Blood Rogues are coming!

Franklin, TN - 9:58am

Blood Rogues is almost completed. It's unlike anything I ever imagined yet like everything I've always dreamed of. To all of our friends, families, colleagues, neighbors, pets, plants and netherpeople we want to say thank you from the bottom of our undead hearts.

Blood Rogues started as a pickup line. Let me explain.

In March of 2005 Jeremy and I met in St. Petersburg, Fl when we began rehearsals for Taming of the Shrew at Todd Olson's theatre company, American Stage. (More on Todd in future blogs) Jeremy was playing Petruchio and yup, you guessed it... i was the Shrew. I knew nothing about Jeremy except what Todd had told me in advance, that he was very tall and an exceptional actor that lived in Nashville, TN. I'm a big city girl. I was born in Chicago, raised in Miami and was living in Manhattan at the time. Nashville? I had my doubts. (Yes - my first bit of arrogance of which there would be many more to come and many years to try and live them down!)

During one of our mandated union breaks as Jeremy sipped from his gallon of water and rolled what he said was an American Spirit cigarette but looked more to me like something illegal. (It had to be illegal right? I mean why in the world would anyone go through the trouble of rolling their own cigarettes when there are perfectly carcinogenic ones in cartons at any corner store? - Ah, maybe it was a Nashville thing.) He told me he was a writer and asked if I would like to read some of his work sometime.

Uh-huh, I'd heard that before. As a struggling actress new to my second career (more on that later too) I was used to guys giving me "scripts to read." I thought, "Surely it'll be schlock and it'll have a random Mexican maid that prances around half naked and he'll tell me I'm perfect for the role assuming I'm Mexican of course when I'm really Cuban." (More arrogance here in case you missed it - Although I would later get Jeremy to admit that he was trying to impress me from day one.)

Later that day he handed me three scripts and quickly walked away in his unassuming yet confidently humble strut. Sandwiched between his slightly esoteric yet terrifyingly come-at-able play "Palisades" and his darkly hilarious Zombie Western Christmas Musical, "Zombies Can't Climb," was this deliciously dark and hysterically twisted gem of a character driven, ensemble genre piece that oh say, happened to be about vampires. Of course I immediately started a mental list of writers to compare him to: Sam Shepard, Quentin Tarantino, a hint of Mamet, even a little Woody Allen? Or was it more Guillermo Arriaga with a Southwestern flavor?

That's what I did when I encountered something that seemed to transcend labels or seemed to defy being boxed in - I immediately set out to tame it - to understand it - to lasso it and bring it to it's knees. As an actor I was used to breaking down scripts and characters so that I may understand them so wholly that I eventually owned them - why not try to do the same here. Surely, Jeremy Childs' "Vampire Monologues" (which would eventually be reincarnated as Blood Rogues) would not be more of a challenge to me than Miller, Fornes, Shakespeare or Lope De Vega.

I almost peed myself laughing so hard and then when I was done reading it, I had to call my mother for some happy talk for fear that I would cry myself to sleep. I couldn't explain it. I couldn't wrap my brain around it but I couldn't let it go. The next day when I saw him at rehearsals, I politely returned his script to him and muttered something brilliant like, "Wow, man - great stuff, yeah..."

Once the show opened and we had a little more free time, Jeremy and I slowly got to know each other a little better. Smirk all you want - it's not what you're thinking. Really, we simply started becoming friends. I knew exactly what I was doing. I had an agenda. Yes he was nice, polite, well mannered and sexy in that Hop-a-Long Cassidy sort of way, but what I really wanted, was to get him drunk so that he would eventually drop his guard and disclose the contents of that mysterious brain of his.

I did eventually get him drunk but to no avail. His brain would remain a mystery. He didn't know it yet but I had just found my dream partner (in more ways than one) and I was going to take his script and make my first full length feature film out of it. Yesiree Bob! I had finally read a script that grabbed me in such a choke hold that it must have stopped the oxygen to my brain long enough for some brain damage to set in: because I was now ready to give up and essentially destroy, all sense of personal and financial security that I had carefully worked towards attaining all of my life.

But first... I had to finish my run as Kate in Shrew, go back to NYC and shoot a catalogue for Tempurpedic, do voice overs for all sorts of companies that thankfully helped me pay for my astronomical cost of living in the city, shoot a short film in which I played a Cuban immigrant married to a man who wasn't sure he wasn't gay and get "this close but no cigar" to booking a guest role on the Sopranos. Then, I had to go home to Miami and sort out a very complicated personal life at the time, that included saying long overdue goodbyes to people that I had loved dearly, the sale of a home, the sale of a Quiznos franchise that although I was no longer a managing member of, I was financially tied into and my only sisters wedding party. I also had the little matter of figuring out what I was going to do with these new found "feelings" for this "Nashvillian" and oh yes...

How does one go about making a movie and how does one go about paying for this movie?"

It's getting late and I've got to go print out a script in preparation for David Alford (Earle) and Jorge Moran (Bait) to do their bits of ADR tomorrow at Dean Hall's studio in Smyrna, TN. I've also got to call our Color Correction man in LA to talk looks and my wonderful neighbor Rona who is getting our mail for us in West Hollywood, CA and sifting through it to see if any residuals arrive so that we can eat more than just the occasional fruit cup and / or Sonic Coney Dog. (By the way, I'm totally jonesing for my In n Out fix - for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of tasting this little bit of crack laced meat patty heaven, you have no idea what you are missing!)

Yes, back to the present my friends for if we are to finish Blood Rogues in time (And by Darnit, we will!) for the rounds of festival submission deadlines, then I must focus on the 1,082 things on my to do list.

One of the many things I gave up to make this movie was the side pocket money for a therapist in the off chance I ever went a little crazy or simply needed to vent. Well Blogs are the cheapest form of therapy I can find and thank you for indulging me.

In the meantime, send us your email address, if we don't already have it so that we can SPAM the heck out of you when the time comes to spread the word on Blood Rogues.

Check this blog often for the rest of the story...

Most exhaustedly yours,
Karen

karen@rumorsproductions.com