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Not Your Average Joe
Joe Pope has his first starring role in a movie—sharing the marquee with James Gandolfini, no less—but he still hasn’t given up his day job.
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The Cedar Grove resident appears opposite Gandolfini in Kiddie Ride, a new film with a Jersey setting currently making the rounds of various film festivals. Pope also produced the film, which traces the lives of two childhood friends and the secrets they have kept from each other.
Pope, whose previous films include Tinsel Town and Pride & Loyalty, portrays one of the friends, a drug addict named Wiley Reed. “It was challenging but very rewarding,” he says of the role.
The film is based on a script by Sandra Jennings, whose husband grew up in Asbury Park. “Sandra’s writing was with a New Jersey shore mindset,” says Pope. “The film was mostly shot in Keansburg, which was a perfect backdrop.”
Filming began in January 2008 on the beach in Keansburg. The cast and crew had to deal with early mornings and extreme cold. “Sometimes it made me want to pull my hair out,” recalls Pope.
Away from the camera, Pope is the owner of Continental Corporate Services, a legal document service that he started in Manhattan in 1997 and moved to Nutley in 1999.
“I always said I would establish a successful business and then pursue my first love, which is acting,” says Pope.
