A Quickie With Erin Kelly
by
Dara
Nai , Contributing Writer
August 4, 2008
Six years
ago, actor Erin Kelly was sitting in the audience at a play, minding her own
business, when filmmaker Katherine Brooks walked up to her and said,
"Please tell me you're an actress."
Luckily for Brooks, the
answer was "yes." Four years later, Kelly was starring in her first
feature film, playing a self-possessed and passionate Catholic schoolgirl in
love with a female teacher twice her age in Brooks' smoldering tale of taboo
attraction, Loving Annabelle.
If loving Annabelle was
wrong, droves of fans didn't want to be right.
This fall, Kelly
inhabits the role of a seductive, yet disturbed mental patient in the new
Brooks film, Waking Madison, which stars Elisabeth Shue, Sarah
Roemer (Disturbia, The Grunge 2) and Taryn Manning (Cold Mountain,
Hustle & Flow).
Kelly sat down with
AfterEllen.com recently to talk about meeting and forming a lasting friendship
with Brooks, the unsexiness of shooting sex scenes, and what she loves about
her lesbian fan base.
AfterEllen.com: Katherine Brooks
said you're her muse. How much does being a muse pay these days?
Erin Kelly: [laughs]
Not nearly enough.
AE: In Waking Madison, your
third project with Katherine, you play a character named Grace. Who is Grace?
EK: Grace is one of
the patients
AE: Sounds like Grace has some
issues. Does she indulge her addictions with anyone on the ward?
EK: [She] seduces
orderlies, but none of the other patients.
AE: Does Grace connect with the
patients in other ways?
EK: Yeah, all of
the girls. In the story, there's a community room where we all connect and
[develop] relationships with each other. There's the bully, Margaret, played by
Taryn Manning, and Imogen Poots as Alexis, the wounded girl who's tormented by
Margaret. And I'm the character between the two of them.
AE: You were originally going to
play the wounded one, Alexis.
EK: Right. I was.
But I ended up playing Grace, which, in the end, worked out. I thought the role
of Grace was much more interesting for me, as an actor.
Erin
Kelly as Grace in Waking
Madison
AE: Your role was switched because,
according to Katherine, you're so good at playing a "focused, promiscuous
seducer." Do you agree?
EK: [sarcastically]
Oh, no. I've never had any experience in that area. [laughs] No, it's
all just pulling from my imagination.
AE: Oh, really now?
EK: [laughs] No,
nothing.
AE: Come on.
EK: [laughs] I'm no
fun.
AE: I don't believe
that. Tell me one story.
EK: Well, I wasn't
promiscuous or anything like that. [long pause] OK. When I was 16, my dad
caught me selling "beverages" out of the trunk of my car.
AE: How did you buy "beverages" at 16
years old?
EAE: Seems the "focused seducer" in you
was actually a budding entrepreneur. What's wrong with that? You showed
initiative.
EK: My dad thought so, too, although he was obviously angry with me. He and
my godfather were also sort of laughing about it. But no one should ever do
that. It's not something to be proud of.
AE: Does Grace seduce for fun and
profit, too?
EK: She
uses sex as a form of manipulation, to get what she wants. But it's also her
safe spot. It's comfortable. She can mask her vulnerability and all the issues
that are going on inside, through sex.
AE: What does it take to create a
very intense sex scene?
EK: Well,
it's very unsexy; there's a crew there. I mean, I've joked about this before
that [when] Katherine clears a set of men, I'm like, "Katherine, the
people who aren't men on this set are all gay, so it's the same thing."
AE: You have
to watch out for those lesbian gaffers.
EK: [laughs] And then, on top of that, you
have hair and makeup coming in while you're lying on top of each other, and someone
to arrange your legs, and you can't move, and Katherine is yelling out,
"Take her bra off, Erin!"
Diane Gaidry (left) and Kelly in Loving Annabelle
AE: It's good to be the director.
She said she taught you the one-handed bra unsnap, which makes sense because
Annabelle would know how to do that.
EK: Oh,
yeah. Definitely.
AE: Can you still do it?
EK: [laughs]
I haven't tried in a while.
AE: Katherine mentioned that if
she could, she'd shoot a new ending for Annabelle. What ending would you
like to see?
EK: [laughs]
Annabelle jumping off the roof of the school.
AE: [laughs] With a falcon on her shoulder.
EK: Shouting, "Simone, I love you!"
AE: And then, death.
EK:
Yeah, of course!
AE: OK. Which existing
ending do you like better?
EK: I
don't like the alternate ending because it's not true to life. And I know that
we often use movies as escapism and we want to see the happy ending, but I like
the shock value of not having the happy ending. I like having it be true to
life and, as the audience, you're left going, "Aww. No!"
AE: You've known Katherine for
years now. When she approached you at that play with "Please tell me
you're an actress," did you immediately think, "Who the hell are you
and what kind of line is that?"
EK: No,
because I had just recently moved to L.A. I wasn't jaded. Not like now.
[laughs] So I listened to those strange women who come up to you and say
they're going to make your career.
AE: 'Cause that never happens
here in L.A., right?
EK: [laughs]
And they just want to sleep with you. But Katherine did not. So then, I was
just excited.
AE: The first time you worked
with her was on her short, Finding Kate, about two female cousins who
have an affair with each other.
EK: Yes,
I auditioned for that two weeks after I met her.
Kelly and Jessica Lancaster in Finding Kate
AE: What's the deal, were they
first cousins?
EK: Yes.
AE: You just made that up.
EK: [laughs]
Yeah.
AE: But they were cousins. That
was a bold choice for your first role with a director you had just met. Why do
you like working with Katherine?
EK:
She's a director who understands actors and knows how to talk to them. Also,
now we're friends and we can talk to each other on that level. It's great
working with people you love.
KAE: How has
starring in Loving Annabelle affected your life and career?
EK: Well, first of all, it's an honor to have such a loyal lesbian fan base.
Women are strength … they have much more power than society sometimes tells us
they do. Women kick ass. What could be better than kick-ass fans?
AE: Kick-ass fans who will wash
your car.
EK:
[laughs] Actually, I was surprised that the fan mail for Loving Annabelle went
in the direction that it did. I do get a lot of very flattering emails, but
I've also received letters from older women saying: "Because of your
movie, I've finally been able to come out of the closet, tell my family that
I'm gay, tell my friends, and be proud of the fact that I'm gay. Thank you for
that."
And then there's the other side —
young girls writing me asking, "How do I tell my family I'm gay?" and
"How do I tell my friends that I'm gay?" or "How do I know if
I'm gay?" And that portion has been overwhelming because I don't know the
answers to those questions. I know what it's like to be a teenager and to
struggle there, so I can offer that, but as far as answering those questions …
I haven't worked out the best way to respond to those fans yet. Maybe an
"Ask Annabelle" site or an internet video series? I'm still thinking
about that.
AE: I smell a vlog. The other
day, you told me you don't own a television.
EK: No,
I don't.
AE: What do you do for fun while
everyone else is watching Project Runway?
EK: I
live on the water. I like to surf. I also hike and do yoga. I just partnered
with a company called LOL, which is where I've been spending a lot of my time.
We go to inner city schools, schools across the board and all around the world,
and teach improv and acting to kids.
AE: You do improv?
EK: I
do. I studied at Upright Citizen's Brigade … took my first class two years ago.
AE: I didn't know you did comedy.
EK: Well,
I don't, so improv is definitely a good exercise for me.
AE: You don't think you're funny?
EK: I
don't feel other people find me amusing. But I amuse myself.
AE: That's all that matters.
EK: And
I amuse Katherine.
Kelly with Katherine Brooks
AE: Even better. You're also a
member of the Ruskin Group Theater Company in Santa Monica. They do "Café
Plays" which, from what I can gather, is something akin to speed theater.
What is it?
EK: Yeah,
I'm one of the creators of that; it's an ongoing project that happens the first
Sunday of every month, and it's a great exercise for writers, directors and
actors.
At 9 o'clock in the morning,
writers meet at the café and are given two headshots at random. Then, they have
four and a half hours to write something that takes place in the café. At 1:30
p.m., it goes to the theater and those two actors are there with a director —
Katherine's directed this before — and they have five and a half hours to get
the play up on its feet. The shows go on at 7:30 and 9:00 that night.
AE: Life doesn't have enough
pressure? You have to go out and do this?
EK: [laughs]
That's the industry we're in.
AE: Have you ever forgotten your
lines because you had a nanosecond to rehearse?
EK: Well,
yes. The only time I've ever forgotten my lines onstage was during a Café Play.
It was with Jake Newton, who played Cat's brother in Loving Annabelle.
He and I looked at each other — it wasn't for very long — but it felt like an
eternity.
AE: What character would you like
to tackle, but hasn't come your way yet?
EK: I
would love, love, love to do comedy. It would be so much fun. But I like the
dark, f---ed-up roles.
AE: Like Grace, the drug and sex
addict.
EK:
Yes. Another role that comes to mind is Cate Blanchett in Notes on a
Scandal.
AE: Another teacher-student
thing. I'm seeing a theme with you, Erin.
EK:
[laughs] Hmm.