Actor Colin Egglesfield talks his new Chicago thriller and his work as a house flipper on the South Side

Colin Egglesfield is best known for roles in the soap opera “All My Children,” the crime drama “Rizzoli & Isles” and the Kate Hudson movie “Something Borrowed.” The 47-year-old actor, who grew up in south suburban Crete and graduated from Marian Catholic High School, returns home for the new thriller “100 Days to Live.”

Egglesfield plays a Chicago options trader who survives a family tragedy only to be kidnapped by a serial killer. His fiancee (“Proven Innocent” alumna Heidi Johanningmeier) tries to track down “The Savior,” who stalks his victims for 100 days before killing them.

The film — which is scheduled to be released Tuesday on digital platforms — was written, produced and directed by Chicago entrepreneur Ravin Gandhi while he worked as the CEO of GMM Nonstick Coatings. The movie was shot in Chicago over three weeks.

In a phone interview, Egglesfield discussed “100 Days to Live,” his move to Chicago and his real estate work here. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and condensed for space.

Q. Compared to your past work, I thought this film was a little dark, maybe even a little depressing. What was it that drew you to this role?

A. I always like to do things that are different than what I’ve done before. I feel like with my career, I kind of get pigeonholed into that leading man type of good guy role. This opportunity came up for me to play someone who’s got a bit of a dark past and is facing some of these complex questions that I think a lot of us face with regards to, what do you do when you lose people that you love in your life, and you feel like you don’t have anything worth living for? Some of these questions that a lot of people face in reality. Me, personally, I’m not usually the go-to first actor that people think of when casting roles like this, so when the opportunity came up, I jumped at it just because like you said, this is a departure from a lot of the things that I’ve done in the past.

Q. This movie was shot a few years ago, but it’s coming out now during the pandemic. I know depression and anxiety have been up more than usual for some. How do you feel about the timing of the release of this movie?

A. First of all, it goes to show you how long it takes to get a movie delivered. Making movies, I think people sometimes don’t truly appreciate or comprehend what really goes into putting something together, and people are so quick to dismiss a film once they see it. But having gone through filming it and being closely associated with something, obviously we as artists and filmmakers and actors, we take things personally, and so we get very invested in our projects. So when they do come out, we are very careful about wanting to make sure that first of all, we’re telling a good story.

Second of all, that we’re being authentic to what the message really is and with what people are dealing with now in the pandemic, and like you said, the anxiety and the stress of just the uncertainty of what our reality is going to be looking like in the next coming months and possibly the next year or two. I feel like it’s very timely in the sense that dealing with anxiety is something that I think some people feel like they don’t necessarily know how to handle and don’t really know how to get help with.

Hopefully with this film people recognize that if they are in that situation where they’re feeling like their anxiety is overwhelming, that there is help out there. I think even though this is entertainment and it’s a film and movies are meant to tell stories and entertain, I think what we are trying to convey here is that suicide, anxiety, depression, it’s a very serious topic. If we can shed a little bit of light on the subject and let people know that there is help out there, then I think that is a really good thing.

Q. Was this your first time filming in Chicago, and what was that experience like?

A. Yes, it was my first time. It’s crazy because I’ve been acting for the past 20 years, and I’ve never had the opportunity to work in Chicago. I absolutely loved it. There’s a different feel on set with the crew. As much as I love working in Hollywood and New York, one of the reasons why I actually did move back here to Chicago was because I feel like the Midwestern mentality is — I guess for lack of a better description — a little more collaborative. I felt like it was like making a movie with a bunch of friends. One of the reasons why I moved back to Chicago was because it’s so easy to meet people here and meet genuine people who I consider my really good friends. Just to be able to be here in Chicago, in the city that is my favorite, was a great opportunity.

Q. When did you decide to move back here to live full time?

A. I decided to move back here two years ago. Growing up in Crete, I just dreamed of getting out and seeing the world. Crete, it’s a great little town, small, little farm town, and I just had aspirations of getting out and seeing more and traveling. My senior year of college (at the University of Iowa), I heard on the radio about this model talent search, and just on a whim, I went to this model search. Before you knew it, I was living in Milan, Italy and London and Paris, which brought me to New York City.

I was planning on going to medical school, and I just found myself in an acting class in New York. Before you knew it, I realized that was my passion in life. I decided that was something that I wanted to pursue. After pursuing my acting career for the better part of 17 years, I found myself in Los Angeles in a place where I just felt like I needed a break. It takes a lot of sacrifice to be successful in Hollywood, and I missed my family. I missed being around family birthdays and events. Every time I came back to Chicago, I would start to feel homesick when I would go back to Los Angeles. I knew that as much as I love making movies and being a part of the whole Hollywood industry, I felt like I needed to come back here and start to create my own projects because I got tired of going into these auditions and waiting for people to choose me for their projects.

I figured I wanted to now take my career into my own hands. I didn’t necessarily know what that meant, but I knew I needed to trust my gut and come back home, where I felt like I would be surrounded by the people that I know and I love, and I know that they care about me. It’s one of these things where when you listen to your gut, when you listen to your instincts, you can never go wrong because it’s the best decision I ever made. I ended up meeting a woman who helped me write a book called “Agile Artist,” which is now out. That’s turned into me doing some motivational speaking, which I absolutely love. All of these new opportunities are allowing me to be able to now produce my own projects where I can now put myself in my own projects instead of waiting for people to choose me for theirs.

Q. I saw that you are also a real estate agent and developer here. Can you tell me a bit about that?

A. With acting, you never know when your next acting job is going to be. So one of my buddies in my acting class in Los Angeles, we got to talking about how we were frustrated in waiting for our next acting job. His uncle was rehabbing houses in California. We decided to jump into it because of the whole trend of what you see on TV with “Flip or Flop” and “Fixer Upper.” It seemed like a lot of people were starting to get into it, so we decided to take one of these learn how to rehab houses courses. We started to look at doing that in California, and all the property in California is super expensive.

When I came back to Chicago (one) Thanksgiving, I started to look at some property here and realized that specifically in the South Side of Chicago you can purchase property for not a whole lot of money. What I’ve learned and what I’ve loved about starting to rehab houses on the South Side of Chicago was that by rehabbing these houses, we were actually helping stabilize these blocks, helping build up these neighborhoods and helping prop up the property values of these neighborhoods. While we were rehabbing some of these houses, the neighbors would come by. They were always appreciative of us picking up some of these neglected homes and making them beautiful, which helped make the neighborhoods beautiful.

We would get these families into these homes. It started to blossom into this really amazing project where we are now providing employment opportunities down there, and we’re providing really nice homes at a price point that is still affordable to families. It’s been a really amazing part of my life that has been a really nice, pleasant surprise with how impactful I feel like my work is having in the South Side.

Q. Are you concerned at all that you are helping to gentrify those neighborhoods more quickly?

A. Nope, not at all. I also own a couple of rental properties down there. We’re renovating the homes and pricing them at a price point that is similar to the other homes in the area. We’re not pricing the homes higher than what the other homes in the area are. We’re essentially stabilizing these neighborhoods and providing great, affordable housing for people who live in these neighborhoods, and they welcome it.

Q. Is it just on the South Side or do you have projects elsewhere in the city?

A. I have projects in other places. I’m currently doing a rehab in Irving Park, and it’s fun to be able to go look at different neighborhoods, learn more about these different neighborhoods and learn more about the history of Chicago. I love the history of Chicago. It’s amazing because when we rehab these homes, it’s almost as if we’re going back in time and getting to learn about the history of the neighborhood and the people in it. It just makes my appreciation for Chicago that much deeper.

Q. Have you run into any challenges or obstacles in terms of getting permits from the city? There’s a lot of red tape sometimes that comes with rehabbing homes here.

A. I would advise anyone who is looking into rehabbing, definitely work with someone who has a lot of experience doing it. I think that’s one of the things that I wish I would have relied more on because when we started rehabbing these houses in Chicago, we were living in Los Angeles. We were flying back to Chicago. We would do everything that we were taught in these courses, such as hire an architect, get a contractor, and then start doing the work.

What we didn’t realize was that you’ve got to work with an architect who is experienced in the specific neighborhood that you’re working in because each different neighborhood and township has their own little challenges and rules and laws. We had an architect designing a home for an area of Chicago that he wasn’t familiar with. It just cost us 10 months before we got approval for the architecture plans, which absolutely killed our profit margin on that particular project. We definitely say work with experienced people in the specific area that you’re rehabbing in.

Q. I saw somewhere that you were talking about hosting a renovation TV show. Is that still in the works?

A. I’ve been approached by different production companies about possibly doing a rehab show. So far nothing has materialized at this point, but you never know. I’m definitely open to doing something like that. I think it would be a really cool departure (from) the typical cookie-cutter shows that we see on TV right now. I think it would be interesting to see how we’re actually making a difference in areas such as the South Side of Chicago, where essentially it’s just a matter of directing resources down there and providing more employment opportunities for the people who live down there.

Because as I’ve gotten to know the people that live there, a lot of the time it’s not a matter of ambition or drive. People down there are just like everyone else. They want to work. They want to be able to provide for their families. They want to feel like they have purpose in their lives. When there’s a lack of opportunity down there, then that seems to be the biggest issue with people being able to create a normal and stable life for themselves. So anything that I feel like I can help bring in terms of resources down there is something that I’m committed to doing. It’s something that I’m passionate about doing.

tswartz@tribpub.com

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