CROMWELL - “What do you think about him wiggling from the sit?” asks Chrissy Joy. “I can have him do subtle things like that.”

       She’s talking to Greenwich-based film director Jacob Cooney. And she’s talking about Darby, the energetic border collie hired to play Houdini, an escape artist and crime-stopping canine in the upcoming film “Junkyard Dogs”.

       Even beside the likes of Denise Richards and Patrick Muldoon, Darby seems to be stealing the show.

       “Oh my God, he’s so good,” exclaims Andrew Bennett, his 10-year-old co-star.

       And, well, he is. When Joy says “catch”, Darby leaps into her arms.

       When Cooney says ‘bark’, he shows off a booming set of vocal cords.

       Just for kicks, between takes, Joy has him dance on his hind legs.

       His task for this scene is, as Joy put it, more subtle �" he’s walking up, methodically, from a stomach crouch �" but those are perhaps the trickiest techniques; the ones made to appear as if someone like Joy isn’t just off camera, coaching him through the motions with what resembles sign language.

       “The cool thing is, you’re always problem-solving,” says Joy, whose canine Joy Crew tours the country in a van, performing shows and gracing film shoots like this one. “Every time you go on set, you take the trick you taught them and apply it in new ways.”

       How long does it take Darby to learn a new one?

       “It depends on the complexity of the trick,” Joy tells me between takes. “It could be a couple of weeks to a year.”

       Darby hasn’t even been at it that long �" at just 18 months old, he’s the youngest international trick champion.

       Joy Crew �" which includes fellow Junkyard Dogs cast members Petunia, a skateboarding pug, and rescue mix Beasley �" has even been featured on America’s Got Talent.

       As for Joy herself, by her account, she kind of wandered into the world of professional dog training after feeling a little lost.

       “Dog training has changed my life,” she says. “I didn’t really know what to do with myself.”

       But perhaps she always did.

       “I always had a passion for animals and film and TV work,” Joy says. “Ever since I was 9.”

       And the film �" a collaboration between David Gere and Chelsea Vale’s Shadow Vale Productions and Verdi Productions �" exudes that passion. Cooney says he cowrote the script when he was kicking around ideas for a family-friendly film.

       “I have kids, and I wanted to do something they could enjoy,” Cooney says.

       In Junkyard Dogs, Darby, Petunia, and Beasley are the unlikely heroes �" hellbent on convincing Richards, a single mother, and her new finance, Muldoon, that the two neighborhood mail carriers portrayed by Sal Rendino and Laura Poe are up to no good.

       Bennett and Rhys Olivia Cote portray Richards’ children, who in this scene, are desperately playing canine’s advocate after Darby scared off one of the crooks.

       “It’s about the bond we all have with animals �" especially when we’re young,” Muldoon says. “Kids have an intuition, and in this case, that intuition is right.”

       Call it an inner child’s intuition that pulls artists like Joy into the crazy life of show business, but it’s something Gere says he can relate to.

       We’re on the deck of an extravagant home that overlooks Cromwell’s neck of the Connecticut River. For Gere, this is quite literally where it all began �" he grew up a block away from the River Park Drive residence, which is owned by a close childhood friend.

       His father, Jim Gere, a former Cromwell school superintendent, built the street’s second house.

       “It was a campground when we first got here,” Gere says.

       And while Gere’s decade-long film career �" which include several Cromwell-filmed features �" always brings him close to home, Junkyard Dogs has perhaps come the closest.

       Cast and crew spent the prior day at Cromwell Middle School �" courtesy of district Superintendent Dr. Enza Macri, who set them up with the venue that will serve as a late 80’s flashback for the character portrayed by Richards.

       But for Gere, who grew up and attended school in Cromwell, it’s a real life walk down memory lane.

       “I’ve made movies in Hollywood,” Gere tells me as he takes it all in. “My connection is to here.”

       For Gere and his father, it’s family.

       Gere never knew his late mother, Philomena, who died in an accident before he was born - Gere's sister was also taken in that incident. It was Veronica Gere, Jim's second wife and a former Edna C. Stevens School principal, who helped raise him.

       “She taught me to paint, draw and write,” Gere says. “She’s the reason I got into the arts at an early age. I look back on my past �" the things that have shaped me- and growing up here, the river, all have some connection to this film.”

       But there’s just one more piece �" Holy Apostles College and Seminary on 33 Prospect Hill Road, a sanctuary for Philomena, who once considered becoming a nun.

       And yet, Gere says for some reason or another, he never visited the campus �" until now.

       While Muldoon and Richards were supposed to get married in a Cromwell River Landing scene, there’s been a change of plans �" Cooney and co. had to film the location in two segments, which created an issue with day/night continuity, prompting a venue change.

       That’s when Alicia Fleck of Holy Apostles offered their chapel �" a reconstructed version of the venue Philomena frequented.

       “I didn’t even know they were in a jam,” Fleck tells me. “I just knew our chapel was so beautiful.”

       “So often in this business, you have to make decisions based on weather, and you don’t have a week to do it,” Gere says. “To have it work out the way it did �" and to be able to film this scene, here, was a blessing.”

       Here, today, on the last day of filming for Junkyard �" a marathon day that doesn’t wrap till after 11 p.m. �" there are a lot of people hoping that Cromwell will be the start of something for them too.

       There are extras like Tom Fiore, a Southington native who met Gere on the set of the film “Blood Circus”. The two have been working together ever since.

       “When I was in high school doing plays, my teacher would say, ‘if I closed my eyes, I wouldn’t know it was you’,” Fiore tells me.

       His one line today, however, is ‘you may kiss the bride’ - as the priest in this scene, he will be marrying Richards and Muldoon.

       And he’d probably appreciate if, one day, people �" a lot of people �" did recognize the sound of his voice.

       Gere and Fiore have a similar story, having both lost a parent �" for Fiore, it was his father, who encouraged the child in him to chase that dream.

       “Before he passed away, he said, ‘you’re gonna be a well-known actor one day’,” Fiore recalls.

       Gere says that providing Connecticut talent with a ladder up is a big reason he keeps coming back to Cromwell to film and the Nutmeg State for crew members and extras.

       “I want people to know that they can have a career in the arts,” Gere says.

       Paul Luba is an executive producer with Verdi, the Rhode Island shop behind “The Irishman”.

       He says that with the proliferation of east coast productions �" fueled by a combination of tax incentives and a demand for content �" it’s easier than ever to get in from anywhere.

       “Go to your closest production company and intern �" find a shoot where they need production assistants,” Luba says. “You can start from the bottom anywhere and a lot of people are doing that in Connecticut �" it’s creating avenues for people outside Los Angeles and New York to pursue their dreams.”

       Junkyard Dogs, which is being distributed by VMI Worldwide, hits all major streaming platforms �" DVD and Blu-Ray included �" in 2022. It will also have a limited theatrical release.