Leslie Nielsen plays Minnesotan Bill Austin in 'Music Within'

It's not every day you get to direct a movie featuring Leslie Nielsen in the role of your own stepfather. But that's exactly what Steven Sawalich did in his award-winning debut film, "Music Within," an MGM release opening today.

The film is an upbeat biography of Richard Pimentel, a brilliant motivational speaker who returned from a tour of duty in Vietnam with severe hearing loss and became a driving force behind the Americans with Disabilities Act. In a comic cameo, Nielsen appears as Sawalich's stepfather, Eden Prairie hearing-aid magnate Bill Austin, examining Pimentel (played by Ron Livingston) with a probe that fits in the auditory canal.

Pimentel: "Hey, what are you going to do with that thing?"

Austin: "I'm going to stick it in your ear, unless you have another place you'd rather I stick it."

Pimentel: "Ear is fine."

Sawalich met Pimentel eight years ago at a conference for his stepfather's firm, Starkey Laboratories Inc. Pimentel was giving a speech recounting his injury, his friendships with disabled vets and others with congenital handicaps and his efforts to do away with discrimination in the workplace and in public policy. In the end, a man who lost his hearing made the entire nation listen.

"Richard has this amazing ability to take an audience on a rollercoaster of emotions where one minute everybody's laughing hysterically and the next moment it's dead silent and people are crying. Richard's story really hit a chord with me."

Sawalich spent three years persuading Pimentel to let him put his life story on the screen, then two years more revising the screenplay to strike the proper tone of dramatic comedy.

"People hear 'disability movie' and they think 'depressing' or 'movie of the week.' But Richard lived his life by making humor out of every bad situation he was dealt. And that's something I tried to convey in the film. So where you think it's going to go dark and depressing, it flips on you and goes light and fun. I think that's why audiences relate."

Sawalich sought out Livingston, who showed a sure instinct for laughs in "Office Space" and "Sex and the City" and for drama in "Band of Brothers." For the character of Art, Richard's pugnacious best friend with cerebral palsy, he auditioned numerous actors, but ultimately cast English actor Michael Sheen ("The Queen's" Tony Blair).

"It was really about who could portray Art as a person and not just his disabilities. Michael came in; he really captured who Art was as a person. His cerebral palsy was just one of Art's 15 different characteristics."

The film won the AFI Dallas audience award last March, and Best of Fest at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Sawalich travels from Los Angeles to Minnesota for two months each year to produce the Starkey Hearing Foundation's annual So the World May Hear fundraising gala. The dinner, a star-studded affair, has included guests such as Elton John, Goldie Hawn, Arnold Palmer, Garth Brooks, Jane Seymour, Robert Culp, Jim Belushi and Nielsen, who uses inner-ear hearing aids himself. This year's event raised $4.2 million, which made it the largest single-day fundraiser of its kind.

"Music Within" opens this weekend in limited release, and Sawalich, who also produced, hopes it will reach 500 screens within a month.

"Being a small, independent film, we don't have the advertising budget of big Hollywood blockbusters, so we'll really need the support of the community and the word of mouth from people who enjoy the film."

Colin Covert • 612-673-7186

Colin Covert • ccovert@startribune.com