Chattanooga native has a hand in Oscar-Nominated Film ‘Moonlight’ [photos]

Imagine the pulse-pounding moment when your name scrolls across the screen during a movie’s final credits.

Now imagine how the blood pressure rockets when your name is on a film that’s Oscar-nominated for Best Picture.

But Chattanooga’s John Montague, while proud of his role as the associate producer who helped get the film “Moonlight” up and running and eventually made, says he has other priorities.

“The success of ‘Moonlight’ is definitely profound, but I don’t hang my hat on it,” the 42-year-old Montague says. “Success in work doesn’t compare to success as a parent. Watching my daughters develop their sense of humor, their sense of curiosity, their sense of adventure and their sense of intellect outweighs anything I do at work.”

He’s talking about 4-year-old Holly and 2-year-old Lucy, the two girls being raised by him and his wife, Jessica, in the San Francisco area.

But “Moonlight” is inevitably on his mind these days. On Tuesday, it snagged eight nominations for the Academy Awards, tying it with the cerebral science fiction thriller “Arrival” in second place for the most nominations. (“La La Land” was No. 1 with 14 nominations.)

Along with Best Picture, “Moonlight” is up for Director and Adapted Screenplay for Barry Jenkins, Supporting Actor for Mahershala Ali and Supporting Actress for Naomie Harris, Film Editing, Original Score and Best Cinematography. The Oscars are set for Sunday, Feb. 26.

Following the life of a poor, gay black boy growing up in Miami, the film also won Best Drama at the Golden Globes, Best Film of 2016 by the L.A. Critics Association and Best Feature at the Gotham Independent Film Awards, where it also won Best Screenplay, Best Ensemble and the Film Audience award. It’s also nominated for several other prizes, including three in the Screen Actors Guild Awards airing tonight.

Montague was born in Chattanooga and attended Lookout Mountain Elementary School, then went to Baylor through 10th grade before transferring to Mt. Hermon School, a boarding school in Massachusetts. He entered the process of making “Moonlight” even before it was written. Providing the money, he gave Jenkins the ability to step away from his advertising job for six straight weeks. Jenkins wrote two screenplays in that time, one of which was “Moonlight.”

“When I read both screenplays,” Montague says, “I sat down with Barry and we discussed ‘Moonlight’ in particular. I really felt it was the one he should pursue. Whether that had an effect on his ultimate decision to pursue ‘Moonlight,’ I don’t know, but I’d like to think our conversation had some impact.

“I’m just so grateful that I played a part in getting this film off the ground,” says Montague, who also was executive producer on two documentaries, “Tchoupitoulas” in 2012 and “The Last Season,” in 2014.

“Films with real artistic value are few and far between these days. I’m in the business of finding those films and helping filmmakers advance their careers,” he says.

No choice

William Montgomery, who’s known Montague since first grade, says he is not surprised “at all” that his friend ended up in the entertainment industry.

“John is, was and always has been a talented and creative young man,” says Montgomery, now a history and English teacher at Baylor. “He was very much into theater in high school. He was the friend of mine who, if there was new music to be introduced and listened to and appreciated, he was on the forefront of that.”

It was pretty much inevitable that Montague was going to do something in the entertainment field. His parents – Alice Lupton Smith and Rick Montague – did some acting in the 1970s and ’80s at Brainerd’s Backstage Dinner Theater and the Little Theatre, now the Chattanooga Theatre Center, so John Montague has been around the stage pretty much since he was born, his mother says.

Perhaps driven by that DNA-fueled pedigree, Montague was a theater major at the University of Virginia, where he also held down the job as the guy inside the sweaty Virginia Cavaliers mascot suit. After graduating, he moved to New York and was drawn to the city’s improv scene, landing in the Upright Citizen’s Brigade group, where he both acted and taught.

“John loved the stage,” his mother says.

In fact, he seemed to love all forms of entertainment. His father says that, through the years, his son has sent annual Top 10 movie lists to friends and family. Often, the list includes “little” films, a category that “Moonlight” falls into.

“Particularly in the last five or 10 years, they’ve been movies that very few people get to see, much less evaluate,” says Rick Montague, who was a student in the drama department at the University of Virginia.

And yes, both of his parents have seen “Moonlight.” His mother says she was “blown away,” while his father, who has watched it twice, says it was “everything that I had heard about it and everything that he had told us.”

When publications like The New Yorker magazine call it “a masterpiece,” “Your head gets a little big for your son,” Rick Montague says.

For his mother, things got seriously emotional after the film finished.

“When it was over and there’s my son’s name going right across, I just got all teary,” she says.

Heading west

Montague and his wife, whose family is in California, moved there about six years ago. He met Jenkins through their work in the Bay Area’s film industry, where the “scene is pretty tight knit,” he says. “Most people know each other.

“I wouldn’t say Barry and I were close friends before ‘Moonlight,’ but when we both lived in the Bay Area, we would hang out on occasion,” Montague recalls. “For awhile, he was just a guy I’d have a beer with and watch a game with or something like that.”

Jenkins had already written and directed the comedy/drama “Medicine for Melancholy,” a 2008 film about the budding attraction between a man and a woman who wake up next to each other after a drunken one-night stand. The film was well-received, including a positive review by the late Roger Ebert.

Montague says it wasn’t until he watched “Medicine for Melancholy” that he realized Jenkins’ abilities.

“I was incredibly impressed with how beautifully honest and understated it was,” he says. “I immediately recognized that he had a real gift, and I was quick to compliment him on it the next time I saw him. Honestly, I felt like a complete dope for not really understanding his talent until we were on a first-name basis.”

As the run-up to the making of “Moonlight” gained steam, Plan B Entertainment, the production company co-founded by Brad Pitt, expressed interest in helping it get made. At that point, Montague says he stepped back from the production, a move he says is not unusual in the film industry.

“When your role is commissioning the screenplay, it’s typical that your involvement drops off once a big studio gets involved,” he explains. “Maybe if a smaller studio was involved, I might have had regular communication with Barry and lent him an ear, not that he would have needed my advice.

“With Barry, I always had 100 percent faith in his ability. His career really took off as I was helping him out. When that happens as quickly as it did for Barry, I’ll gladly enjoy it on the sidelines.”

And for those who wonder, no, Montague hasn’t met Brad Pitt.

“I do admire his work, though, and I’m extremely proud that we now share a film on our resumes.”

Currently, Montague is working with John Maringouin, who directed the documentaries “Big River Man” in 2009 and “Running Stumbled” in 2006.

“I suspect his next project will be my next project,” Montague says. “I can’t say much about it at this point, but I’m very excited about it. I think it’s a very important, funny and timely film.

“For me, it’s onto the next film, in search of the next filmmaker, hoping that I can help advance another bright film career.”

Contact Shawn Ryan at sryan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6327.