Minneapolis writer admits to excitement and dread as her life becomes a movie

Tales of the ups and downs of Hollywood don't get much better than this: "Flag Day" is about the life of Jennifer Vogel and there's no way it would exist without her. Even so, she was edited out of the film.

Based on the Minneapolis writer's memoir, "Flim-Flam Man: The True Story of My Father's Counterfeit Life," the movie depicts Vogel's adolescence and young adulthood, much of it lived in Minnesota with her father, an arsonist and counterfeiter who disappeared for long stretches of time.

The book generated enough buzz that producer Bill Horberg wanted to make it a movie before its 2004 publication. Even then, Sean Penn, who ultimately directed and starred in it, was being considered to play Vogel's late father. (Penn's daughter, Dylan, plays young adult Jennifer). A scant 17 years later, moviegoers can see him do just that when "Flag Day" opens today.

"I remember Jez Butterworth, who was the screenwriter, came to visit me," said Vogel, who also had Horberg with her. "I took them on a tour of the city and tried to show them some places that were important to me and my dad. It was a glimpse into the future, that first trip, showing these real things — my old school, our cabin, these landmark places — and thinking how they might be portrayed in a fictional way."

Vogel got her first sense of how that might work when she was sent an early draft of the screenplay. Her husband, journalist Mike Mosedale, interpreted it on the way to their cabin near Bemidji.

"He was reading it to me as I drove and we had to pull over by the side of the highway because we were both crying," Vogel recalled.

Over the 17 years it took to get the movie made, Horberg stuck with the project. It remained an "exciting possibility" that Vogel didn't want to think about too much, knowing many books get optioned by the movies and never made. Coincidentally, she was Up North again, vacationing with three buddies at a cabin in Two Harbors in January 2019, when things got real.

"We had gone trudging through the snow," recalled Vogel, who returned from the winter hike to find a voice mail message from Horberg. "He said, 'I'm sticking to that original promise.' And he's a guy who never got your expectations up in a way that wasn't realistic, so I knew it was really happening. I have to tell you my face went completely white. It was a burst of excitement and then acres of dread."

Some of that dread came from knowing she'd have to see heartbreaking scenes from her life re-enacted on screen multiple times. But Vogel says Penn welcomed her into the movie, which was shot in and around Winnipeg in summer 2019.

"I didn't want to spend my life there. I have other things I want to do, but I did go three times, I guess as an observer. I would give a lot of notes. I was a reality check," said Vogel, whose third trip to the set included filming a small role as one of her high school teachers.

"I'm not a person who loves a lot of attention and the spotlight all that much but I thought, 'All right, I'm game,' " said Vogel, recalling being fussed over by hair, makeup and costume artisans while eating breakfast.

Ultimately, the scene was cut. "It wasn't my fault, I don't think," Vogel joked. But she knows her experience on the set was unusual in a business that typically devalues writers.

"I was treated so well and so respectfully. I guess it's a big deal when you're playing somebody and the real person shows up. The girl Jadyn [Rylee], who plays tween me, would go, 'WWJD? What would Jennifer do?' " Vogel said.

What Jennifer would do is take it with a grain of salt. Vogel was dazzled by the Hollywood magic — she was on the set for an "incredible" scene of a burning building — but she remains puzzled by the whole process.

"This whole giant crew and all these actors and Sean, acting and directing at the same time. It was so much effort. And so much care was put into telling this story," Vogel said. "I can't help it, I was like, 'Is it worth all of this?' It felt like a bit much."

Audiences at the Cannes Film Festival, where "Flag Day" earned a standing ovation last month, thought it was worthwhile. So have the folks who reach out via Twitter to tell Vogel they can relate to her story of surviving childhood traumas.

Survival is a key theme of the movie, which closes with a title card that assures viewers Vogel is doing well, living in Minneapolis with her husband and working on a novel (called "Invisible Empire").

"It was fun visiting the set but also a little stressful, watching people act out painful scenes from your life. Some of it was really hard," said Vogel, shifting into second-person to discuss the disconnect of sitting in the present and reliving the past. "But I could always just go home."

Chris Hewitt • 612-673-4367