Actress Jennifer Esposito was reduced to tears as she revealed that she was forced to move from the home she mortgaged to get her film “Fresh Kills” across the finish line.
The 52-year-old revealed she had taken out a mortgage on her sprawling property in 2024 after she spent 15 years trying to get the film, which she wrote, starred in, and directed, made.
Now, Esposito has confessed that although she was able to finally get her film out there for the world, she is also suffering the consequences of putting her roof on the line.
In a recent Instagram post, the director held back tears as she revealed she was no longer living in the home she mortgaged.
“Yeah, I’m looking like a— right now because I’ve been crying because I’m moving out of my home that I mortgaged to make my film and then have people who are in the spotlight now not be able to just throw one back and say, ‘Hey, watch this film,’” she said in the clip.
“And then I said to myself, ‘You know what? Nobody owes anybody anything.’ And then I thought, ‘Do we? Do we as human beings?’
“Maybe that’s why we’re in this problem right now where we are. I think actually we do owe each other something. We owe each other decency as human beings. That’s what we owe each other,” she said in the video.
The star captioned her post, “Do we? Owe eachother anything? Maybe that singular question is the one to ask regarding every single issues we are facing currently. Forget the systems that deliberately keeps us at one another’s throats—and survival is now a basic every occurrence—I’m talking as human to human.
“Basic human decency to another living being. That’s it. Think on that. Imagine if we all actually had one another’s backs. Systems that are meant to divide actually might fall. And now feel free to scroll about the best new face lift, arrest of a journalist and who else was shot.”
In 2024, Esposito revealed that she was taking out a mortgage on her house because she had faith in herself.
“This town tells you what you can be and what you can’t be for so many years,” she said to KTLA. “I was just so over that, and I thought, ‘Why am I asking the world to believe in me? I have to believe in me.’
“So I’m going to put my money down. At the end of my life, am I going to be so happy that my house was paid off? Or am I going to be so happy that I gave myself the opportunity that I’ve been waiting for for far too long?”
She gushed about the film as she noted that it was extremely important for her to follow her gut when it came to the project.
“It’s the first time that the point of view of the females in the mafia is seen, and I’m the first female to step into the genre, which made this even so much more difficult. But it was something that I thought needed to be told. Again, the movie takes place in the mafia, but it’s really about finding a voice in a world that tells you not to have one,” she added.
At the time, she confessed that people didn’t believe she would make it, adding that some even offered her cash to walk away from the project.
“I was offered $5 million if a male would direct it instead of myself. I was offered a lot of money for stars to be in it,” she said.
The movie made its debut at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival and the Red Sea International Film Festival. It is now available for streaming on Hulu.
“It’s been a long road. I’m deeply proud of it,” Esposito said.
