Jeremy London Talks Girl in Woods
Matt Boiselle
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We here at Dread Central recently had the opportunity to grab a few minutes with Jeremy London, who is starring alongside his wife, Juliet Reeves-London, in psychological thriller Girl in Woods. He was kind enough to give us the lowdown on his character and what it’s like working alongside his spouse on the set, so grab a cold one and enjoy!
DC: Can you give us a brief outline of the film, as well as your character, Jim?
JL: It’s about a woman who’s dealt with a lot of trauma in her life since childhood, and it’s caused her a great deal of psychosis that she needs medication for. I play her fiance in the movie, and I take her into the woods to propose – I guess my character thought that it was a romantic thing to do, and something happens along the way that derails the whole thing, and she’s now caught out there without her medication in some pretty dire situations.
The change in her is riveting, and it was so wild watching her become so feral – I told her she looked hot, and she didn’t understand – I told her, “You look sexy as hell!” She said to me, “What are you talking about? I look like a cavewoman!”
DC: What can you tell us about the shoot? Looks like it was a bit intense out there in the woods.
JL: Well, it was for her – I mean, I shot my stuff about 2 years after she shot hers, but it was more intensive stuff. She got tortured, being in the mud and the muck and the cold and rain – she had snakes in her face – doing things that a stuntperson should have been doing. The sad thing was that the first time I saw it, I thought, “No one’s ever going to see this movie.”
DC: Working with your wife, Juliet… do you find yourselves complementing each other’s styles when working on screen?
JL: First off, I’m so proud of my wife and her hard work that she put into it. When I first met her, she’d already shot most of her stuff for this movie, and she showed me the film, and without being mean, it just needed a lot of work, but not on her end – everything she did was amazing, and it was tragic because, again, I thought that no one would see it. Luckily, Jeremy Vincent and Mark Williams were so receptive and open to suggestions and honesty to rescue this thing. They went back and put the work into this thing and made it a really cool movie – I’m really proud of it and my wife as well.
As far as the acting goes, I teach from a very organic place where acting is reacting, and Juliet being a trained actress, we both fed off of each other really well. With us being as close as we are anyway, that lends itself to a really nice organic feel for the relationship in the film. The audience has a feeling that her character is a really special person, and if my character can love her, then there’s something really worth loving about her.
DC: It’s safe to say that you’ve had a hand in quite a few aspects of film work: you’ve acted, written, produced, and directed – is there one particular facet that you feel most comfortable with and could see yourself doing for the rest of your career?
JL: Directing – it’s absolutely my favorite thing to do. To do that for the rest of my career would make me the happiest man on the planet.
DC: Lastly, after the release of Girl In Woods, what can we all look forward to from you down the road?
JL: I started an acting school in New Orleans and Biloxi, Mississippi, called The London Arts Acting Studio, so I’m doing a lot of teaching. One of the things that I’ve vowed to my students is that I’m not just going to teach them how to get into the movies, but I’m going to put them in the movies, so we’ve already made a short film which is 23 minutes long called Monsters Anonymous, which is literally one of the funniest things you’ll ever see. It’s about old school monsters like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, and they’re all in a therapy session together. They’re depressed over not being scary anymore. Around 95 percent of the cast are my students – Brian O’Halloran from Clerks is in it, and everyone was absolutely incredible.
We’re also gearing up for a movie called Brother’s Run, which takes place in the Civil War, and I’m looking to direct that by year’s end, and hopefully some more acting down the line. I’m just really happy teaching and watching people grow – loving directing and being a dad. Acting has gotten me to where I want to be, which is directing films.
Categorized:News
