deserving of far more.

The other film Magaro is in the midst of celebrating is his Sundance 2025 selection, Omaha. In Cole Webley’s feature directorial debut, Magaro plays a father who suddenly wakes his two young children, Ella and Charlie, and insists they must go on a road trip. Ella soon comes to suspect that what seems like a fun family adventure is actually something wholly different for her father.

In honor of Omaha’s big debut at the Sundance Film Festival and September 5’s Oscar run, Magaro took the time to swing by the Collider interview studio at Sundance, brought to you by Rendezvous Capital, for a Collider Forces interview. While paving the way to his experience making those two films, Magaro explained how he came to embrace his truth as an actor, a truth that’s sparked some of the very best performances we’ve seen in recent years.

John Magaro Wants to Be an Artist, Not a Movie Star

“I never expected to be a movie star. I still don't expect to be a movie star.”

Given Magaro has previously mentioned his goal of being an artist rather than a movie star, I asked him when that preference came into focus. “That was always pretty clear. I never expected to be a movie star.” Even though he now has back-to-back Academy Award nominated films on his resume, he insists, “I still don't expect to be a movie star.”

Magaro continued:

“When I graduated from college, I thought I would be doing regional theater. That's what I knew. I grew up in Ohio. No one in my family is in film or television or, quite frankly, is artistic in any way. But in college, that's where I think I realized I wanted to approach this artistically because that's the first time I understood it could be that. Up until college, I really had very limited knowledge of cinema and film. But while there, I read so many great plays, I watched so many great films, and really discovered that it can be something so much more than just entertainment. I left school kind of with that in mind, just in theater, and then that sort of translated to my film career.”

The David Chase Movie That Changed Everything

The cast rehearsing at band practice in Not Fade Away

While Magaro’s priorities have remained consistent he still had much to learn about being true to himself as an artist, and credits Not Fade Away with helping him take a major leap forward in that respect. Magaro stars as Doug Damian in the 2012 David Chase-directed drama. The story is set in the 1960s as Doug and his bandmates do everything they can to hit it big in hopes of following in the footsteps of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Ultimately Magaro delivered a winning performance in the film, but that almost wasn’t the case. A failed callback audition inspired Magaro to do some reprocessing, and that proved vital to securing the role of Doug, and teeing himself up for greatest success beyond. Magaro recalled:

“I had auditioned for Not Fade Away, and I had a callback, and I shit the bed at the callback. I was just doing what I thought needed to be done. Then, in those six months, I started being more true to myself, and then David came back around and called me back again, and then, at that point, I got the job. That was the first time it felt different, and I felt like I was really being true to myself as an actor.”

While Not Fade Away didn’t become a box office smash at the time, the movie has proven to have significant staying power, something Magaro is quite proud of.

“It was David Chase's first film after The Sopranos. He directed it, he wrote it, he cast me as the lead. It was under Paramount Vantage, defunct Paramount Vantage, and it was a huge opportunity. Seldom-seen film, but people who love it really do love it, and I continue to talk to filmmakers and producers and journalists who bring it up and talk about how they still love that film. That really pushed me. It was after I kind of discovered a new approach to acting, just being more true to myself as an actor instead of trying to do what I thought was expected.”

How Many Breakout Performances Can John Magaro Have?

“That term is so loaded and kind of absurd.”

Arthur, played by John Magaro, stands at a crossing in the movie Past Lives

That new approach to acting served Magaro exceptionally well. After Not Fade Away he racked up quite a few impressive titles including Adam McKay’s Oscar winner The Big Short, the underseen 2016 disaster movie The Finest Hours, the 2018 horror standout Overlord, Kelly Reichardt’s highly acclaimed First Cow, Celine Song’s Oscar nominee Past Lives, and so many more.

But even with all of those accomplishments to his name, with the release of new films like September 5, we’re still seeing headlines pronouncing that this most recent release is Magaro’s “breakout” movie. “Breakout moments” are hot topics of conversation on both Collider Forces and Collider Ladies Night because there’s no clear-cut definition for the widely used term in Hollywood. Having a “breakout moment” can mean a multitude of things. When I said as much to Magaro and asked what he thinks his breakout movie is, he said:

“I don't know! I don't know if there is one. It's more like a ladder or steps than ‘breakout.’ I think it's hilarious that Kieran Culkin, this year, just got the Breakout Actor at Palm Springs. It's like, dude has been doing it for over 30 years. So that's why that term is so loaded and kind of absurd. I think you break out with certain groups, because people watch different things. So if you're an actor who's trying to do different stuff, then you constantly are having breakout moments with different groups. So, I wouldn't even say I've had a breakthrough moment. I just think it's a journey, and I've been very lucky that I've been able to keep going up and not go backward.”

Why So Much of ‘September 5’ Had to Be Rewritten on the Spot

“We didn't know what that sequence was gonna be until we got there on the day.”

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Magaro’s trajectory upward has led him to snagging the role of Geoffrey Mason in Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5. He’s a coordinating producer who had to step up in a big way as the head of the control room in Munich. That meant it was vital for Magaro to learn everything it takes to run a live broadcast.

“The prep process was getting all sorts of inspiration, talking to people, watching things, but then it was going into the control rooms and learning how to call a live broadcast that really centered where I'm at in this performance and discovered who that guy was. That was two months of research and really learning the rhythms of those control rooms. It was a really cool experience, such a privilege to do. I didn't know if that was going to be the in, but it really became the in for the character.”

In addition to being an invaluable resource for Magaro, the real Geoffrey Mason is also a co-producer on September 5. Thanks to Mason, the September 5 team was able to use the original recordings. However, that didn’t happen until two weeks before filming, so Magaro and co. had to adapt quite a bit on the spot. He explained:

“We get this footage, and [co-writer] Moritz [Binder] and Tim went back and tried to apply it, and they rewrote a few sequences doing that. But the thing is, we didn't really know what was gonna be on the screens until the day because that was in the hands of our video editors, and they were piecing these things together. Let's talk about the scene where I notice that there might be a TV in one of the rooms. We didn't know what that sequence was gonna be until we got there on the day. Then we all watch it, and then you look at the script, and you're like, ‘Well, this isn't what's happening on the screen.’ So because I had done the prep, we could look at this, and then we could map out how I would have to call these shots, like, ‘Okay, now we need to go to the tower cam. Now we need to go to cam one,’ and that wasn't written out because we didn't know what the footage was gonna be. Pretty much every time we had one of those kinds of sequences in September 5, we would have to look at what we had and rewrite the scene to be accurate to the calling of the show.”

Magaro Stars Opposite the Youngest Person to Give a TED Talk in This Sundance Gem

“She's gonna be getting an Oscar probably in a few years.”

Dad (John Magaro), Ella (Molly Belle Wright) and Charlie (Wyatt Solis) in a car with a dog in Omaha

While in the midst of September 5’s awards season run, Magaro has yet another wonderful big screen accomplishment to share. Omaha celebrated its World Premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival where it received a Grand Jury Prize nomination.

As one might expect, Magaro is phenomenal in Omaha, but the success of the movie hinges on his chemistry and connection with Molly Belle Wright and Wyatt Solis who play his children in the film. Fortunately, Magaro learned from the very best when he was first beginning his career and he was able to pass those lessons forward to tee Wright and Solis up for success in this film.

“I'm gonna go back to Jim Gandolfini. On Not Fade Away, we have a really important scene where he's my father and we're having this dinner and he's telling me that he might leave my mother. It's just a really devastating scene, and it's emotional for the character. To get me there, he did this thing where he kept kind of repeating the line and letting me say it over and over again. It's kind of like a Meisner-ish technique, but for a young actor, it really lets you strip away all the cameras and really focus on the words and focus on the scene, and that's something I would do for Molly, in particular, Wyatt to some degree. Wyatt was sort of like, he did his thing, and we rolled with him.”

Close-up of Ella (Molly Belle Wright) in Omaha

Wright is quite young, but Magaro already has full faith that she’s bound for big things going forward. And the same will likely be true of anyone who sees her strikingly commanding and devastatingly beautiful performance in Omaha.

“She’s so beyond. She's a pro. She's gonna be getting an Oscar probably in a few years. So I would do that with her a lot. It was kind of her first big role. She’s done stuff. She did a TED talk. Did you know that? She's like the youngest person to do a TED Talk. She’s like a prodigy. But this was one of her first film experiences, and I remember the first time I did a TV show called Conviction. It was a Dick Wolf show. The first time the camera was on me, and the door opened, and the other actor, the real actor in the show - I had, like, two lines - the door opens, and I just froze, went to the ‘white space,’ we call it. I forgot all my lines, forgot everything. Then you realize on film you can just do it again. But early, as we started shooting, I sensed that there are all these cameras around, like, ‘This is what I'm supposed to do,’ and I really wanted to help her push all that stuff aside and just focus on our relationship. So, what Jim did for me, I started to apply to her.”

As for Magaro’s own performance in Omaha, it’s absolutely shattering. He’s playing a father with a deep love for his children, but for much of the film, it’s also quite clear that he’s wearing a facade. He’s holding it together for his kid, but there’s a crushing truth that’s about to bubble over. Eventually it does, so I asked Magaro which aspect of the performance he finds more challenging, conveying that his character is holding back his heartbreak or letting all of that emotion flood out.

“It's all hard. I mean, the thing about the flooding out, you know where you're going. So I would actually say the holding back because that's a scary place - and we kind of do that on September 5 - because you don't know if the audience is going to [get it]. I like to trust an audience will get it, but you don't know if the subtlety is gonna stick. When you're crying and you're bawling your eyes out, it's very clear what you're going through, but when you're putting on the facade, it might be a little tougher to relay that to an audience. So, yeah, that's a frightening place.”

Eager to hear even more about Magaro’s journey in film and television thus far including his hopes for The Agency Season 2 and what to expect from Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride? Be sure to watch our full Collider Forces conversation in the video at the top of this article, or listen to it in podcast form below: