Exclusive: Actress Bianca Saad Talks Hansel & Gretel Get Baked

Steve Barton |

Jan 17, 2013

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This writer hit Gower Studios in Hollywood, California, to pay a visit to the set of director Duane Journey’s Hansel & Gretel Get Baked and while there chatted with one of the feature’s players, actress Bianca Saad. Read on for her take on the project and a new still.

Written by first-time feature screenwriter David Tillman and starring Twilight actor Michael Welch as “Hansel,” Molly C. Quinn as “Gretel” (see our previous interview with Molly here) and Lara Flynn Boyle (Men in Black II, “Twin Peaks”) as “Agnes” the witch, the film (formerly known as Black Forest: Hansel and Gretel & The 420 Witch) revolves around the latter character, a centuries old crone who lives in Pasadena, California, and lures teens into her house with a special blend of marijuana in order to eat the adolescents in an effort to maintain her own youth and beauty. First-time feature actress Saad plays “Bianca”, a young woman who assists Quinn in her efforts to save the latter’s abducted, pot-smoking beau.

Shooting day nineteen of twenty-one, actress Saad took a break from the soundstage (which had been dressed to resemble a veritable forest of marijuana) to chat with us about her role.

“I will probably be considered the ‘bad-ass’ that goes with Gretel to rescue her boyfriend,” stated Saad of her character in Hansel & Gretel Get Baked. “We break into the witch’s house, and we do all of kinds of crazy things, and crazy things happen, and we don’t know if we are going to make it out of there. Some of us do, and some of us don’t!”

“It’s exciting because my character brings a certain essence,” Saad continued. “She’s very provocative, and the things she does to distract the witch [in order] to help Gretel are all kind of funny, and I think that’s why I love this project so much, because as crazy and as horrific as it may be, there’s some comedy elements that are awesome. There aren’t too many to make it a comedy, but it does have some really funny parts. Even in wardrobe. Some of my outfits are so sick, like ‘little girl clothes,’ but it fits because this movie is so twisted.”

Exclusive: Actress Bianca Saad Talks Hansel & Gretel Get Baked

On the physicality required of her role, “It’s actually been really surprising and really fun,” stated the brunette. “When I showed up [to the set], I thought I wasn’t going to get to do any of the fun stuff because I had a stunt double (Michelle Alvarado), but when all of the cool shooting days came up with the big stunts, she wasn’t here. So it was kind of scary because I didn’t know what I was doing, but we had great stunt guys on set to show me how to do everything safely, and I’ve been having so much fun doing my own stunts. It worked out because I had a great time, it was a great learning experience, and I haven’t hurt myself!”

“I’m really happy,” Saad commented on her Hansel & Gretel Get Baked booking (previously she’d appeared in a quartet of short films). “There is so much room in this genre to be ‘you’, and to bring what you want to it. There’s only a certain amount of direction a director can give you, and then you really just have to make your performance. This is actually my first feature project, and I’ve already done so many things. I’ve died, I’ve done stunts, I’ve been chased, and I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything, and I don’t think I’d ever turn my back on a horror film. I’m having so much fun! There’s so many creepy things going on, and it’s great. You are like, ‘Are those severed fingers?’ I’ve seen gnarly things, and they have awesome prop guys here, and I’m just excited to see how things are going to end up on screen.”

Produced by James Cotton (Madison County), Brett Hudson and Mark Morgan with executive producers William S. Beasley and Michael Pollack, Hansel & Gretel Get Baked is slated for an On Demand release on February 19, 2013, via Tribeca Film, with a limited theatrical release to coincide.

Stay tuned for our exclusive interviews with director Journey and star Boyle coming soon.