SPOILER ALERT: This story has plot details from Bad Actor: A Hollywood Ponzi Scheme, which premiered Thursday at Tribeca Festival.
How easy is it to get fooled?
This is the central question explored by “Bad Actor: A Hollywood Ponzi Scheme.” The documentary will premiere at Tribeca Festival this week and narrates the story of an upcoming actor named Zach Avery (Horwitz) who stole over $227 million from investors in what became one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in entertainment history. Nobody would ever think they could be so silly as to overlook red flags thus falling into such a trick. So, how did Horwitz a D-list actor with no remarkable credits manage to fool so many people? However, Joslyn Jensen, the film’s director found out that it was much easier than one can imagine.
She didn’t really make the film.
Although Jensen makes herself known as the filmmaker to all onlookers during their encounters in this documentary, her true identity as an actress playing a director is only revealed towards its end. It was actually Documentarian David Darg behind camera whose previous works include Body Team 12 with an Oscar nomination.
According to Darg during a joint Zoom interview with Jensen, “I knew it would be very unlikely that we’d get access to Zach Avery. So I started thinking about creating a film that was an act of deception; how we might dupe our audience so that we could show how easy it is to be fooled.”
For months now, Jensen has been pretending on and off screen that she directed a Neon documentary competing at Tribeca. To blur fiction and reality together she has been discussing this project on Instagram where various friends including Lily Gladstone and an Oscar nominee have sent her messages congratulating her on her first efforts in directing.
According to Jensen, “I felt awkward when I had to pose as the person in charge of this film before my relatives and acquaintances. But all is well because our aim is to make sure the public can relate with what we passed through; that everyone could be a victim of a scam.” Gladstone, who doubles up as a faux-documentarian, states: “To be fair, I might have mentioned it to her some time ago but she’s been really busy. She can’t remember every little thing. Maybe I should drop her a text? Or maybe not?”
He also couldn’t tell most people what he’d been working on nor could Darg let his name appear anywhere on the movie before its release. One would think that someone like Zach Avery has no understanding of such kind of modesty. “For me personally,” he says, “I’ve had to let go of some director ego for this experiment.” “But the deception hasn’t run that deep. My family and friends fortunately knew what I was doing.”
Darg wasn’t interviewed for Bad Actor at 37 either something that wasn’t surprising to Darg either. “I mean if somebody ever put me on trial,” jibes the director, “I wouldn’t say anything even though there’s a documentary maker in court.”
In 2021, Horwitz was arrested after running a Ponzi scheme worth $650 million and in 2022 he was sentenced to twenty years in a federal prison cell. He lied telling investors that he would purchase international film rights and then sell them to Netflix and HBO among others. The whole operation was bogus: fake documents and forged emails pretending they were from executives kept it going. In addition, prosecutors allege Horwitz used money from new victims to pay off previous ones while also buying such things as luxury cars and trips by private jet around Los Angeles worth over $6 million.
“To make it a successful Ponzi scheme the investment has to be somewhat convoluted for the investor,” Darg says. “It worked well that Zach was not scamming people in Hollywood.” Most of his investors were from back home in the heartland who were enticed by the glitz and glam of Hollywood. It was slightly complex, and therefore I didn’t get much of it.”
Darg and Jensen read through various articles in different publications before taking a trip to Horwitz’s place of birth, Indiana where they interviewed his classmates, lecturers as well as Chicago and Los Angeles where he stayed with his wife at some point. That’s when they filmmakers started picking holes in Zach Avery’s account on how he rose from rags to riches. For example, Horwitz revealed during an interview on a podcast that he couldn’t play football at Indiana University due to injury. The truth is that he tore his A.C.L., but playing intramural sports.
“Ultimately, there was so much that we took from his story which was not accurate,” Darg explains. “It would be something he said in the press and then we would realize it was a movie line. It became clear that virtually everything about this man’s life was a lie.”
Jensen says pretending to be the director helped her think like someone trying to pull off a con. “The more victims we talked to, the more I realized if you represent yourself as someone else but hope to become like them; you can easily succeed.”
One problem for Darg involved determining how much of Jensen should appear in “Bad Actor.” The actual director wanted Joslyn to show up as frequently as possible without disclosing why she starred in the film.
“It was a juggle to make sure that Joslyn appeared enough to remind the viewer, ‘This is the director,’” Darg recalls, “but also retain her for being on screen so much that they’d say, ‘Wait a minute, is that person acting?’”
To maintain the illusion while allowing Darg to give notes during filming, they had tricks they used.
“We went down there with FBI headquarters and I’m already nervous because we need background checks,” Jensen says. “David is behind the camera. So my way of saying, ‘Do you have any adjustments for me in the next take? was [How does it look?[ And he’d say either, ‘It looks great’ or ‘Scoot over a little and slow down. He gave tons of direction. But no one would have clocked it like,’ Hey , who’s in charge here?’ It felt collaborative.”
Nevertheless deceptive nature of the film made Jensen feel good about people’s basic trust instinct. But she warns against being overly materialistic or making financial decisions based on too few facts. “Do your diligence. Be careful,” she advises them all. “If something doesn’t seem right, trust yourself.”
Darg teaches another life lesson. “We had a recurring joke on set that you can never trust an actor,” he says. “I don’t believe that. But if someone who is a professional liar by trade is asking you to invest in a dubious company, maybe ask more questions.”
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