January 28, 2010

A fresh new face in the “Indie Scream Queen” scene that we have a feeling you’ll be seeing a lot of over the course of the next few years is actress/musician Julin. (Yes, one word name, just like Madonna.)

Shock first took notice of her as the gothed-out character Miko in Stacy Davidson’s Sweatshop. What’s impressive about her performance in that film is that it’s completely different from her actual physical appearance, yet her natural beauty transcends the long dreads and caked on goth make-up.

She’ll be appearing in several upcoming genre titles such as Spirit Camp, Boggy Creek and Killer School Girls From Outer Space, but you can catch her on the big screen this Friday in After Dark Films’ The Final, which is one of Horrorfest 4’s 8 Films To Die For.

Robg: How does horror play into your childhood and upbringing? Did your parents let you watch scary movies growing up?

Julin: My parent actually let do anything that I wanted, well, with the exception that I had to go to bed early on a school night. But if I wanted to watch a movie with Chucky or Freddy Krueger or any scary movie, I was pretty much allowed to. They never told me I couldn’t so I grew up loving Freddy Krueger. For some reason, I just thought he was really cool! I couldn’t sleep! But I kept watching those movies anyways.

Robg: You’re working in film now and you’re also a singer and a musician – how does that factor into your upbringing? Were your parents involved in anything creative? Did they encourage music or acting or anything?

Julin: I grew up in a pretty big family. I have two older brothers and an older sister, and when my older brother’s were growing up, they had a stay home mom and when I was growing up, my parents both worked, so I spent a lot of time just hanging out by myself and I’d come up with little stories to entertain myself. I directed a short film when I was really little with my porcelain dolls. I was also in dance when I was around five and I just loved watching movies and believing that I was in the movie. I’d watch them vicariously. I thought it’d be really cool to be a detective or something! [laughs] I always loved entertaining and being entertaining growing up. My dad does love to sing and my mom writes some poetry, so maybe I did get a little bit of that from them.

Robg: You’ve done a few horror movies at this point. Which was the first and what stood out about that experience as compared to the other films you’ve done?

Julin: My first one was Spirit Camp, and I actually almost did not go to the audition for it, because I was just about to go out of town for this trip on the Gulf Of Mexico. I was concentrating on my music then, but for some reason I was just pulled to the audition and my acting teacher suggested that I go. I went and loved it and I so wanted the part right after I audition and thankfully got it. It was my first big role in a scary movie. So we were stuck in the middle of nowhere in these big cabins, and I had never done anything like that before. Being out with strangers that I’ve never met before! My mom was like, “What kind of movie is this?” [laughs] But it was a great experience, I had a great time and I loved the script. So that was a little different because the other movies I’d done because we would all stay in the cabin together, basically we had just different rooms. (Writer/director) Kerry Beyer stayed in one of the rooms and I shared a room with Roxy Vandiver and Megan Moser, so we were all in it together. But the other movies that I’ve done, for example, we shot The Final in Dallas. We stayed in different hotels and we each had our separate rooms so we had a lot more time to ourselves. It wasn’t like we were around each other every minute of every day.

Robg: The way that I know you is through Stacy Davidson’s movie Sweatshop that Ted Geoghegan has written the script for. What’s interesting about that movie is there’s this whole crew of Texas based horror filmmakers out there doing all these horror flicks. Did you know anyone from that crew going into that movie? Or did you just audition?

Julin: I did not know them at all. I auditioned for Stacy Davidson through my agency on another movie he was doing and it was the first time I’ve ever met him. So I went in and he had asked me to do a monologue, and I had just watched the movie Hard Candy with Ellen Page. She does a lot of great monologue’s in that movie, so I picked the one where she… cuts off his balls? I did that monologue, but I performed it a lot different and he said “this sounds familiar.” He didn’t figure out it was Hard Candy until a little bit later and he thought it was awesome. I didn’t get the part in the movie he was auditioning for at the time, but he emailed me later a picture of this anime character and said “Hey, I’m doing a scary movie and this would be your character. You’d have to kind of look like this. Are you in?” I was like “Hells yeah! That’d be awesome!” I always like to play different roles and different characters, just to build up my experience for my demo reel. So I got to set and realized that everybody knew each other already! [laughs] I was the new-comer. It was intimidating at first, but actually everybody was super cool and super nice. I fit in with them right away and it was a lot of fun.

Robg: And you make a really great goth chick too, just so you know.

Julin: [laughs] Thank you. I’ll have to bring the Miko look back for sure.

Robg: Horror is not easy, any film in general is not easy to do. Considering the various budgets of the films that you’ve worked on so far, what was the most difficult thing you had to do for the sake of low budget filmmaking?

Julin: The one scene I was nervous about was the one scene in Sweatshop that I had with Peyton (Wetzel). It was the scene where I finished “going down” on him and I imply that he’s going to have to do the same to me and his character didn’t want to. I kept thinking, how am I going to do this? I’m trying to get him to kiss me and he doesn’t want to kiss me, and I wanted to just be in character still, so I decided to just go all out and just be all over him. I didn’t care if I looked ridiculous. So I just went all out and I barely remembered doing the stuff that I did when I watched the clip back. [laughs] But I was jumping on this wooden bench thing, and I gave myself 20 bruises on my leg, but it was all worth it because the clip came out really great and funny. I had tights on so it was fine. [laughs]

Robg: You’ve done a handful of genre movies as of now. Have you ever been expected to do nudity and what are your thoughts on that in general?

Julin: I actually got cast in a film and they said “don’t worry about the nudity, we’ll work around that.” And I thought ok. Then they told me I got the part and it turned into “well, actually we do want you to do the nudity. Will you do it?” And I thought, you know what? I really want to do my music and it’ll cost me something like $10,000 to record, so I said that I’d do it for $10 grand. And they offered me way lower, the same amount that I made on a commercial so I decided I wasn’t going to do that. They ended up not even using me in that part. It really depends on the project and what it is. I’m not a prude about nudity, but I’m not going to run around topless in the woods screaming. I really don’t think I need to do that. If it’s a cool, quirky scary movie part and if it’s a sexy scene or a sexy part and not just running around, that would be something I might be willing to do. I’m not going to do it for no pay though. [laughs]

Robg: You’re in both music and movies, two of the hardest professions out there! What are some of the day jobs or things you’ve had to do to help sustain your art?

Julin: Modeling, music and movies are my full time thing right now. I’d be lying if I said that my friends and family didn’t help me out along the way. [laughs] Modeling does pay really well, and also I do a lot of commercials. Basically I’ll get one job and be OK for a little while, but then there’s always the worry of “when am I going to get that next job?” I did trek to Spain over the summer and that set my back a little bit, but I wouldn’t change it for anything, because I did have a blast and I love to travel. Pretty much whenever I make a little something, I think “oh, where can I travel to now!” Vegas? New York?

Robg: You mentioned earlier that your agencies send you out for work all the time, whether its film work or commercials, but also, you’re Texas based. Usually people think of LA for movies and NY for theater, but here you are working from Texas. What’s it like being in this business and being Texas based?

Julin: Well, there are some big budget commercials that come through here. I did one for Walmart and that pays every time it plays on TV so that’s good. I did a commercial for Louisiana and for casinos and local car commercials. Commercial stuff for local stuff goes on here all the time. There are quite a bit of big films that come through Texas because of their tax incentives. Comparing LA to Texas? In LA, you’d go to an audition every day or every other day and you have a short period of time to prepare. Here, you go to an audition once a week, maybe twice and you really prepare for that audition. You don’t take it lightly. You work with somebody and really think about it, do your research and then just go for it. That’s what I do and it helps me get a part. Basically, when an audition comes here I’ll have a pretty good chance of getting it because there’s not that much competition. I mean, there’s still competition, but not as much as LA. The auditions are fewer but you have a higher percentage of booking them here.

Robg: The Final is your next movie and it comes out this week as part of After Dark Film’s Horrorfest 4. I think the premise and trailer are great, but people tend to get very sensitive with anything that resembles the whole Columbine incident. What were your initial thoughts to this script considering that? Was the content of The Final ever a concern for you?

Julin: When the whole Columbine incident happen, I was still going to school and it was very scary for me. I had bad dreams about it; I think all of us thought “what the hell is going on?” With our movie, it’s kind of showing how bad bullying gets in school because we’ve all been there. I was bullied in school. Everybody gets bullied to an extent and it can get pretty bad, but I don’t think it’s ever as bad as whatever happened in Columbine. The movie is about proving a point. Basically, don’t pick on people, because you never know what they can do or what they’re capable of doing. There was that story of that girl on MySpace who was getting bullied on there and she hung herself in the closet and I felt so bad, because this girl was so young and didn’t understand that it’s OK, everybody goes through this. My friend is on tour right now with The Kind Campaign, which helps girls involved in girl on girl crimes. Bullying is always going to be around. It’s been going on forever, and will sadly probably go on, but hopefully this’ll make people think a little bit. Especially those that see this movie that are still in high school. I got to play a bully in this, but I swear I’m not a bully for real! It was fun being the bitchy girl in school for a change.

Robg: Well, between The Final, Boggy Creek, Sweatshop and Spirit Camp, I feel we’ll be seeing a lot of you in the genre for years to come?

Julin: Oh yeah. I’m in something called Killer School Girls From Outer Space, which comes out in April. It’s a science fiction, kind of scary movie. I pay an alien in that one. Also, I’m working on a project called Cherry Bomb with director Kyle Day, which is a revenge flick and I get to kick ass as the lead Cherry. It takes place in 1984 and Cherry is an exotic dancer who enlists her brother to help her get revenge on five guys that assault her and go free. I’m also doing a movie called The Toy Box with director Michael Colburn based on the true story of serial killer David Parker Ray. I’m playing Marie Parker, one of the victims who was a real person and I look forward to the challenge of that.

See Julin in The Final, opening in limited theatrical release Friday, January 29th.