Article from TwinCities.com

It seemed as though stars aligned for local filmmaker Patrick Coyle

By Chris Hewitt, 08/27/2009

Some movies begin their journey to the screen with a true story or a meeting in a Hollywood conference room. Patrick Coyle's 'Into Temptation' started with a dog peeing in a purse.

The dog belonged to a very apologetic Jeremy Sisto, who plays a cop on TV's 'Law and Order.' The urine incident happened several years ago, when his dog heeded nature's call while in the vicinity of a handbag that belonged to movie producer Ann Luster. Years later, Luster read Coyle's 'Temptation' script about Father John Buerlein, who experiences a crisis of faith after a prostitute (Kristin Chenoweth) tells him she's going to kill herself.

'Ann told me, 'Jeremy would make a great Father John.' So we sent him the script and he read it, not knowing about the connection to his dog,' says Coyle. Having found it difficult to market his star-free first film, 'Detective Fiction,' Coyle knew he needed name actors for 'Temptation,' and luckily, Sisto was interested almost immediately.

So was Chenoweth, an Emmy nominee this year for 'Pushing Daisies.' Neither she nor Sisto made anywhere near their television salaries to do the low-budget 'Into Temptation,' but, after a string of girlish, virginal roles, she wanted to shake things up.

'We called her manager and said, 'Is your client interested in playing a suicidal prostitute?' And he said, 'We've been looking for that!' ' says Coyle.

With the cast — also including "The Office" supporting actor Brian Baumgartner and a host of Twin Cities theater veterans — in place, Coyle says the Twin Cities shoot of "Into Temptation" was "charmed." (The film's locations include Minneapolis' Hosmer Library, Sex World, Church of the Incarnation, the Stone Arch Bridge and Hennepin Avenue.) Coyle admits it was tough to find a church willing to appear in a movie about a doubting priest until he met Father Robert Monaghan of Incarnation:

"I went up to the septagenarian pastor and introduced myself, saying, 'I'm an Irish Catholic from Omaha, educated by the Jesuits,' and he stopped me and said, 'No problem, Patrick. You look like a good guy. You can have my church. Go next door and talk to Sister Shirley. She'll make it happen for you.'"

One other initially-tricky-but-eventually-charmed location was outside Augie's nightclub on Hennepin Avenue. The street was closed down that night, but Coyle could see the two cops hired to keep things under control were going to have their hands full.

"So I palmed a twenty bill to three security guys at Augie's and said, 'If you could help us out, we'd appreciate it.' And they did an awesome job," says Coyle of the bouncers' efforts to keep the noisy Hennepin crowds quiet and out of camera range.

Since filming wrapped in spring 2008, Coyle has been busy editing the film and fighting to get it into theaters. Like just about everything, it has been affected by the recession.

"The economy has decimated independent film this year," says Coyle. "People say, 'In the Depression, people went to the movies.' And, yes, people are going to the movies, but independent films like ours are not getting picked up because most of the distributors lost their credit lines from the banks."

Coyle eventually found a distributor, First Run, although "Into Temptation" is likely to play on-screen in only a few cities, with a larger audience awaiting its cable and on-demand release this fall. He remains hopeful that his investors, including four major contributors and many more who ponied up a few thousand apiece at investment parties, will get a return on their money.

"We will leave no stone unturned to find a paying audience for this film," says Coyle.

The process of getting "Into Temptation" on screen has produced its surreal moments (like a People magazine photo where a blurry Coyle appears in the background of a shot of Chenoweth hugging John Stamos at her birthday party) as well as the satisfying minutes after filming was complete ("I walked away, thinking, 'Wow, I can't believe this film we've been working on all these years is in the can,' " says Coyle, who's already planning his next project).

Oh, and one other thing happened during the "Into Temptation" shoot: When Sisto remembered how he and his dog first met Ann Luster, he was mortified. And he bought Luster a new purse.