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By: Marcus Ingelmo
Evil Dread: Hey Lucky, how has the new year been treating you so far?
It's new and it's a year. I'm really looking forward to see how it all goes down. After grinding through "My First Studio Picture" over the course of 2 and a half years a while back, it's refreshing to see that this year brings the debut of our "little movie that could" - ROMAN - by far the most creatively satisfying movie I've been a part of yet.
ED: Could you tell us a little about your and Angela's new film ROMAN, what it is about and such.
Where MAY was the story of a lonely woman, ROMAN is the story of a lonely man. I wrote ROMAN at the tail end of college back in 1996-1997. It just sort of popped out of me. While the movies are thematically similar, they are really quite different. ROMAN is about a man's ascent out of madness and bad deeds. MAY is the opposite of that, being a tale of a descent into madness, that leads to some wicked deeds.
ED: In ROMAN, you're playing the lead character Roman himself which I guess is your biggest role to date. Do you enjoy acting as much as directing and was it hard to relate to the character that you were portraying, do you have much in common with him in real life?
Gosh. I guess there's no way around this…Yes. There's a lot of me in ROMAN. But there's a lot of me in all of my characters. That's the only way I really know how to write. Fortunately I haven't strangled or chopped anyone up in real life yet. I think, if I didn't have an artistic outlet, I might be a less dramatic, more pathetic version of some of those characters. We all relate to loneliness and what it does to our minds and hearts.
Do I enjoy acting? With a skilled director it is great. I love the perspective acting has given me on what I do primarily. It takes some nerve to step in front of the camera and try to be a believable character and not just a robot that memorizes lines. I don't know that I'm very good at it, but it sure was fun while it lasted! It helped me get a lot of bad junk out of my system…and…yet again…I owe everything to Angela and the small crew that helped make it become a reality.
ED: How come ROMAN came to be in the first place, I mean with Bettis directing it and you starring in it?
The original ROMAN was a short film called CHEEZUBOOGU (don't ask) starring, funny enough, our eventual Digital DP Kevin Ford. I made it for a class project my Sophomore year at USC.(basically it was what comprises the first act of the finished movie). A couple years later, the script came gushing out over the course of three days my senior year.
I planned on making the film right out of college on Hi-8 with my friends as a sort of "warm-up" to get people interested in making MAY. I tried to mount a micro-budget version, starring Jesse Hlubik in the lead role, way back in 2000 or so, but it just didn't come together. A few years later, we tried making another version with Kevin back in the lead, directed by an extremely talented brother-sister team (Brenda Norris and Darren Knapp). We shot most of the first act, but again, something wasn't right.
Finally, shortly before I made THE WOODS, it seemed to dawn on everyone that I was meant to be ROMAN (creepy, huh?). My response was that Angela should direct. We'd just swap jobs and see what came of it. The DVD on March 27th is the result of our efforts.
ED: ROMAN was Angela Bettis debut feature as a director, how did she do and do you think the two of you will make more films like this in the future?
Angela and I will continue to collaborate in various ways until our time is up on this big blue-green marble. We are long-lost siblings, truly.
ED: What inspired/influenced you to write ROMAN in the first place, if anything?
Loneliness, rejection, guilt, and suffering.
ED: When looking back on things now, did ROMAN come out the way you first had thought it would? What kinda expectations did you have to begin with?
As one would hope with any project, ROMAN came out far better than I had imagined. I really wanted to tinker with the script before we started filming because I had written it so young. Angie didn't think it was necessary and stuck to the script and made it believable and beautiful and tragic and all the things it was supposed to be. I learned so much watching her guide this project to fruition.
ED: Which would you say is your best film to date (writing, directing or acting) and why would you say that is?
How dare you ask me which of my babies I love most! MAY was my first personal film, so it will always be special because of that. SICK GIRL and ALL CHEERLEADERS DIE were just a fricken blast! THE WOODS is a pretty neat audio-visual experience and I'm proud of a lot of the technique and atmosphere there. The final version is cut a little too tight in some places because of budget restrictions and I edited for so long that it is definitely an overdrawn picture. ROMAN was just so damn creatively satisfying because so few people were involved in the making of it. But there's no way the film would have worked if we all hadn't learned some hard lessons ahead of time. We plan on making many more DV movies in the future. There's a purity there that's really hard to capture any other way.
ED: I must say that I really enjoyed SICK GIRL, and from the commentary on the DVD, it sounded like you had a good time making it. Was it fun working on the MASTERS OF HORROR show and could you see yourself doing it again?
It was a complete honor to be a part of that first season with so many of my idols. Like I said, it was just a total blast and the smoothest film shoot I've ever experienced. It was fun to experiment with some classic techniques with modern subject matter. We just felt like being goofy and fun with it and I am so satisfied with the experience. If they call me again some time, and I'm not busy doing some other crazy stuff, I'll be game, for sure.
ED: Have you been following the episodes in the MASTERS OF HORROR show? If you have, what episode(s) did you like the most?
I must admit I haven't seen ALL of season one, and I've seen none of Season Two as of yet. From what I've seen, Tobe Hooper's DANCE OF THE DEAD was my favorite and a helluva an audio-visual experience, Argento's was a hilarious allegory about the "girl with the hot-body, and not-so-hot-face" phenomena, Miike's was just…Miike!...and on and on…they all have something that taught me something about style and storytelling.
ED: When did you first get into the whole horror scene and what is it about horror that attracts you?
Horror really hit me in middle school. I was obsessed with Wes Craven's films and really inspired by the dreamlike/fairy tale aspects of his stories. I just explored more and more until college, then eventually met up with Chris Sivertson (director of THE LOST) and we became great friends and shared our obsession watching horror flick after horror flick. From then on it was history. We figured horror was the most logical genre to start with. Everyone loves horror. Even the crappy stuff has always got something cool in it, it seems.
ED: What do you think of all these remakes these days, is it a good or a bad thing and have you seen any decent remakes lately? Also, if you had to remake one film, which one would you choose?
I get asked this one all the time. I'm so busy catching up on classics, I don't catch a lot of remakes.
Nothing springs to mind that I'd really like to remake. There's too many new possibilities for stories that spring into my mind every day.
ED: What are you up to for the moment? Have you started writing/working on anything new and do you have anything coming up in the near future?
If I told you, it wouldn't be any fun guessing, would it?
ED: That's true. Anything else you want to add and say to the readers before we wrap this up?
I hope ROMAN means as much to you as it does to us. There was a great group of people that put their hearts into it and we hope you can see that on your screen…
ED: Thanks for all the answers Lucky, it's much appreciated. Good luck with all future things to come!
And thank you. Have a good one.
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