Your new movie The
Electric Man - in a few words, what is it about, and what can you
tell us about your character in it?
This is not the kind of movie to sum up in a few words. Okay, I’ll try. Here
goes: The new physics and the multiverse with a dash of subatomic superstring
theory all in the context of the Slider paranormal phenomenon with a dude who
wants to date a chick who drinks blood. Make sense? Didn’t think so. I think
you’re just gonna have to watch the movie.
With regards to my character, well…he just gets caught up in everything I
just mentioned. I feel for the guy, I really do.
What did you draw
upon to bring your character to life, and how much Jed Rowen can we find
in Trace? Fragmented reality has always fascinated me, particularly how it’s
expressed in all types of art. The best artists put conventional reality on
trial, and give us their own twisted views of what their version of reality is.
That’s what I kept in mind when I was playing Trace. I thought about the
cubist artists a lot during the months we were progressing through the project.
Weird novelists and poets, too, like Philip Dick., E.E. Cummings and some of the
Beats. And I tried to reread some of the new physics books I’ve collected over
the years. I know all that makes me sound like some kind of pretentious
intellectual snob but, hey, I really did have a lot of down time during the
pandemic, and it was kind of appropriate to go down a big rabbit hole of far-out
shit during this utterly mad time period. Because of all of the delays in
shooting the movie, I had a lot of time to think about all these things. I
imagine this all made my performance better, and I was able to get more
comfortable in the role as time went by. And, yes, lots of Jed Rowen in Trace. I’ve
always been pretty wary of reality in general.
The
Electric Man plays with different layers of reality quite a bit -
so how easy or hard was it for you as an actor to stay on top of things? It really was the ultimate trippy part to play. There weren’t plot twists
in this movie, more like reality twists. Along with a million lines to memorize
with lots of big philosophical terms. If it wasn’t for all the delays in
production because of Covid, I think my brain would have completely melted if we
did the typical indie eight or ten or twelve day in a row shoot. It definitely
wasn’t an easy role, but I managed to enjoy the ride through the multiverse. How
did you get involved with the project in the first place, and what drew
you to it? Well, that’s an interesting question. When the pandemic first started a few
years ago, some real weird paranormal shit started happening to me. I told the
director, Brian [B. Luciano
Barsuglia interview - click here], all about it and he decided we should make a movie about it. I don’t want to
give this paranormal thing away, because I want people who watch the movie to
actually figure it out instead of me just spelling it out for them in this
interview. It’s all in the movie, you’re just gonna have to look for it if
you care to. At this point in the release of the film, which has been out for a
minute, this thing I’m alluding to has completely gone over everyone’s
heads. That’s more fascinating to me I think than any other aspect of this
pretty fascinating movie. What can you tell us about The
Electric Man's director B. Luciano Barsuglia, and what was your
collaboration like? I don’t know how Brian wrote this
script. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’ve read many books about the
multiverse, about the New Physics, quantum mechanics, and I couldn’t have
written a script like this. I don’t know how extensively Brian researched this
subject matter, but he just nailed it. And he fused it with all of the
paranormal stuf I went through that I told him about. That was really the
collaboration. As if that wasn’t enough, the script is very funny. How the
hell can you make quantum physics funny? The guy’s a friggin’ genius. I
really just lost myself in the character he created, and showed up on set ready
to jump into the multiverse.
The
Electric Man wasn't the first time you've worked with B. Luciano
Barsuglia - so what can you tell us about your previous collaboration, and
how did you two first meet even?
Well, if you remember, I told you in the Impact Event interview about the
crazy yellow post-it story regarding the Inbred Jed casting notice in my first
collaboration with Brian, Zombie Farm. We’ve gone on to so many great movie
adventures together since then. And hey, while we’re on the subject of Zombie
Farm, that movie actually just got a brand new release by Wild Eye. It is now
appropriately entitled Pandemic Undead. It’s really ironic since the subject
matter of that movie is much more relevant today than it was when we shot it.
Back then, I didn’t even know what the CDC was when I read it in the script.
Now, we all know damn well what the freakin' CDC is! Back to The
Electric Man - a few words about the shoot as such, and the
on-set atmosphere? The shoot was splintered, delayed, rescheduled, broken up,
shut down. All sorts of challenges because of the pandemic. What got us through
it? Very high morale, great teamwork and everybody believing in the project.
And, of course, Brian’s great leadership. It’s one of my proudest
achievements as an actor not just because of the great role I had, but because
of all the obstacles we overcame together, and the perseverance of the cast and
crew in completing a project months and months in the making. Any future projects you'd like to
share?
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I’m glad you asked that. I got lots of great projects about to be released
in the multiverse. Some have already had amazing premieres which you can see on
my Instagram @actorjedrowen. I'm in a stupendous science fiction masterpiece
that’s all set for a 2023 release entitled Space Wars: Quest for the
Deepstar. I’ve always wanted to be in a space movie like this, ever since I
was a kid. Super proud of this one. I also have a great horror/comedy that’ll
be out next year too called That’s A Wrap. It’s really the ultimate fun
spoof of the film industry, but is surprisingly profound and superbly written by
Joe Knetter under the brilliant direction of Marcel Walz. I am super proud of
this movie, too. And I’m lucky to be in another great movie by Brian, yes the
aforementioned
Electric Man auteur B. Luciano Barsuglia [B. Luciano
Barsuglia interview - click here], called Amber
Road,
which has turned out to be one of my very best horror movies ever. It’s won
over twenty awards already and will be released all over the place, also in
2023. Oh yes, and of course…Pretty Boy, in which I play the titular character,
will, fingers-crossed, be released in 2023. We all have high hopes for this one
when Lions Gate unleashes it upon the general public.
Anything else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?
Oh shit! I forgot all about Giantess Attack vs. Mecha Fembot! How could
I have overlooked this ma’d’terpiece by the crazy genius Jeff
Leroy!!?? And guess what, it got a
Full Moon Features release, can you
believe that!? I’ve been trying to get into a Charlie Band movie forever
and it finally happened. Go check it out on the Full Moon
website and,
believe me, you’re in for a treat. One of my all time fav movies I’ve
ever done. Happy New Year everybody! Let’s all have a great 2023. Thanks
for the interview!
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