Before embarking on a career in the Hollywood metropolis, Michael John Benzaia grew up in the tranquil woods of the Hudson Valley, living in Rock Hill and Pine Bush and taking vacations in Callicoon at the Villa Roma Resort. 

   Benzaia, who worked in radiology at Catskill Regional Medical Center, keeps a warm place in his heart for his early, rural stomping grounds. “I always tell people there is a quiet beauty up here,” he said. “I feel that it stays with you everywhere you go, and [there is] a real sense of community.”

On January 9, Benzaia joined a star-studded cast, including Mark Ruffalo, Ethan Hawke, Missy Yager and Don Cheadle, as they performed a reading of William Goldman’s All the President’s Men at the Harmony Gold Theatre in Los Angeles. The reading was a benefit for the Stella Adler Academy and a tribute to Robert Redford, who starred as intrepid journalist Bob Woodward in the 1976 film.

Benzaia, who played a series of ancillary characters as well as former CIA agent James W. McCord Jr. in the reading, is an alumnus of the Stella Adler Academy, where he honed his acting craft. 

Attending the Academy on a scholarship, Benzaia is grateful for the wisdom he garnered there. “I learned to slow down, I learned to come at everything with a nonjudgemental attitude,” he recalled. 

Benzaia expressed high praise for his teachers at Stella Adler, including Christopher Thornton, who also performed at the screenplay’s reading. He also expressed gratitude for the sense of community that pervades the school. “Stella Adler is a family,” he said.

When asked why the screenplay is still relevant today, Benzaia cited how crucial it is to promote a robust press to support a healthy democracy. “The biggest thing that I got from the play was the importance of having a strong press for everyone involved, including both [political] parties,” he said. “It keeps everything balanced and promotes accountability.” 

Benzaia reflected fondly on the reading, saying, “The audience was phenomenal—it was just electric!” He said Ruffalo and Hawke were stellar in their portrayals of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and their ability to inject humor and improvisation into a screenplay that explores very serious subjects was much appreciated by the sold-out, lively crowd. After the performance, the actors remained on stage for a “talk-back” moderated by Woodward’s wife, journalist Elsa Walsh, and took questions from the audience. 

Looking to the future, Benzaia, who runs a production company, said he would love to remake the film today. Who would he cast? “Ruffalo and Hawke—there would be no other choice.”