Zane Rerek: Appalachian Expat

Courtesy of Zane Rerek

Zane Rerek is a comedian, filmmaker, and musician from Kingwood, West Virginia. He describes himself as an Appalachian expat living in Chicago, Illinois. 

“It's really different [living in Chicago.] People here are so goddamn weird,” Rerek laughed. “Before I left, I just assumed city people and country people probably aren't as different as everyone said. Everyone's just trying to get by. Everyone's got their own unique outlook on life, but we're all the same at heart.”

“Maybe four months into living here, I was like, ‘these city slickers and they're goddamn city slicking,’ everyone here is just so weird in a way that I’ll just never fully get used to. They’re not weird in a bad way.” 

He says, unlike back home in West Virginia where life is quiet and slow, everyone in Chicago is loud and in a hurry, high strung and stressed all the time. 

“Every single person here thinks that they're the main character of the world and whatever they're doing is the most important thing in the world,” he said. 

While life is weird in Chicago in Rerek’s eyes, the city does share some similarities to back home. 

“There is sort of a thing about Chicago specifically that there's sort of a blue collar attitude to this town that I feel like does feel familiar to someone who's from a blue collar, farming and coal mining town. There's something familiar there. There is an appreciation for hard work,” he said. 

Courtesy of Zane Rerek

Rerek attended the Shenandoah Conservatory from 2010 to 2014 in Winchester, Virginia where he studied acting and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts. 

“Pretty much right after leaving school I hopped on a mega bus to New York City, was in New York City for about a month, just kind of couch surfing with friends,” he said. “Then I wound up in Chicago in August of 2014 and couch surfed with people until I got enough money to put a deposit down on an apartment.”

In August it’ll be 9 years since Rerek left his town of 3,000 known for its Buckwheat Festival and arrived in the Windy City known for its architecture, music scene, and deep dish pizza. 

The pandemic cut back on the amount of creative work available for many creatives, including Rerek. 

“I haven't worked a ton since the pandemic when it comes to filmmaking and stuff,” he said. 

With filmmaking becoming more inaccessible due to ongoing pandemic-related restrictions and being in a new life stage, Rerek is turning his sights to animation. 

“Another West Virginian and I- my buddy Pat who moved out to Chicago around the same time I did- are getting into animation. We're looking to move into cartoons because doing live action stuff is expensive,” he said. 

“It requires a lot of people, it requires a lot of equipment, and we wanted to kind of move out of that and see how we can make stuff without having to involve too many people,” he said. “Because when you're 19 and everyone's, you know, got a lot of energy and a lot of free time it's easy to get people to be in your short films.”

“When you're in your early thirties, just scheduling an event that has more than three people at it is near impossible.”

Rerek originally pursued filmmaking because he has always liked cameras. 

“I found my dad's old Panasonic, hoist onto your shoulder, VHS camcorder behind the couch one day when I was a kid, and I just couldn't stop playing with it. I just thought they were fun,” he said. “It just scratches the itch on my brain that nothing else does.”

Being an actor in short films exposed Rerek to the work cinematography crew members did behind the scenes to create a movie. 

“You kind of pick up what the people behind the camera are doing a little bit,” he said.“I kind of just learned that I liked that part a little bit better than being in front of the camera lens.”

“I got a lot of books from the library and watched a lot of people on YouTube and listened to other filmmakers do master classes and stuff, and just kind of taught myself from there,” he said. 

Rerek says he hopes a feature length horror movie is in his future one day, but he leans toward comedy. 

“I start writing something and I can't help but put jokes in it,” he said. “I don't take anything seriously enough to make a horror movie, but some of the best horror directors are comedians, like Jordan Peele is just crushing it.”

In Chicago he studied comedy at the IO Theater. 

“It's just one of those things that I kind of just developed an interest in as a child and went from there,” he said. 

When he was a small child, Rerek saw his dad watching a Robin Williams comedy special and asked him what that career was.

“I was like, ‘dad, what's his job?’ I was like, ‘I know what a fireman is, I know what a doctor is, but standing on stage, being funny, what is that job called?’ And he was like, ‘comedian,’ and I was like, ‘comedian,’ and I just kind of internalized it from there,” he explained. 

“Rough upbringing I think just breeds a sense of humor,” he said. “Humor is a coping mechanism for a lot of people and when you grow up in a place that's not known for having a ton of hope you tend to make your own by telling jokes.”

Rerek is currently restarting his improv troupe for a charity event. 

For more information about Rerek’s filmmaking, comedy, music, or animation click here. To listen to his music on Spotify, click here.