Actor Paddy Wilkins returns home to Nebraska with acclaimed short film “Piano Man”

The film will screen Sunday at the Benson Film Festival, giving Paddy Wilkins, a Lincoln Pius X graduate who studied theater at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the opportunity to return to the city and state he calls always at home.

At the center of every scene in the 20-minute film, Paddy Wilkins plays the title character, a jazz pianist who has retired from fame and public appearances and works as a piano tuner, stopping at homes and venues across Los Angeles to do his job. work.

This story is rooted in an experience that Lincoln East High School graduate Miles Wilkins had in his Harlem apartment, where a piano tuner rode on a bicycle, quickly and silently tuned the piano and disappeared into the streets of New York.

Paddy Wilkins had shared the story with his friend Jay Zaretsky, who wrote and directed the film.

Miles Wilkins was responsible for composing the music and he also played much of the music live for the shoot in Los Angeles.

“He did a lot of handballs, stuff like that. I played a bit, he taught me more than I thought I could,” Paddy Wilkins said.

In Piano Man, Wilkins plays a character who encounters a fraudulent piano sale and finds himself driven to perform again. He did so convincingly enough to win the Best Performance award at last year's Red Rose International Film Festival, where Zaretsky also won Best Director.

It was totally unexpected, Wilkins said. I didn't even know this was something I was up for. So I have a trophy on my mantelpiece. This is a topic of conversation that has nothing to do with cancer.

Diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in 2017, Wilkins underwent surgeries and underwent chemotherapy and radiation that put the cancer into remission.

Over the years, there were few recurrences that served as setbacks, but ultimately cancer gave Wilkins a different outlook on life, he said.

“I feel really lucky to be here, and it's made me fall headlong into the arts in a different way. It's kind of like, what are you going to do with your time now that you have a chance again? It changes you and it affects the kind of artist I become.

Wilkins has been on this artistic journey since leaving Lincoln for New York, where he attended the National Shakespeare Conservatory. In 1994, he landed a role in a production at the Shakespeare Center in Los Angeles and moved to Southern California, where he worked for several years in radio as well as film, theater and television.

Then tragedy sent him home.

His first wife died and he returned to Lincoln with his daughter, who was then 2 years old. They lived here for two years.

“It was a really special time for us. My daughter, she's 21 now, and she's nostalgic for Lincoln, she wants to go back all the time. … That's where we feel like we're from and it is from there that we feel as we live.

Returning to Los Angeles, Wilkins found a niche in the world of television commercials, appearing in commercials for Apple, Geico, Dr. Pepper, Nike, Budweiser, Hyundai, American Express, Peloton, Google, M&Ms and many others .

I was a single father and the commercials were really great for me because I could spend a lot of time with my daughter, he said. I didn't have to clock in and do a nine to five and it was kind of perfect for the situation we were in.

Now I have a few more wonderful, beautiful children. And I'm kind of on this path where I'm more focused on acting. It seems to me that I am more interested in the profession. I'm just really immersed in it, back in class. I'm still working on things and auditioning. I'm lucky to have this kind of job because I can continue to age and work.

In addition to acting, Wilkins is currently working on an episodic television show in hopes of it being picked up by a network or streaming channel. It is a dark comedy about a bakery in a crematorium owned by a group of mafia women.

In another hometown connection, Wilkins' partner in writing and producing is Steve Lewis, who went to Lincoln East and performed in UNL's theater program before embarking on his professional career .

I've known him since I don't even remember when, I think I met him in high school, Wilkins said. We all worked at Pickles or Twisters (Records). I was a Pickles guy, he was a Twisters guy. I think that’s when we met.”

He said the two treated the show like a job, showing up to work every day with each other.

We shop different networks, take meetings and whatever it takes to make a show, he said.

But he'll put that aside this weekend when he brings Piano Man to the festival, where it will be shown Sunday at 11:35 a.m. at the Benson Theater, 6054 Maple St.

He expects the restored theater to contain many of his Lincoln friends and family when he appears on screen in what he acknowledges will be a big event for him and his nephew, who will not be able to be there , but which is also an important event. part of the film.

It's really important because it's about bringing something home where people can actually see it in a theater, where it was meant to be seen, on the big screen, Wilkins said.

“It’s really great to be able to come home and go again, that’s what I do, what I did.”