Basketball to the big screen: Former Gonzaga guard Jeremy Pargo to play lead role in self-written movie

If you think about it, Jeremy Pargo’s next venture isn’t all that different than the one he’s spent the last 20 years trying to master.

Performing for large audiences? Check.

Starring in a role? Check.

Executing a plan with dozens of cameras pointed in your direction? Check.

It’s easy to draw parallels between Pargo’s first occupation and the one that’s been competing for his time the last two years, but that doesn’t mean the former Gonzaga guard won’t enter the next stage of his life without apprehension and anxiety.

“I’ve been in front of a camera for years I guess, but I’m doing something I’ve never done before,” Pargo said. “That’s the fear. Walking on the basketball court I believed in my ability, so I didn’t walk out there thinking these people have to like the way I play. I have to like the way I play first. But with a movie, people watching have to like the movie. It’s a little different. So couple different things within it and hopefully it works out.”

Operating around screens has taken on a new meaning for Pargo, who began writing the script for a movie two years ago while biding time during the COVID-19 lockdown. The former Zag standout-turned-journeyman professional basketball player is the lead actor for a motion picture he wrote, “The Final Play,” that’s “loosely” based on experiences and events in Pargo’s own life.

“It’s a romantic comedy actually. About athletes I guess you could say,” Pargo said. “I have, I’ve been working on it for probably two years and understanding you have to be patient. Some movies will take seven, eight years to write and make so just being patient and letting it come to me.”

Pargo, who’s currently residing in Las Vegas, attended Gonzaga’s exhibition game against Tennessee in Frisco, Texas, last Friday after receiving an invite from the National Basketball Retired Players Association (NBRPA). The 36-year-old arrived at a pregame charity event wearing a Chicago Bears ballcap, diamond-studded watch and graphic sweatshirt bearing a photo of himself from GU’s game against the Volunteers in 2007.

He hasn’t put professional basketball on the backburner just yet, but after playing for 18 different teams in the United States, Israel, Russia, China, Lebanon and Italy over the last 14 years – along with a stint in the Big3 3-on-3 pro league – Pargo’s been content investing more time into his newest endeavor until the right opportunity arises.

“I can still do it at a decently high level, but me playing it for 10 months in another country is the tough part,” he said. “I’m not sure I want to do that. But I’m still playing, still able to play as long as I’m healthy and let everything take its course.”

Some years back, Pargo got a phone call from close friend and fellow Chicago native, Jerod Haynes, asking the pro hooper to act in a movie, “The Blueprint.” The 2017 film centered on racial injustice and violence in the South Side of Chicago and featured Pargo in a supporting role playing a character by the name of Jeremy.

Claire Simon, the film’s casting director and someone who’s worked on the set of shows such as “Chicago Fire” and “Chicago P.D.,” phoned Pargo weeks later during a basketball workout and encouraged him to audition for roles in other Chicago-based shows. Already committed to a contract with the Shenzhen Leopards of the Chinese Basketball Association, Pargo had to decline, but a brief foray into the movie industry urged him to start thinking about life after basketball.

“So I figure with my personality, this is the way to go, and I figured instead of trying to do something I haven’t done at 36 by walking in the front door and asking people to look at me and give me an opportunity, why not do it myself and write something because I feel like I like to tell stories,” Pargo said. “So, just me telling a story.”

Pargo thinks he might have a knack for acting – something he’s enjoyed far more than screenwriting.

“No, I don’t like the writing at all. You know to write things you have to spell correct?” he laughed. “That’s the difficult part is spelling correct, that’s the difficult part. Thank God for spell-check.”

Most of the writing happened during the pandemic while Pargo and thousands of other pro hoopers were waiting on various leagues to resume play. He didn’t let a creative thought go to waste, often brainstorming movie plots and storylines during the middle of the night.

“That’s when I first put pen to paper and over time, the story kind of takes on a story of its own, a path of its own,” Pargo said. “I literally just was coming up with ideas at 4 o’clock in the morning. Laying in the bed, something would hit me and I would write it down. I never liked writing in my life. Never. Ever.”

The movie business offers a different stimulus for Pargo than the one he’s gotten on the basketball court.

“To make people feel different things, to make people have different conversations, to make people see things from a different light,” he said. “Movies bring everything to light that we think about, that we talk about, that aren’t real, that will become real. Everything. … I guess it’s just a different world and trying to see how I can step into that world and be myself within that circle.”

Pargo’s basketball career might be script-worthy. Only five other players have had a longer gap between NBA games than the former Zag, who went six years and 316 days between his final appearance with the Philadelphia 76ers in 2013 and his debut with the Golden State Warriors, who signed the guard to a 10-day contract in 2020.

If possible, he’ll try to toggle between basketball and acting until he’s physically unable to do the former. At least one NBA player has been able to juggle those two successfully.

“Uh, I mean LeBron (James) has done it. LeBron has done it,” said Pargo, referencing the Los Angeles Lakers forward who recently starred in “Space Jam: A New Legacy.” “He’s still LeBron.”

Pargo is known to hound family members and friends in a comedic way on his social media platforms and joked he wants to create an Instagram series called, “At My Momma’s House.” He likes acting because it allows him to express his personality in an authentic manner, even if he’s playing the role of someone else.

“I honestly wouldn’t say I was acting, I was literally being myself,” Pargo said of his first role five years ago. “I literally took what they told me and was just myself within what they told me. … That’s what acting is. You don’t have to be someone else.”