A Smithfield man is among the cast of a locally produced film.

Town resident Tony Claiborne plays lawyer Marlin Lane in “That Summer the Wolf Came,” an hour-and-45-minute movie that will be shown at 7 p.m. Jan. 18 at the The American Theatre in Hampton.

Actor-turned-producer Robert Shepherd, who recruited Claiborne for the part, stars as George Tate, a down-on-his-luck 70-year-old who, with his middle-aged son, Brad, played by Corey Weber, witnesses and assists a conman in an ATM scam. Days later, the conman dies during one of his own schemes, leaving George and Brad as accomplices to murder.

“I’ve always been in drama in local churches throughout my military career,” said Claiborne, who’s acted in numerous stage plays during and since his time in the Army.

He hasn’t slowed down one bit since his 2005 retirement.

He made his film debut in 2014 in “The Basement,” a thriller written and directed by Cynthia A.L. Cherry featuring nine people who find refuge in the basement of a church following the mysterious disappearances of people all over the world, followed by the Amazon Prime movie “Dawn” in 2018, another film by Cherry in which Claiborne plays a detective.

“It’s been a blessing,” Claiborne said.

He earned a master’s degree in human resources management from Trident University in Cypress, California, at age 50. He’s a newlywed. He’s run over 50 marathons and in mid-2024, after beating cancer, starred in a Hampton Proton Institute commercial, which airs locally on stations WAVY, WTKR and on Roku.

Claiborne first met Shepherd on the set of the 2020 faith-based miniseries “Wise Man,” in which Shepherd played a blind man and Claiborne played his body guard.

“The chemistry between the both of us just resonated,” Claiborne said.

Since then, Shepherd has found Claiborne a part in each of his subsequent films, including “Mardi Gras Man” in 2022 and now “That Summer the Wolf Came,” which was filmed in October at locations across Hampton Roads. All but two of its cast members are local to Hampton Roads.

Claiborne’s life and career have paralleled Shepherd’s in more ways than one.

Claiborne was born and raised in rural Sussex County, about a 40-minute drive from Smithfield, while Shepherd was born on a farm in Missouri. Both men also spent two decades in the Army before pursuing their film careers full-time.

“Had a hard time getting from the farm into the movies; it took a long time,” Shepherd said.

Shepherd earned an elementary education degree from Missouri State University in 1967 and made his television debut in the 1970s on a game show called “The Dating Game.” He joined the Army in 1973 and served for 22 years, save for a brief exit when he tried moving to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career. By the time he retired in 1996 at the rank of major, he’d been transferred to Fort Monroe in Hampton when the Civil War-era fortification was still an active military base.

“Once I got here, I knew I would be ending my career relatively soon so I got an agent and started booking jobs,” Shepherd said.

“When I retired in 2005, I wanted to come back to be close but I didn’t want to go back to Sussex,” Claiborne said. “Smithfield was like the melting pot where you could get to anywhere.”

Shepherd landed the role of Dr. Joseph K. Barnes, surgeon general to President Abraham Lincoln, in the 2012 Steven Spielberg “Lincoln” biopic starring Daniel Day Lewis. He also acted alongside Emmy Award-winning actor Corbin Bernsen in “Mary For Mayor,” a 2018 movie written and directed by Bernsen and others that was filmed in Smithfield.

In 2013, Shepherd founded the ROTAG Productions with Sanzo, whom he’d met on the set of a reality show by New Dominion Pictures in Suffolk. Bernsen returned to act in one of the duo’s previous films, “Past Shadows,” which was completed in 2021.

“When we started casting Past Shadows, we wanted some star power; lo and behold, he agreed to come, even on a low budget,” Shepherd said.

“That Summer the Wolf Came” is the duo’s fourth full-length feature film.

In that film, Claiborne’s character is estranged from his father.

“My character kind of helps to reconnect them,” Shepherd said.

Claiborne is also a professional model and motivational speaker, having recently spoken at Superior Life Center, his church in Smithfield. He’s also writing a book about growing up without a father figure.

Tickets to “That Summer the Wolf Came” can be purchased at the door of The American Theatre or at https://www.hamptonarts.org/events/detail/that-summer-the-wolf-came.