‘Twin Peaks’ Legend Wendy Robie Leads ‘My Last Martini,’ Now in Post-Production

A Chicago-made short film is toasting a wrap on principal photography as it heads into post production. My Last Martini is a short film written for the screen and directed by Rob Christopher. The screenplay is based on the story of the same name by acclaimed writer and David Lynch collaborator Barry Gifford.

The cast includes Wendy Robie (Twin Peaks, Relative), Mickey O’Sullivan (Room Tone, Handle With Care), and Madrid St. Angelo (Chicago Fire, ER). The film is produced by John Otterbacher (RiffRaff, Moving Parts) and Aaron Wertheimer (Not If I See You First), and is being lensed by Christopher Rejano (Signature Move, Knives and Skin).

There are certain very personal stories that you only reveal to a complete stranger in a bar. My Last Martini is about just such an encounter. One evening at an elegant cocktail lounge, an ordinary guy does something out of the ordinary: Paul impulsively breaks a self-imposed rule and decides to have a third martini. Moments later, he is joined by a mysterious woman who drifts over from the next booth, looking for a good listener. 

While the cast and crew are all from the Chicagoland area, filming took place in Milwaukee at the historic Bryant’s Cocktail Lounge.

“For me, the perfect bar is convivial and intimate, lively yet tranquil. That sums up Bryant’s, a place I’ve visited regularly for nearly a decade,” says Christopher. “Filmmaker Luis Buňuel once wrote that bars ‘are the perfect places for the meditation and contemplation indispensable to life.’ When all the correct elements are in place, there’s something about the atmosphere in a bar that can lead to surprising epiphanies – and encounters. That’s what’s really at the heart of Barry Gifford’s short story. So adapting it for the screen and filming it at Bryant’s is the proverbial no-brainer.”

Here are some exclusive photos from the set of My Last Martini…

Bryant’s was originally opened by Bryant Sharp in 1936 as a beer hall. Around 1938, Sharp installed carpeting, dimmed the lighting, and switched to a cocktail-only menu, and Bryant’s became the first cocktail lounge in Milwaukee and, by some estimates, in all of Wisconsin. After a fire on Saint Patrick’s Day in 1971, then-owner Pat Malmberg rebuilt the bar and registers and replaced the stereo. Those components remain today at the establishment, now owned by John Dye.

“I love movies where the locations are their own character, and Bryant’s is that kind of place: low-key lighting, décor from another era, and every detail thought out and executed to perfection,” Otterbacher notes. “It’s just too bad the audience can’t taste the drinks; they’ll have to do that on their own.”

Connections abound among the cast and crew. The trio of Christopher, Otterbacher, and Wertheimer previously worked together on Michael Glover Smith’s short film Handle With Care. Christopher directed the documentary Roy’s World: Barry Gifford’s Chicago, about Gifford’s work and Chicago childhood. Otterbacher was a consulting producer on that film, which features narration from Willem Dafoe, Matt Dillon, and Lili Taylor. Gifford, meanwhile, wrote the novel that David Lynch’s Wild at Heart is based on and co-wrote the screenplay for Lynch’s Lost Highway, while Robie starred as the eyepatch-wearing Nadine Hurley in Lynch’s infamous TV series Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Return. 

“Returning to Barry’s work once again after making Roy’s World is thrilling,” Christopher enthuses. “And casting Wendy Robie in a key role is simply a dream come true!”

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