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For those of you that have watched the first edition of HORRIBLE HUGH’S COFFIN REVIEWS here is the complete interview I did with Jennie Russo as promised. For those that have not watched it… what is your problem? Enlighten yourself by going to https://youtu.be/cD-3E-N3ai0?sub_confirmation=1. But before you do, read this complete interview with the beautiful and talented reigning scream queen Jennie Russo.
HORRIBLE HUGH: What point in your life did you decide you wanted to be an actress and why?
JENNIE RUSSO: I knew since I was a child that I loved acting. I think I first really took it seriously in high school, and it was actually a good friend of mine at the time that encouraged me to audition and apply for NYU School of acting. I don’t think I would have thought that I could have gotten in but she encouraged me and basically said ‘if anyone can get in you can’ and I did! And it was great. It was an amazing four years of studying and then going forward, living in New York for eight years and now working out of upstate New York.
HH: Did you get support from your family?
JR: My family was very supportive, NYU was very expensive and we couldn’t afford it. Thankfully I was a good student so I did get scholarships, student loans, and my mom helped out a lot. Thankfully her little house on Syracuse’s southwest side was paid for, it’s not worth a whole lot, but it was paid for so she was able to take out some home equity loans so I could study at NYU and follow this passion of mine. So yeah, very supportive. And especially when it comes to money and stuff where some families may not have been. Once I moved back up to Syracuse I have always had someone to run lines with me if I needed, whether it be my mother, my husband, and now my eight-year old daughter Parker is even able to run lines with me and help me with self-tape auditions and even this interview.
HH: Is there anything you draw from your youth when acting? If you have to get extremely upset or happy do you pull from past experiences to motivate you?
JR: Yes, there is definitely stuff. Not youth as a child, child. But I would say there is definitely stuff from age thirteen up, experiences I had gone through, certain things that I would like to think most thirteen, fourteen years old did not have to deal with back then. I was able to and still use that in my acting. Absolutely. I did study, while I was at NYU, at the Lee Strasburg Theatre Institute, so we used sense memory, so that was my training and I was there for three years and my forth year was at Stonestreet Film and Television Studio. While at Lee Strasburg Theatre Institute, the whole sense memory you are basically pulling a lot from your own past and working off of that. So I was basically able to use what I learned there and my past experiences… absolutely, I certainly pull from it.
HH: What kind of things were so strange for you at thirteen and fourteen?
I have one brother who is four years older than me. Unfortunately, he is schizophrenic and has a host of physical ailments. His mental illness was diagnosed when I was nineteen and it was very difficult for the family to deal with. He currently lives in a group home close by. I see him mostly on holidays, but my parents see him weekly.
HH: You have a lengthy list of horror movies on your resume. Do you like horror movies?
JR: I have to admit I never necessarily been a fan. I kind of gotten into this whole Scream Queen thing, and I enjoy doing it, I love filming them and I have been enjoying the finished products, but it was never like my favorite genre. It was never something that I said ‘oh I really want to be in horror movies someday,’ its what was casting at the time, especially since I moved back up to Syracuse. It was the stuff that people could actually sell and get into film festivals, and so once I started acting in a couple then word got out that Jennie Russo acts in these… and then I started auditioning for more and more. And now I do do a lot of them. It’s not that I dislike horror movies it’s just not the genre that I usually would choose if I had the choice of seeing a movie on my own.
HH: Are you related in any way to John Russo, the writer of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD?
JR: SHE KILLS. I just love that movie. It’s not for everyone of course. It’s very genre specific. It’s goofy, it’s intense in some parts. But, I adored doing it, I adored the final product. I still laugh, no matter how many times I have seen it, I still laugh hysterically at certain parts. IM GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA, was a movie I really enjoyed growing up, or in my teenage years probably, so the fact that it reminds me of that or AIRPLANE! or NAKED GUN… any of those types of movies, I really enjoyed that kind of humor.
HH: SHE KILLS is a very extreme movie. What were your thoughts when you first read the script?
JR: My first thoughts when I read the script, there was actually a lot of ‘could I do this?’,’should I do this?’ Is it making light of certain things that are actually very serious? It took a bit for me to realize that yes I think I can do this and I think I can make sure that I am not… I am still taking serious even the goofy moments. I also knew that I could bring some of my own past into this film, and some of my own experiences into the film. So for me, it took some consideration [laughs], but I knew I wanted to do it and be a part of it.
HH: In one scene you are gang raped, but it is shot in comical way. I actually felt weird watching it as it really isn’t something that should have any comedy elements. How did you feel about shooting the scene?
JR: The truth is that was one of the things I was kind of nervous about when I read the script, and it does obviously do it in a comical way so I was like okay, is this making light, would this be considered a rape joke because I don’t like rape jokes, I don’t even see why they exist, I never really find them funny. I think what made it okay for me to do is the power I get from the revenge. That was actually a cathartic experience for me, the scene where I kill Poodle, I have to say I felt amazing that day. When I was done shooting that scene I felt so powerful, there was definitely a catharsis with it. The truth is, I have been sexually assaulted in the past, when I was living in Brooklyn I was assaulted by a serial rapist that I didn’t know, put a gun to my head and tied me up and raped me on the floor of my apartment building. So, because of that in my history… and this was something, by the way, that Ron Bonk, the writer and director, did not know about at the time. On set I did not let anybody know, I did not want to make them feel uncomfortable, I didn’t want them to feel like they had to do something differently than they would because they knew this about me. So, I didn’t tell anyone until after we were done filming, it is something I am very open about, but as far as filming and such I didn’t let those particular people know until after we were done. And yes, filming that scene was really awkward; there were a lot of emotions. It’s filmed in a comical way but yet, obviously what’s happening, there is nothing comical about it. But, what I think got me through it was knowing the rest of the script, knowing how the movie ends, and knowing how I get to get my revenge and it was fucking awesome [laughs].
HH: I’m sorry to hear about your assault. Was that man put away for his crimes?
JR: Yes, Carlos J. Ramos was convicted of being a serial rapist and was sentenced to 35 years. He has to remain for 30 years before he is eligible for parole.
HH: Were you happy with the finished movie? Anything you may have changed if you had the power?
JR: I was really happy with the finished movie, I loved it. There is a couple scenes, and actually Ron is an agreement with this too so I don’t think I am insulting him by saying this, there are a couple scenes that ran a little long. In particular, and I am not just saying this because I wasn’t in the scene, the dance scene in the bar before I arrive in like the Crow makeup, that went on a bit too long. So I would have definitely shortened that…
HH: Was it a tedious shoot? Seems like there may have been a lot of down time setting up effects for shots.
JR: It was a tedious shoot. There was lots of special effects and any time you are dealing with special effects and gore and blood there is a lot of hurry up and wait. You are waiting, waiting, wafting until they get set up and then it’s hurry up we got this amount of time to do it because we have to have the sun coming through the blinds a certain way or we have to catch it as the blood splatters at a certain time, so that was tedious. It was also tedious at times when, because it is an independent film, you don’t necessarily have SAG AFTRA actors, so not everybody is taking it seriously as like I was. So you had some people that showed up to the set late, some very late, which would throw everything off. That was frustrating. There was also some people that I didn’t feel like were taking it very seriously even when they were on set, so there were times when that got a little frustrating. But to be honest, the core people that we worked with were just amazing to work with and some of my favorite people now. It was tedious but it was definitely worth it, and I would do it again.
HH: You have done nudity in movies, were you ever apprehensive about that?
JR: I have been apprehensive about that. I don’t know anyone that feels completely comfortable with what their body looks like. For this particular movie I was about eighteen months post-partum with my first daughter when I filmed it and only about four months since I stopped nursing her, so my body was definitely not where it was pre-baby. And to know I was going to be in all these scenes, and I had not lost all the baby weight yet, and I didn’t feel confident, made it a lot harder than a quick nudity scene I had done back in 2009 where I didn’t have kids and I still felt like I was still in pretty good shape. So yes, I was apprehensive mostly because I know that [laughs] whatever imperfections are there they are on film forever. But as far ask just being comfortable, everybody on the set was awesome, so I never felt uncomfortable with the people, which was great.
HH: You act in plays as well. Which do you prefer?
JR: To be honest, I don’t know [laughs]. There’s things about both that I love so much. I love live theater. I love feeling the reaction of the audience as I am doing the performance. I love getting that immediate feedback with just the energy or the laughter, or the stress that you feel coming from an audience when you are doing the scene. But then I love film because I love also being in the audience watching it and getting that kind of immediate feedback too. I really don’t know if I have a preference, I do so much of both… I probably do more theater just because I can do theater year around where upstate New York there tends to be filming more in spring, summer and fall and then people kind of call it quits for the winter.
HH: Can you tell us about your latest movie FANG? Is that available yet?
JR: It’s not available yet as renting, buying or even video on demand. It is going through film festivals right now. It was just at the Milwaukee Dreams Film Festival and it won two awards there, so it’s doing well. They are trying to get it into several others that we just haven’t heard back, I think some of them just aren’t going to let us know until September. I got to see it at the premiere in Buffalo and I really enjoyed it, my husband and I made a night of it and went out there and spent the night and everything, so it was great. I hope to see it again soon. I don’t even have a copy myself. Stay tuned, I’m not sure when it will be available for people to watch unless their seeing it at a film festival.
HH: What about THE HORRIFIC EVIL MONSTERS?
JR: THE HORRIFIC EVIL MONSTERS is the next project I am working on in June with Adam Steigert, who is the same person who wrote and directed FANG. I am very excited about that, if for no other reason than the fact that I get to work with a lot of the same people that I worked with on FANG. When you are on a movie set together, especially with FANG, we were living in a house on Keuka Lake, which is part of the Finger Lakes up here in central New York, it was just a great experience. So you are staying there, you are actually living in the house with these people, we are shooting thirteen, fourteen, sixteen hours, straight through the night sometimes… you become a family. So to be able to be on the set with a lot of those same people again, I’m pretty excited about that. I’ll be shooting that at the end of June.
HH: I know you are married with kids now, has that changed your life as an actress?
JR: …With theater it’s an audition at a specified date and time, so with theater I already know, there is an audition this night, I want to go to it, I can set up babysitting or make sure my husband is home or whatever and go and do it and I am in their space. More and more often, and not that it is a bad thing, but more and more often with film, or web series or TV pilots, they want you to do a self-tape. While I don’t mind doing a self-tape it can be really, really hard to find the time to do it, the space to do it, and not have the distractions. In fact, I did a self tape a couple weeks ago for a project and when I finally the time to do it was a Sunday night, because I knew I needed someone to read to me, I needed someone to record it, [laughs] but I also needed somebody to keep the kids quiet. So what ended up happening was, all four of us were in the room. So I had, at one point, my eight-year old daughter reading opposite of me, my husband recording me and four-year old daughter sitting just off camera literally clinging to my leg as I am trying as I am trying to do the scenes. And then there were a few words that my husband wasn’t comfortable with my daughter saying in a second scene so then we had to switch, she did the camera, he read with me… but again, four-year old still clinging. Sent it out, the person saw it, liked it, but they wanted a follow up and again, I was more than willing to do a follow up, I appreciated the feedback… I think I was given four days to redo it. I had an open schedule as far as… I could have done it any time but I still needed the reader, I still needed the person to hold the camera, and with me doing a lot of theater… My husband is working during the day, he gets home, then we have dinner, then I am off to rehearsals or shows. So, when can we pick a time where I can have you as a reader, you recording it and I can still do my stuff as well. Needless to say, I was also doing a show where I needed to spend some time with the script, so I responded to the woman and said thanks for the feedback I’ll try and get a second one to you by Friday, but to be honest I have to set this down for now because I have a show Wednesday that I have to prepare for, I think that particular week I had shows Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and I never got it done. There was just not another time where I was able to do it at home with the help I needed and get it done. It would have been so much easier if I had been able to just go do the audition at a specific time and place by myself, get feedback on the spot, and then redo it right then and there taking in the consideration the feedback I was given. Setting up a particular time to do it [laughs] in that particular case didn’t work. Unfortunately. One thing men don’t understand is that it takes time to get hair and makeup, so here I was doing hair and makeup on a Sunday night to try to do this self -tape only to find out Monday she wants me to redo it and its like… okay, we don’t have time to do all this again. So I am still trying to figure out how other people do it, especially people with families…
HH: Does your husband enjoy your movies?
JR: Yes he does actually. That’s the question people ask a lot, they want to know do things make him uncomfortable, there are definitely certain scenes that make him uncomfortable but for the most part he really enjoys them. He’s very supportive. He’s seen SHE KILLS in the theater, surrounded by tons of people twice. He saw FANG in the theater, sold out theater. Any of the films that we have had the opportunity to see, especially if they are playing somewhere locally, he’s gone, he’s right there by my side. He’s very supportive, which is great… I couldn’t do it without that support for sure. That is one battle I wouldn’t want to be fighting.
HH: Being a mom, does that change the roles you will or will not do?
JR: Not yet. So far I just know there’s just certain movies my kids just won’t see. But as far as accepting a role or auditioning, I just pick what I am comfortable with. I don’t feel like that’s changed. SHE KILLS, like I said, I shot after my first daughter was born, which was probably more out there than some of the films I had shot before I had children.
HH: Say, when you daughter is 21 and you are 55 and she watches SHE KILLS for the first time and wants to talk to you about it… will that bother you?
HH: Do you have a long-term acting goal?
JR: I think we all have dreams. The reality of it gets smaller and smaller, I’m 42 years old living in Syracuse, I’d love to keep doing what I am doing. I would also love to actually make a living from it. There is work here and there, and as I said I do a lot of theater… it pays, but it doesn’t pay well. So, I also have my kind of day job. But would I love to think that something would come to Syracuse, whether it’s a recurring character in a pilot or something, that would be awesome. But, not trying to be negative [laughs] I just don’t know if it is realistic. I’m not moving out to LA at this point in my life. I lived in New York for eight years, loved that, but I won’t be moving back there at this point of my life either.
HH: If they were to make a movie about your life so far, how would the synopsis read?
JR: There’s so much [laughs]. I have actually thought about writing stuff, but the thing is do I turn it into a fiction or do I turn it into more of an autobiography? As I mentioned before, there was the rape when I lived in Brooklyn, which was obviously a horrific thing and has definitely shaped my life since then. I had just turned 23 years old, I had been graduated from college for less than a year… so basically real life smacked me in the face quite literally. So I am sure the synopsis of my life would include that, but it would also include the fact that I think I’m hard working, I’m a good mom and a good wife, I think [laughs]. So it would definitely include that. I absolutely love to travel, it is a huge passion of mine. So, if I can’t fill in time with different acting jobs then I am definitely trying to figure out where we can go to and explore next So the synopsis of my life would have to talk about my adventures, I have been to Borneo, I have trekked through the jungles, I have climbed Mount Kinabalu, which is the highest peak in south East Asia. We have travelled all over… Caribbean, I have been through Europe… so it would definitely have to include my travel adventures as well. But yeah, I think I have a lot to tell and I think I have a pretty interesting story… so maybe some day it will come out with more details.
HH: If any of your kids decided to act, what advise would you give them?
HORRIBLE HUGH: What point in your life did you decide you wanted to be an actress and why?
JENNIE RUSSO: I knew since I was a child that I loved acting. I think I first really took it seriously in high school, and it was actually a good friend of mine at the time that encouraged me to audition and apply for NYU School of acting. I don’t think I would have thought that I could have gotten in but she encouraged me and basically said ‘if anyone can get in you can’ and I did! And it was great. It was an amazing four years of studying and then going forward, living in New York for eight years and now working out of upstate New York.
HH: Did you get support from your family?
JR: My family was very supportive, NYU was very expensive and we couldn’t afford it. Thankfully I was a good student so I did get scholarships, student loans, and my mom helped out a lot. Thankfully her little house on Syracuse’s southwest side was paid for, it’s not worth a whole lot, but it was paid for so she was able to take out some home equity loans so I could study at NYU and follow this passion of mine. So yeah, very supportive. And especially when it comes to money and stuff where some families may not have been. Once I moved back up to Syracuse I have always had someone to run lines with me if I needed, whether it be my mother, my husband, and now my eight-year old daughter Parker is even able to run lines with me and help me with self-tape auditions and even this interview.
HH: Is there anything you draw from your youth when acting? If you have to get extremely upset or happy do you pull from past experiences to motivate you?
JR: Yes, there is definitely stuff. Not youth as a child, child. But I would say there is definitely stuff from age thirteen up, experiences I had gone through, certain things that I would like to think most thirteen, fourteen years old did not have to deal with back then. I was able to and still use that in my acting. Absolutely. I did study, while I was at NYU, at the Lee Strasburg Theatre Institute, so we used sense memory, so that was my training and I was there for three years and my forth year was at Stonestreet Film and Television Studio. While at Lee Strasburg Theatre Institute, the whole sense memory you are basically pulling a lot from your own past and working off of that. So I was basically able to use what I learned there and my past experiences… absolutely, I certainly pull from it.
HH: What kind of things were so strange for you at thirteen and fourteen?
- JR: Unfortunately, because the stuff in my younger years that affected me at age 14 included another person, I can't go into detail. If it was only my truth to tell, that would be different.
- No, my father is very much in this picture. He and my mom separated when I was 12 and later divorced, but he has always been there. He wasn't as supportive about NYU. He told my mom when we thought we couldn't afford it that it was okay to tell me, "No". My mom insisted that I worked too hard to not be able to go to the college of my choice. So she made it happen.
I have one brother who is four years older than me. Unfortunately, he is schizophrenic and has a host of physical ailments. His mental illness was diagnosed when I was nineteen and it was very difficult for the family to deal with. He currently lives in a group home close by. I see him mostly on holidays, but my parents see him weekly.
HH: You have a lengthy list of horror movies on your resume. Do you like horror movies?
JR: I have to admit I never necessarily been a fan. I kind of gotten into this whole Scream Queen thing, and I enjoy doing it, I love filming them and I have been enjoying the finished products, but it was never like my favorite genre. It was never something that I said ‘oh I really want to be in horror movies someday,’ its what was casting at the time, especially since I moved back up to Syracuse. It was the stuff that people could actually sell and get into film festivals, and so once I started acting in a couple then word got out that Jennie Russo acts in these… and then I started auditioning for more and more. And now I do do a lot of them. It’s not that I dislike horror movies it’s just not the genre that I usually would choose if I had the choice of seeing a movie on my own.
HH: Are you related in any way to John Russo, the writer of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD?
- JR: I am not related to Jack, but over the years we have become good friends. I met him several years ago at Scare-A-Con when I was there promoting SHE KILLS. He is a great person and I always enjoy our conversations.
JR: SHE KILLS. I just love that movie. It’s not for everyone of course. It’s very genre specific. It’s goofy, it’s intense in some parts. But, I adored doing it, I adored the final product. I still laugh, no matter how many times I have seen it, I still laugh hysterically at certain parts. IM GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA, was a movie I really enjoyed growing up, or in my teenage years probably, so the fact that it reminds me of that or AIRPLANE! or NAKED GUN… any of those types of movies, I really enjoyed that kind of humor.
HH: SHE KILLS is a very extreme movie. What were your thoughts when you first read the script?
JR: My first thoughts when I read the script, there was actually a lot of ‘could I do this?’,’should I do this?’ Is it making light of certain things that are actually very serious? It took a bit for me to realize that yes I think I can do this and I think I can make sure that I am not… I am still taking serious even the goofy moments. I also knew that I could bring some of my own past into this film, and some of my own experiences into the film. So for me, it took some consideration [laughs], but I knew I wanted to do it and be a part of it.
HH: In one scene you are gang raped, but it is shot in comical way. I actually felt weird watching it as it really isn’t something that should have any comedy elements. How did you feel about shooting the scene?
JR: The truth is that was one of the things I was kind of nervous about when I read the script, and it does obviously do it in a comical way so I was like okay, is this making light, would this be considered a rape joke because I don’t like rape jokes, I don’t even see why they exist, I never really find them funny. I think what made it okay for me to do is the power I get from the revenge. That was actually a cathartic experience for me, the scene where I kill Poodle, I have to say I felt amazing that day. When I was done shooting that scene I felt so powerful, there was definitely a catharsis with it. The truth is, I have been sexually assaulted in the past, when I was living in Brooklyn I was assaulted by a serial rapist that I didn’t know, put a gun to my head and tied me up and raped me on the floor of my apartment building. So, because of that in my history… and this was something, by the way, that Ron Bonk, the writer and director, did not know about at the time. On set I did not let anybody know, I did not want to make them feel uncomfortable, I didn’t want them to feel like they had to do something differently than they would because they knew this about me. So, I didn’t tell anyone until after we were done filming, it is something I am very open about, but as far as filming and such I didn’t let those particular people know until after we were done. And yes, filming that scene was really awkward; there were a lot of emotions. It’s filmed in a comical way but yet, obviously what’s happening, there is nothing comical about it. But, what I think got me through it was knowing the rest of the script, knowing how the movie ends, and knowing how I get to get my revenge and it was fucking awesome [laughs].
HH: I’m sorry to hear about your assault. Was that man put away for his crimes?
JR: Yes, Carlos J. Ramos was convicted of being a serial rapist and was sentenced to 35 years. He has to remain for 30 years before he is eligible for parole.
HH: Were you happy with the finished movie? Anything you may have changed if you had the power?
JR: I was really happy with the finished movie, I loved it. There is a couple scenes, and actually Ron is an agreement with this too so I don’t think I am insulting him by saying this, there are a couple scenes that ran a little long. In particular, and I am not just saying this because I wasn’t in the scene, the dance scene in the bar before I arrive in like the Crow makeup, that went on a bit too long. So I would have definitely shortened that…
HH: Was it a tedious shoot? Seems like there may have been a lot of down time setting up effects for shots.
JR: It was a tedious shoot. There was lots of special effects and any time you are dealing with special effects and gore and blood there is a lot of hurry up and wait. You are waiting, waiting, wafting until they get set up and then it’s hurry up we got this amount of time to do it because we have to have the sun coming through the blinds a certain way or we have to catch it as the blood splatters at a certain time, so that was tedious. It was also tedious at times when, because it is an independent film, you don’t necessarily have SAG AFTRA actors, so not everybody is taking it seriously as like I was. So you had some people that showed up to the set late, some very late, which would throw everything off. That was frustrating. There was also some people that I didn’t feel like were taking it very seriously even when they were on set, so there were times when that got a little frustrating. But to be honest, the core people that we worked with were just amazing to work with and some of my favorite people now. It was tedious but it was definitely worth it, and I would do it again.
HH: You have done nudity in movies, were you ever apprehensive about that?
JR: I have been apprehensive about that. I don’t know anyone that feels completely comfortable with what their body looks like. For this particular movie I was about eighteen months post-partum with my first daughter when I filmed it and only about four months since I stopped nursing her, so my body was definitely not where it was pre-baby. And to know I was going to be in all these scenes, and I had not lost all the baby weight yet, and I didn’t feel confident, made it a lot harder than a quick nudity scene I had done back in 2009 where I didn’t have kids and I still felt like I was still in pretty good shape. So yes, I was apprehensive mostly because I know that [laughs] whatever imperfections are there they are on film forever. But as far ask just being comfortable, everybody on the set was awesome, so I never felt uncomfortable with the people, which was great.
HH: You act in plays as well. Which do you prefer?
JR: To be honest, I don’t know [laughs]. There’s things about both that I love so much. I love live theater. I love feeling the reaction of the audience as I am doing the performance. I love getting that immediate feedback with just the energy or the laughter, or the stress that you feel coming from an audience when you are doing the scene. But then I love film because I love also being in the audience watching it and getting that kind of immediate feedback too. I really don’t know if I have a preference, I do so much of both… I probably do more theater just because I can do theater year around where upstate New York there tends to be filming more in spring, summer and fall and then people kind of call it quits for the winter.
HH: Can you tell us about your latest movie FANG? Is that available yet?
JR: It’s not available yet as renting, buying or even video on demand. It is going through film festivals right now. It was just at the Milwaukee Dreams Film Festival and it won two awards there, so it’s doing well. They are trying to get it into several others that we just haven’t heard back, I think some of them just aren’t going to let us know until September. I got to see it at the premiere in Buffalo and I really enjoyed it, my husband and I made a night of it and went out there and spent the night and everything, so it was great. I hope to see it again soon. I don’t even have a copy myself. Stay tuned, I’m not sure when it will be available for people to watch unless their seeing it at a film festival.
HH: What about THE HORRIFIC EVIL MONSTERS?
JR: THE HORRIFIC EVIL MONSTERS is the next project I am working on in June with Adam Steigert, who is the same person who wrote and directed FANG. I am very excited about that, if for no other reason than the fact that I get to work with a lot of the same people that I worked with on FANG. When you are on a movie set together, especially with FANG, we were living in a house on Keuka Lake, which is part of the Finger Lakes up here in central New York, it was just a great experience. So you are staying there, you are actually living in the house with these people, we are shooting thirteen, fourteen, sixteen hours, straight through the night sometimes… you become a family. So to be able to be on the set with a lot of those same people again, I’m pretty excited about that. I’ll be shooting that at the end of June.
HH: I know you are married with kids now, has that changed your life as an actress?
JR: …With theater it’s an audition at a specified date and time, so with theater I already know, there is an audition this night, I want to go to it, I can set up babysitting or make sure my husband is home or whatever and go and do it and I am in their space. More and more often, and not that it is a bad thing, but more and more often with film, or web series or TV pilots, they want you to do a self-tape. While I don’t mind doing a self-tape it can be really, really hard to find the time to do it, the space to do it, and not have the distractions. In fact, I did a self tape a couple weeks ago for a project and when I finally the time to do it was a Sunday night, because I knew I needed someone to read to me, I needed someone to record it, [laughs] but I also needed somebody to keep the kids quiet. So what ended up happening was, all four of us were in the room. So I had, at one point, my eight-year old daughter reading opposite of me, my husband recording me and four-year old daughter sitting just off camera literally clinging to my leg as I am trying as I am trying to do the scenes. And then there were a few words that my husband wasn’t comfortable with my daughter saying in a second scene so then we had to switch, she did the camera, he read with me… but again, four-year old still clinging. Sent it out, the person saw it, liked it, but they wanted a follow up and again, I was more than willing to do a follow up, I appreciated the feedback… I think I was given four days to redo it. I had an open schedule as far as… I could have done it any time but I still needed the reader, I still needed the person to hold the camera, and with me doing a lot of theater… My husband is working during the day, he gets home, then we have dinner, then I am off to rehearsals or shows. So, when can we pick a time where I can have you as a reader, you recording it and I can still do my stuff as well. Needless to say, I was also doing a show where I needed to spend some time with the script, so I responded to the woman and said thanks for the feedback I’ll try and get a second one to you by Friday, but to be honest I have to set this down for now because I have a show Wednesday that I have to prepare for, I think that particular week I had shows Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and I never got it done. There was just not another time where I was able to do it at home with the help I needed and get it done. It would have been so much easier if I had been able to just go do the audition at a specific time and place by myself, get feedback on the spot, and then redo it right then and there taking in the consideration the feedback I was given. Setting up a particular time to do it [laughs] in that particular case didn’t work. Unfortunately. One thing men don’t understand is that it takes time to get hair and makeup, so here I was doing hair and makeup on a Sunday night to try to do this self -tape only to find out Monday she wants me to redo it and its like… okay, we don’t have time to do all this again. So I am still trying to figure out how other people do it, especially people with families…
HH: Does your husband enjoy your movies?
JR: Yes he does actually. That’s the question people ask a lot, they want to know do things make him uncomfortable, there are definitely certain scenes that make him uncomfortable but for the most part he really enjoys them. He’s very supportive. He’s seen SHE KILLS in the theater, surrounded by tons of people twice. He saw FANG in the theater, sold out theater. Any of the films that we have had the opportunity to see, especially if they are playing somewhere locally, he’s gone, he’s right there by my side. He’s very supportive, which is great… I couldn’t do it without that support for sure. That is one battle I wouldn’t want to be fighting.
HH: Being a mom, does that change the roles you will or will not do?
JR: Not yet. So far I just know there’s just certain movies my kids just won’t see. But as far as accepting a role or auditioning, I just pick what I am comfortable with. I don’t feel like that’s changed. SHE KILLS, like I said, I shot after my first daughter was born, which was probably more out there than some of the films I had shot before I had children.
HH: Say, when you daughter is 21 and you are 55 and she watches SHE KILLS for the first time and wants to talk to you about it… will that bother you?
- JR: No, not at all. I hope to continue to have open conversations with my daughters. When it is age appropriate, we will discuss a lot, I am sure.
HH: Do you have a long-term acting goal?
JR: I think we all have dreams. The reality of it gets smaller and smaller, I’m 42 years old living in Syracuse, I’d love to keep doing what I am doing. I would also love to actually make a living from it. There is work here and there, and as I said I do a lot of theater… it pays, but it doesn’t pay well. So, I also have my kind of day job. But would I love to think that something would come to Syracuse, whether it’s a recurring character in a pilot or something, that would be awesome. But, not trying to be negative [laughs] I just don’t know if it is realistic. I’m not moving out to LA at this point in my life. I lived in New York for eight years, loved that, but I won’t be moving back there at this point of my life either.
HH: If they were to make a movie about your life so far, how would the synopsis read?
JR: There’s so much [laughs]. I have actually thought about writing stuff, but the thing is do I turn it into a fiction or do I turn it into more of an autobiography? As I mentioned before, there was the rape when I lived in Brooklyn, which was obviously a horrific thing and has definitely shaped my life since then. I had just turned 23 years old, I had been graduated from college for less than a year… so basically real life smacked me in the face quite literally. So I am sure the synopsis of my life would include that, but it would also include the fact that I think I’m hard working, I’m a good mom and a good wife, I think [laughs]. So it would definitely include that. I absolutely love to travel, it is a huge passion of mine. So, if I can’t fill in time with different acting jobs then I am definitely trying to figure out where we can go to and explore next So the synopsis of my life would have to talk about my adventures, I have been to Borneo, I have trekked through the jungles, I have climbed Mount Kinabalu, which is the highest peak in south East Asia. We have travelled all over… Caribbean, I have been through Europe… so it would definitely have to include my travel adventures as well. But yeah, I think I have a lot to tell and I think I have a pretty interesting story… so maybe some day it will come out with more details.
HH: If any of your kids decided to act, what advise would you give them?
- JR: My eight-year old daughter Parker already has decided that she want’s to act. Thankfully, unlike her mother, she has a beautiful singing voice as well. She starred her first one when she was still seven, she started doing some local children theater musicals. She was in LION KING JR in the fall and now she is doing LITTLE MERMAID JR then she is doing SUSICAL, FROZEN for next fall. At this point I don’t have advice necessarily to give her other than when I am rehearsing with her little things like ‘do this’ or ‘do that’. If she got more serious about it later is probably more where the advice would come in. I think because I have a good idea of the business, we are little bit better off, especially if she were to get serious-serious, than some families that are clueless. But I’m sure the advice will come as she keeps, or if she keeps pursuing that. Right now she’s loving doing the children’s theater and she is doing awesome at it so my advice to her would just be keep going, if you love it keep doing it and keep working hard.