JT Mollner

JT Mollner is an American film director, film producer, screenwriter, entrepreneur, and former actor best known for his feature film directorial debut Outlaws and Angels. The film earned accolades at Sundance in 2016 for Mollner's use of Kodak film stock and vintage Panavision cameras and lenses. Mollner is also known for starring in the Las Vegas stage production of Tony n' Tina's Wedding, and he is heir to the Freakling Brothers haunted houses in Las Vegas, NV. Early life JT was born in Las Vegas to Ginnie, a former singer, and Duke Mollner, a former dancer. The two met while working at the Dunes during the Rat Pack era of the 1960s, where Duke later became a card dealer. JT has an older brother named Daniel Mollner. In 1976, Duke and Daniel began operating a haunted house from their home on East Rochelle Avenue in southeast Las Vegas that grew in popularity. By age five, JT had been inducted into the cast. He told a reporter in 2015 that "It was a great household to be from, because you’re instantly the most popular kid in school.” At an early age, Mollner was already a cinephile, with an interest in adult novels and writing. He credits his aunt Deanna Mollner, who lived in Los Angeles in the '70s and "ran around with the likes of Jack Nicholson, and Roman Polanski" for introducing him to the films of Polanski, Stanley Kubrick, and Federico Fellini. JT said in an interview that he always knew as a child he wanted to be a filmmaker, though he felt it wasn't an option for him because his older brother Daniel had already attended UCLA Film School. Career In 2005, after ending a year-long starring role in a stage production of Tony and Tina's Wedding at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, Mollner moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the film industry. Believing his dream to direct films was a long shot, JT did not pursue it immediately, instead taking small acting jobs to pay the bills, while writing screenplays in his spare time. Mollner soon became frustrated with acting in LA, explaining in an interview that he was tired of "being a tool in someone else's vision...having to read lines from someone else's script...[while] wanting to be doing what [the directors] are doing".