Year: 2010

Brian White started his career as a professional football player for the New England Patriots. After two seasons on the field, Brian had an off-season meeting which led him onto the acting field. Movie Mikes had a chance to speak with Brian about that chance meeting which got him into acting as well as his role of Marcus on the television show “Men of a Certain Age”

Click here to purchase “Men of a Certain Age” Season One on DVD

Adam Lawton: What made you decided to switch from a pro sports career to a career in movies?
Brian White: It wasn’t really a planned transition. I was offered a chance to audition for a role on a TV show. At the time, I was in LA trying to get back into football and I had really wanted to go to the Raiders camp. I was having dinner with my agent to discuss getting in, when a casting director came up to our table and asked if I was an actor. I told them “no” and my agent immediately said “yes” I was and took the persons card. The next thing I know I am at an audition with around 500 other actors who all were there for the same part. After a short time, they let me know I had got the part on “Moesha” and the rest is history.

AL: Even though this role came along, were you still trying to pursue a football career at the same time?
BW: An average football career is two years, which I had already completed. I had a nagging injury that I never allowed to get better, so I had already led that dream in a sense. I needed to find something that I could do until I was 85 not 35. Once I started acting, I found I was able to get the same type of spontaneity and ability as I had in sports. So after about two or three years in…I was hooked.

AL: Is it harder prepping for a sports season or an acting role?
BW: For me it was a lot easier prepping for a sports season because I knew how to do it. There is a science on how to prepare for a sport. There is nothing scientific about acting. You’re creating stuff out of thin air and then trying to exist in reality with those pre-set conditions. There really is no one way to prepare. In football there is always at least a playbook.

AL: Can you tell us what is in store for your character this season on “Men of a Certain Age”?
BW: Well going back to season one, my character Marcus played more of a foil to Andre Braugher’s character. Marcus represented the alpha male. He is the top salesman and is really full of young ambition. In season two, you’re going to find out what happens when Marcus encounters another alpha male type at the dealership. You’re going to get to see how both of those characters, who are very similar, are going to survive in the same tank. From what I have seen in the scripts I think people who enjoyed the show last season are really going to enjoy it this season!

AL: Whats it like getting to rival someone like Scott Bakula?
BW: Just getting to work with Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula is a blessing. Working with those guys is like being in a master acting class. I have had the opportunity to work with really great people. Besides Andre and Scott I also have been able to work with Michael Chiklis. My TV experience really has been a gift from God. Those guys come to work and they have a very blue collar work ethic. They really try to get better each and every day. I have become a better person and actor just by being around them.

AL: I’m sure having Ray Romano on set provides for some pretty good behind the scenes antics?
BW: Actually on set Ray is more serious. He is a naturally funny guy. He is one of those guys that doesn’t have to turn it on to be funny, it comes very natural. A lot of the funny moments come from the fact that these stories you see in the episodes actually happened to Ray and a lot of the writers. The last episode of this season is going to feature a softball game and Ray told me that all the events that happened in that episode happened in real life.

AL: What was it like working on “Mr. 3000” with Bernie Mac?
BW: That was my first time being in a studio film. I really got to see why people liked working with Bernie. The crew that worked with him had been with him since the beginning of his career. He was such a pleasure to work with and very grateful. I remember a few nights when we were shooting at Miller field and there were around 10,000 extras and Bernie stayed until he had shook everyone of their hands each night. Bernie always said that if he was to change than everything else would change. He was always trying to remember what kept him up. That never left me. He really set a foundation for me.

AL: Do you have any other projects coming up?
BW: I have several projects coming up. I am in the process of producing a film, also in which I co-wrote the script called “Hustle”. The film is slated to start shooting in Europe this coming year. I have three films that are about to be released “Cabin In The Woods” directed by Drew Goddard, “Politics of Love” which is based on a true story and a romantic comedy titled ” The Heart Specialist.” Starting early next year, I will be kicking off my youth empowerment campaign with “Black Carpenter”. “Black Carpenter” is a book and curriculum that I wrote. There will also be a lecture tour in support of the program. “Black Carpenter” also has partnered with Operation Hope to start a financial literacy program which will provide information on banking and the importance of finance.

Click here to purchase “Men of a Certain Age” Season One on DVD

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Kristina Anapau co-stars in this Fall’s “Black Swan” playing the role of the competitive dancer, Galina. Kristina’s past credits include “Cursed”, “Madison”, “Cruel Intentions 3” and TV’s “Knight Rider”. Movie Mikes had a chance to ask Kristina a few questions about her role in “Black Swan” and find out a little bit about her already impressive career.

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Mike Gencarelli: Can you tell us about “Black Swan” and your role in the film?
Kristina Anapau: Black Swan is a paranormal thriller set in the professional ballet world in NYC. I play Galina, a Russian soloist in the company who’s competing with, Nina (Natalie Portman) for the lead role in Swan Lake.

MG: How was it playing the villain in “Black Swan”?
KA: I wasn’t the villain, per se, rather an extremely competitive ballerina who has her sights set on the lead role. The training was physically intense, however, it was well worth it and I am pleased to have been involved.

MG: What was it like working with Darren Aronofsky?
KA: I feel privileged to have been part of this production. I am a big fan of Darren’s previous work. The Fountain is one of my favorite films. Darren has a clear vision of what he is looking for in each moment, which creates an incredibly focused environment that I enjoyed very much. The dancing demanded unwavering discipline. His method of direction and the resulting climate on set lent itself beautifully towards the film painting a realistic depiction of the ballet world.

MG: Can you tell us about your experience working “Cursed” with Wes Craven?
KA: Even though he creates exceedingly scary films, Wes is an extremely kind and soft-spoken gentleman. As a director, he is able to work with actors in a way that is collaborative, while maintaining a strong trajectory towards his vision. Every day on set was a pleasure; I very much look forward to working with him again.

MG: Do you prefer writing and performing your own music or acting (Kristina had a recording contract with Hollywood Records and tour w/ Destiny’s Child)
KA: Both have their respective challenges. Nothing beats the energy of a live audience while performing musically. The issues of creative control over one’s musical direction can be frustrating and I find in acting the subtlety that shapes a theatrical performance, while under the guidance of a director, and support within a cast, is solely one’s own.

MG: Do you find a major difference between working on TV to working on movies?
KA: Yes, in film, it seems one has more freedom and time to create a complete character. I enjoy both mediums, there are some very intelligent television programs on air that I would like to be involved in.

MG: Tell us about some of your other upcoming projects?
KA: I have a great film called “The Speak”, that will be in theaters next year, as well as a gritty independent film called “5 Souls” in which I play a blind woman; It was one of the most rewarding acting experiences of my career to date. Anyone interested can follow me on Twitter @kanapaufans for up to date news on these films and their release dates

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You may not known M.C. Gainey by name but you definitely know his face. M.C. has been in all sorts of roles from TV’s “Lost” to “Con Air” to working with Broken Lizard’s films and voicing a Disney character in its latest feature “Tangled”. Movie Mikes had a chance to talk with M.C. about his roles in his outstanding career.

Mike Gencarelli: Tell us about your role in Disney’s newest animated feature “Tangled”?
M.C. Gainey: “Tangled” is the Rapunzel story. Disney re-branded it to attract little boys as well! They play up the young man part. I voice the Captain of the Guard and I’m constantly chasing this young man. He’s a scamp and I’m trying to reign him in. The thing I love best is how skinny they made my character look in the movie! I haven’t look that good in years. (laughs) It’s a really great feature. This is the first voice character I’ve ever done for an animated film and I’m really excited about it. I think a lot of kids are really going to love this picture. I caught a rough cut of it a couple of months ago and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

MG: This was your first voice acting job. How was it working with Disney?
MCG: Even though this was my first animated film I’ve done about a half dozen things with Disney, from “The Country Bears” to “The Mighty Ducks.” I’ve been on the Disney Channel and ABC…it was almost like filling in the last link of the chain. I’ve done everything at Disney except run the tour!

MG: How was it for you being a part of the “Lost” legacy?
MCG: I’m getting a better perspective on it now that it’s cooled off and gone to wherever they go when they leave television. It was the biggest television hit that I’ve ever been involved with. It was a special job because it was made in Hawaii. And it had a great cast. Just a really top notch cast. Great people…fun to be around. And it was a job where you really didn’t know what they were doing a lot of times. They kept a lot of secrets from you. In the second season I spent six episodes running through the jungle barefoot and in rags. And then in episode seven Kate finds my beard in a locker. And I’m like, “wait a minute…I have a locker? I have a fake beard?” You never really knew who you were or what you were about. It was a great experience doing that job and very satisfying to be in that big of a hit. The fans were unbelievably devoted. Fans of the “Dukes of Hazzard” and the different Broken Lizard things will come up to me and ask “aren’t you in” as a question? “Lost” fans don’t do that. They know! They study every frame of it. There is no question in their mind because they’re studying it very closely. They’re searching for clues in places where I didn’t know there were any clues. It was just a great experience. Another great experience last year was doing five or six episodes of “Justified” with Timothy Olyphant. A brilliant series based on a series of stories by Elmore Leonard. And the great thing about Elmore Leonard villains is that they talk a lot. His villains just talk and talk and talk and talk. The movie “Get Shorty” is a classic example. His characters never shut up. It was a very interesting exercise.

MG: You’ve worked with the comedy troupe Broken Lizard on three different films. How did you become involved with them?
MCG: I started with them on “Club Dread.” My wife and I wanted to take a vacation to Mexico and they were filming down there so it was a perfect fit! It was one of the greatest jobs ever…running around Mexico with those guys. It was an absolute blast. They are truly different kind of filmmakers, those guys. They’re an amazing bunch of guys who met up in college while trying to form an improv group. These five guys show up and they’re still best friends and still in business with each other 25 years later. In this business people rarely hang together, there are always forces pulling things apart, but not these guys

MG: You not only appear in the “Dukes of Hazzard” movie, you also had a role in an episode of the original series. Any connection?
MCG: It was an amazing connection. Because I had done an episode of the show I had great memories. It was the first hour long show I was on. But I was determined not to do an impression of what Jimmy Best did as Roscoe. He was the funniest guy and I wasn’t going to rip him off so I went completely in the other direction and played him as the meanest, fattest and ugliest cop in the world. I had an unbelievable time working with Burt Reynolds and Willie Nelson and Johnny Knoxville. If you can’t have a great time working with those guys you’re in the wrong business!

MG: We’ve interviewed Danny Trejo and he had great things to say about working on “Con Air.” Can you tell us about your experience?
MCG: It was an amazing experience. I had just finished doing a movie called “Breakdown.” It had a really small cast and there was nobody to hang out with. I was really happy when that movie was over. I flew straight in to do “Con Air” and when I get there I see all of my friends…all of the guys I’m usually competing with for jobs in movies as convicts, bikers and cowboys. All of a sudden we’re all working on the same movie! We had the feeling like we had really taken something over. You know a Jerry Bruckheimer (producer of the film) movie is going to be fun anyway. Jerry is a fun guy and he likes everybody to have fun and he takes care of everybody. He’s a great guy to work for. To have all of these people on one set was phenomenal. It was an amazing experience. For me it was a question of not doing too much in the movie. I wanted my character to fly the plane…be obsessed with flying the plane…I didn’t want him to shoot anybody or beat anybody up. I just wanted him to fly the plane and laugh and joke. I wanted him to be a “good time” guy. I was trying to pay tribute to Donald Sutherland in “Kelly’s Heroes.” Sutherland played a guy who drove a tank, wore a beard and laughed all of the time. So I wanted to go in that direction. Play someone who was having a good time and not giving anybody the “stink eye” too much. It was a big picture that continues to be seen on television almost every day! My wife says they may as well have a “Con Air” channel because the movie is literally on almost every day. And let me say that all of the guys on the movie are so proud of Danny Trejo! To come from where he came from and to make it to where he’s made it…only in America! Only in the movie business.

MG: Do you ever feel you’re being typecast into roles like tough guys, criminals etc?
MCG: Oh yeah. And thank God! There was about a ten year period when I really struggled with that. I wanted to do something different. But then I began to get an appreciation of just how lucky I am to be able to work in this industry so thank God I was typecast. And now I’m being typecast as a convict in his later years. I mean just because you’re an old man doesn’t mean you can’t murder people and rob shit!.

MG: What other projects are in the works for you?
MCG: I just finished work on a new HBO series called “Enlightened.” I don’t work as hard as I used to. I’ve got more things to be interested in than always being on a location somewhere. But I still love working with my friends!

Jerome Elston Scott has been acting in front of the camera since 1998 . With the release of “Anderson’s Cross”, Jerome takes on a whole new role besides actor, as producer, writer and director of the film. MovieMikes’ had a chance to talk with Jerome about this recent experience.

Adam Lawton: Can you tell us what it was like not only starring in the film, but also producing, writing and directing “Anderson’s Cross?”
Jerome Elston Scott: It was pretty hard, but once I got going with all of it, I was ok. I’m a classic overachiever, so there were definitely moments for me where I had to put my ego aside and depend on the people around me. I put together a really great crew and a good group of actors.  So we kind of looked out for each other and made sure the atmosphere was one in which a person could speak up and say “I didn’t get it”. The thing that made me want to make the film to begin with was the lack of roles. The acting was the part that I thought I had in the bag, but that ended up being the hardest thing because your mind is in so many places and normally acting is the easiest, so it was very interesting. Surprisingly, directing was the easiest. By knowing how to speak to actors, having been one myself, made that easy for me and knowing that a lot of actors just want to be directed. However I don’t know if I would want to do it all again. (laughs)

AL: How did you go about choosing the cast for the film?
JES: I had a few friends, such as Sam Levine and Busy Phillips from “Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared”.  Once we hired a casting director, Mark Sikes, we were able to complete the casting through a regular audition process. Although the casting process was long, we did something a little different by having the entire script available for the actors to read. I think that helped us get actors like Michael Warren and Joanna Cassidy. It was very different being on the other side of the table during these auditions being my first time doing so.

AL: Did you have a favorite part about the whole experience?
JES: Just directing the actors and helping them get to a place that I thought they could get to. I realized that I could really do this, and saw that the actors were receptive to me was the biggest thing for me. I really love directing.

AL: Your working on a prequel to “Anderson’s Cross” which is being developed for cable television, can you tell us about that?
JES: Yes. We have put together a kind of “Wonder Years” meets “Anderson’s Cross” type show with younger kids, and we are looking to start shooting hopefully early summer. “Anderson’s Cross” starts off with quite a situation with the friends, so the idea was developed as to how they got to that point. It was then decided to explore the characters more, but at a younger age prior to what’s in the movie.

AL: Do you have any other upcoming projects besides what you have mentioned already?
JES: I’m shooting another movie right now in Columbia called “Prep School” with Charlie McDermott.  I am also shooting a film titled “Hostage Diner” later on this month about people who get stuck in a diner after a bank hold up. I have another film called “The Perfect Night” about kids who get stuck in an elevator on the night of their prom. I also have a much larger movie in the works called “The Untitled Project” which is kind of an “Independence Day” type movie which is slated to start shooting late summer. So quite a few things have come as a result of the work for “Anderson’s Cross”.

AL: Is your production company Illumination Pictures involved in your upcoming projects?
JES: No, Illumination Pictures is one of the partners in the movie we are doing, and there is another company called Alpha Select Productions that are out of Canada. They are doing the bulk of the production on “Prep School.” Illumination Pictures is doing the prequel, and we will probably partner up with someone else for that as well. I am a part of Illumination Pictures so when I am writing for any projects, the name kind of comes with me and is attached to other projects that I am a part of.