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Article IndexN.J. native believed he was meant to play the Congressional Medal of Honor recipient
BY LINDA MOSS
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Actor Jon Seda, who grew up in New Jersey, felt a lot of pressure when he took the role of legendary World War II hero John Basilone in "The Pacific," HBO's $200 million miniseries.
Seda wanted to do right by Basilone, who was one of the bravest and most well-known soldiers of the war, a celebrity in his day. Basilone's fame was well-deserved: He won a Congressional Medal of Honor for repelling, despite being vastly outnumbered, a nighttime attack by the Japanese on Guadalcanal in 1942.
Basilone was sent back home and given the job of touring to sell war bonds. But he wouldn't settle for that cushy duty. He wanted to return to combat, and was killed during the invasion of Iwo Jima in 1945, just a few hours after landing on the island. He left behind his recent bride, Lena.Seda, best known for his roles in the TV show "Homicide: Life On The Street" and the Jennifer Lopez movie "Selena," was also well aware that Basilone was from New Jersey. The Marine sergeant hero was raised in Raritan Borough, one of 10 children of Italian immigrant parents, while Seda hailed from Clifton.
"I'm real proud to be able to portray a hometown hero," Seda, 39, said during a recent phone interview. "I felt even more of a responsibility, and wanted to get it right and do the best I could, especially for all the folks in Raritan, N.J."
The "Pacific" role caps Seda's unlikely career odyssey. He is a former boxer of Puerto Rican descent, trained in the gritty gyms of Paterson and Jersey City, who found success in another arena: Hollywood.
As it turns out, Seda's worries about doing justice to the memory of Basilone, who was also a boxer, were unwarranted. Residents of Raritan — which has a Basilone museum, a bronze life-sized Basilone statue and holds a parade in his honor every year in September — lauded Seda's performance in "The Pacific."
The day after the episode about Guadacanal aired, Seda e-mailed Hillsborough resident Michael Basilone, who is John Basilone's great nephew.
Seda asked, "What do you think?," Michael Basilone recalled. "I said, ‘You did a great job.'''
Seda himself was especially moved by the reaction of Charles Tatum, who actually served with Basilone and was on Iwo Jima with him. Tatum, who is portrayed in "The Pacific," visited the set of the miniseries when it was shooting in Los Angeles.
Seda said that Tatum shook his hand and said, "We're all in agreement: You're John."
The actor, a graduate of Clifton High School, was left speechless by Tatum's praise.
"He said he was absolutely riveted with what he saw in my portrayal of John, and that for me was confirmation enough," Seda, in California, said during a phone interview.
Some of Jersey's native sons can't wait to shake the dust of the state off their shoes. David Chase, creator of HBO's "The Sopranos," who grew up in Clifton and North Caldwell, and Clark's Kurt Sutter, creator of "Sons of Anarchy," are on the record saying they happily fled the creatively stifling Garden State.
But Seda couldn't be any prouder of his New Jersey roots.
"I love New Jersey," he said. "I've said it before: My heart is shaped like New Jersey. I never wanted to leave New Jersey."
In fact Seda up until a few years ago lived in Montclair, off Valley Road not far from the Alexus Steak House & Tavern, which is his favorite eatery in the area.
Seda's mother and father are still in Clifton, and he has brothers and sisters that remain in Jersey, in Clifton and Fort Lee.
But the actor was forced to move to the Left Coast because of his work.
"I'm in this business now going on about 20 years and I just recently, within the last couple of years, moved out to L.A.," Seda said. "I tried my hardest to have a successful career but stay in Jersey, because my family's there, my wife's family's there. I'm a Jersey guy. One of the hardest things for me was to leave."
Seda and his wife Lisa Gomez, who is from Passaic, have three children.
Seda's parents came to Manhattan, where Seda was born, from Puerto Rico. But then the family crossed the Hudson and came to Clifton, where Seda was raised.
"I grew up on Sylvan Avenue, literally," he said. "I don't know if The Herald-News is still there, but right where The Herald-News was. My first job was delivering papers for The Herald-News."
Seda still fondly remembers one of the popular local hangouts in town.
"My favorite place to eat was The Hot Grille, across from Nash Park," he said. "The Hot Grille was my favorite place to go grab some burgers and fries and hot dogs."
Seda didn't have any big plans after he graduated from Clifton High. He worked odds jobs, like being an usher at the Clifton Movie Theater and working at the now defunct Caldor chain.
But he met some men who were boxers, and Seda went to the gym with them one day, and fell in love with boxing.
"I started boxing in Lou Costello's gym in Paterson, N.J.," he said. "I ended up at Bufano's Gym in Jersey City. Dominick Bufano was my trainer (Bufano also trained Sonny Liston). My dad is a big fight fan. I grew up watching a lot of the fights with my dad."
As an amateur boxer Seda posted 21 wins, suffering his only loss when he was a runner-up in the New Jersey Golden Gloves.
"I thought I was good, and thought I had a shot at a career in boxing," he said.
But fate, and his mother, had other plans for Seda.
"She didn't want me to box, like any good mom," he said, "She wanted me to go with my sister and take these acting classes in New York."
He started attending the Weist-Barron Acting School to placate his mother. But his teacher there, actress Rita Lynn, encouraged him to pursue acting.
"She believed that she saw something natural in me, and she kept telling me, ‘You should really take this seriously, you have what it takes,'" Seda said. "She pushed me."
Seda was encouraged to go to an audition for "Gladiator," a film about a Cuban boxer. Seda thought maybe he'd be cast as an extra. But he ended up landing a co-starring role in the film, which debuted in 1992.
What followed were parts in the films such as "Carlito's Way" and "Twelve Monkeys," and then the key roles in TV's "Homicide" and the movie "Selena," where he was the love interest to Lopez, who played the singer, who was killed by a fan.
Seda has also appeared in "Kevin Hill," "Oz," "Ghost Whisperer," "House M.D.," "CSI: Miami" and "Law & Order."
Despite his subsequent TV and movie career, Seda said he still misses boxing. And that feeling was his emotional bond with Basilone, who was a champion boxer during a stint with the U.S. Army before he joined the Marines.
To this day many people are puzzled by Basilone's ultimately fatal decision to return to combat, in harm's way, after being stateside. Certainly, Basilone had done enough for his country on Guadalcanal.
During that grueling battle Basilone and his men, just over a dozen of them armed with heavy machine guns, fought off an onslaught of Japanese troops. Basilone reportedly killed 38 of the enemy himself, and there were hundreds of bodies of Japanese soldiers in front of the American position.
Still, Basilone wanted to go back to the war front. Seda said he understands why.
"I look at it like a boxer, who just can't leave the fight when they feel they still have that fight in them," he said.
"When I first got the script and saw and read up on Basilone, I never felt this kind of connection before in any other thing that I've worked on," Seda said. "I just felt something inside me that just felt like I was meant to be Basilone."
Seda said his choice to exit boxing is "like an unfinished chapter...a void that can never be filled." And the actor believes that Basilone felt that same void after leaving combat duty, which is why he returned to the Pacific to fight side-by-side with his fellow Marines, and then was killed by a mortar shell on Iwo Jima.
"Even though it's not the same, it's not war, that's where part of me was able to connect with Basilone's decision to go back," Seda said. "Because I have to tell you, there has not been a day that's gone by — not that I don't appreciate where I am, I appreciate it, and I'm so thankful for this career — that I don't miss boxing."
And then, of course, there's that other connection Seda has to Basilone.
"Being from Jersey, I just felt, Wow," he said. "Hey, come on. Who else can play this guy?"
The actor's research for the part including reading a Basilone biography, "Raritan's Hero: The John Basilone Story," written by Bruce Doorly. Seda got the book from John Pacifico, chairman of the John Basilone Parade Committee.
Doorly decided to write the book roughly seven years ago after reading about the hero at the Basilone Museum, which is in the Raritan Library.
"I looked at that story and No. 1, I was amazed that no one had ever done a biography, and I thought No. 2, that someday there would be a major motion picture of it," Doorly said. "The whole true story, as it was, was like a Hollywood writers' dream. You couldn't have written a better story that was heroic, inspiring, interesting."
Seda's research included not only reading the book, but also watching a short film clip of Basilone in a commercial and listening to an audio tape of the hero.
Boot camp for the cast of "The Pacific" started in Australia in August 2007, and the filming there ended in summer 2008.
Last September Seda came to Raritan for the Basilone memorial weekend. The actor rode in its parade, placed a wreath at the foot of the hero's statue, and addressed the Marine Corps band concert that Raritan holds at Raritan Valley Community College as part of its Basilone memorial.
"The thing that got me about him was he was so emotional about all of what was going on, the parade and our ceremony," Pacifico said. "He met a lot of people and he was such a very welcome guest. I think his emotions are something that really got all of us. He was really touched by the whole celebration that we have, and of course he was in the parade."
Pacifico's review of Seda's performance was a big thumb's up: "He did a great job, no question about it."
With "The Pacific" under his belt, Seda will be doing several independent films. He also recently completed a pilot for ABC, called "Cutthroat," but the network didn't pick it up for the fall.
When Seda is reminded of how many famous actors hail from the Garden State, he is surprised to hear one very famous name.
"Jack Nicholson's from Jersey?" Seda said. "No wonder he's a great actor."
