Matt Saha: An Actor and Film Company co-founder
Matt Saha has acted in a number of productions, including a film made in Los Angeles called Two Shades of Blue. In this film he plays a bad guy blackmailing a character played by the actress Rachel Hunter. Gary Busey plays Hunter’s billionaire fiancé. Eric Roberts kills Saha. In the film, For Which He Stands, Saha plays a corrupt DEA agent who is hunting down a mobster (William Forsythe). “ I’m a good bad guy.” He got his SAG card from acting in this movie filmed in Las Vegas. Saha has also acted with Chazz Palminteri in Scarred City, which is about a group of corrupt cops and is set in the Bronx. It was actually filmed in Washington Heights and East Harlem.
His family has a long interest in the arts. His mother was a writer and his father, Art Saha, was a science fiction and horror editor, who was part of the same cohort as Isaac Asimov. Saha’s father in fact coined the term “Trekkie.” That memorable word was born, when Pete Hamill was interviewing Saha’s father for TV Guide and when someone walked by in Spock ears and his father said, “Trekkie,” the name famously stuck.
Saha’s mother went to school at SUNY Albany. There she met Jim Hutton, Timothy Hutton’s father, who wanted to date her and asked her to go to California with him to begin acting careers. Saha has joked with Timothy Hutton that they could have been brothers, or at least half-brothers. His parents were very supportive of everything that Saha pursued including acting and boxing. He said, “I wish they forced me to play piano though.”
Saha started his acting career early. At age 5 he performed with his sister, Heidi, on the Lower East Side in a dance production in connection with the Pink Panther: He played a detective to his sister’s Pink Panther. Matt grew up in Hell’s Kitchen, but then moved with his family to Cooperstown, NY. Saha’s first paying job as an actor was there as a supernumerary for The Glimmerglass Opera Theater, when at age 12, he took on non-singing roles such as playing boy soldiers. It earned him 150 dollars a week. Saha played the Artful Dodger in Cooperstown Public High School. He also played football in high school.
Matt Saha was a member of The Hasty Pudding Theatricals acting troupe at Harvard University. The Pudding, along with The Lambs, are two of the oldest acting organizations in the US. Matt majored in government. He also studied Irish poetry there with the Nobel Prize for Literature winner, Seamus Heaney. “He turned me on to the lyric side of life.”
He subsequently came back down to New York City, attended NYU Law School, studied acting, and acted in off-Broadway productions.
He studied at HB Studios, where he enjoyed learning from Salem Ludwig. He described learning the importance of body and awareness of movement from studying at HB Studios.
At the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, he studied with Stella Adler herself. He also studied with Elizabeth (“Betsy”) Parrish (La Cage aux Folles) and Stella’s grandson, Tom Oppenheim. From the Stella Adler Studio, he learned to get in touch with naturalness. Stella instructed that one should “use your imagination and be confident in your skin.” He recalls this memorable advice, “The talent lies in the choices you make.”
Saha loves the history and tradition of The Lambs. Along with the venerable acting group at Harvard, Hasty Pudding, Saha also belongs to The Players. He said, “I love all the lore and history of all these institutions.”
He came to know The Lambs through Spence Porter of Harvardwood, an organization for those interested in the arts and comprised of the Harvard University community and friends. (The connection between Harvardwood and The Lambs was forged by this writer, Gary Shapiro)
At Lo-Jinx, he joins in the singing of The Lambs’ song (We are Poor Little Lambs…), a staple of the Whiffenpoofs at Yale, where it originated. He laughs, “It’s the first time I ever sang a Yale song.” He is more accustomed to the Harvard anthem “Ten Thousand Men of Harvard.” Saha also does securities litigation part time.
Saha has formed a production company called “10,000 Men Productions” with two classmates from Harvard: they are considering a buddy picture, a dark comedy and a historical drama. He is combining experience of acting with the business side of the film industry.
What makes a good actor? As Saha describes it: Listening, naturalness, a comfort in one’s own skin, sensitivity, and commitment to one’s work.
Saha likes to go to jazz and rock concerts, where he can sit back and enjoy. Places he likes to visit include The Village Vanguard and The Bowery Electric. He likes “the honesty of punk rock,” and says some of these musicians—punks, rappers, etc. are good actors. “You can learn a lot from a discipline that’s not your own.” He said that one of the keys to jazz is improvisation. “That’s also one of the keys to acting,” he said, adding “Go with the Flow” and work off of and with your partner and ensemble.
Saha boxed at Harvard. He practiced under the tutelage of Tommy Rawson, who had trained Rocky Marciano. When he was young, he saw Rocky with his Dad and when he came home he acted out the movie for his mother and that consisted of shadow boxing in the kitchen. Saha has sparred at Gleason’s gym in Brooklyn.
Saha has an avid interest in New York. He recently visited Edgar Allan Poe’s Cottage in the Bronx on Kingsbridge Road and the Grand Concourse. “I felt like his ghost was there.” He counts Poe as second only to Shakespeare in the Western canon. He notes that Poe is one of the fathers of detective fiction, horror, and science fiction.
Saha likes many kinds of movies, but has a special appreciation for films from the 1970s like Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and Jack Nicholson in The Last Detail (1973), liking their range and depth of characters.
He also favors French film (especially those with actor Alain Delon) and Japanese films like Tokyo Drifter (1966). Regarding Japan, Saha recently visited the largest active volcano in Asia, Mt. Aso, in Kumamoto, and peered into its abyss. He has worked on a number of independent films here in New York with Japanese directors and actors.
Saha also likes Formula One Racing: a death-defying sport. He added that considering their danger “puts any of my worries or concerns in perspective.”
—Gary Shapiro