Bellport High alum helps make sure a movie about New York City paramedics is true to life

If moviegoers find Sean Penn a convincing New York City EMT in the new film “Asphalt City,” Bellport native Eric Cardamone had a lot to do with it.
Cardamone, who is EMS director at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn, served as senior medical technical adviser on the film. The movie stars Sean Penn (“Dead Man Walking,” “Mystic River”) and Tye Sheridan (“Ready Player One,” “X-Men: Apocalypse”) as EMTs struggling with what Cardamone calls the “mental, physical, and emotional toll that comes with the job.”
The movie, based on a 2008 novel by Shannon Burke called “Black Flies,” was an official selection at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.
It arrives in theaters later this month.
Cardamone, who graduated from Bellport High in 1986, consulted with the film’s director, Jean-Stephane Sauvaire, to make sure the movie accurately portrayed how EMTs perform their jobs.
Cardamone also worked with the actors and was on set for most of the three months of filming, which took place in 2022 in New York City.
He even appears in a scene in the movie with Penn and Sheridan.
“It was such a fun experience,” said Cardamone, 55, who lives in Lynbrook and part of the year in South Carolina. “Everybody couldn’t have been nicer.”
Working on the film did have its logistical challenges, however.
Cardamone would work his day job at the hospital from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. and then head to the movie set, where filming often stretched into the early morning.
But all those late nights will be worth it once the public can see the movie, he said.
Cardamone has seen the finished movie and he’s eager for the public, including his fellow EMTs, to see the film.
“We wanted to get it as real as possible, and I think we did that,” he said.