Interview: Bestselling Writer and Actor Rod Glenn on Sinema
In 2011 the bestselling novel Sinema by acclaimed horror writer Rod Glenn was published. Now it’s being turned in a film (Indiegogo here), and as he’s also an accomplished actor, he will have a role. Dread Central caught up with him to find out more:
Dread Central: Congratulations on the success of your bestselling book. Can you give an overview of the plot and how the inspiration came about?
Rod Glenn: A charming film-obsessed serial killer stalks a remote Northumberland community. I often wondered about evil in humanity and what was true evil or whether it even existed. Are some people just predestined to be evil, or can it be turned on or off like a switch? I thought what if a person with a happy upbringing, a nice life, someone who is a really likable, essentially decent person… what if that person one day decides to commit a murder just to see if he can do it and then return to his normal life to then never do anything evil ever again. Then what if he decides that one murder isn’t enough, that in fact to make his experiment as challenging as possible, he must slaughter an entire village…
DC: Can you talk about how the film adaptation came about and your involvement?
RG: Right from the novel’s release readers began emailing me to say how much they loved it and also how it would make a great film. I am a huge film fanatic (Han Whitman has a lot of me in him), so I think I have always written in quite a cinematic style. It wasn’t until several years later, while working on The Sceptic with director Kev Harte, that we got talking about the novel and the film adaptation. Kev was hooked right away. I’m a novelist, rather than a screenwriter, so I managed to recruit the help of a screenwriter friend of mine (Ricki Thomas) to adapt the novel. When I saw how The Sceptic turned out and how well it has been received, I knew Kev was the right director for the job. Kev also managed to drag out of me what I think might be my best performance yet, so for perhaps the first time in my acting career I actually thought I could pull off the extremely challenging role of becoming a likeable mass murderer.
DC: Did you write the screenplay?
RG: It was a collaboration between myself and Ricki Thomas. Ricki Thomas is best known for her best-selling crime novels, including Unlikely Killer.
DC: Does the film follow the book closely?
RG: To reduce the novel down to a 90-minute feature film, we had to strip out some material, but other than that it is true to the novel.
DC: And Kev Harte is directing?
RG: Kev Harte has been making short films for a number of years, but Sinema will be his first feature-length film.
DC: And you are starring in the film?
RG: I always wanted to be both a writer and an actor – right from first school I was always in school plays and in the Nativity Play worked up from a shepherd to the donkey and then to Joseph. I wrote stories throughout school and continued into drama college. To my shame I then concentrated on writing for many years before only returning to acting 5 years ago. Since then though I have been making up for lost time, featuring in Ripper Street, Vera, The Hollow Crown, Fury, Bill, Macbeth, The Fairy Flag, World War Z and many more.
DC: Can you talk about the rest of the cast?
RG: We are still casting, but we have managed to secure several cult names, including Eileen Daly (Razor Blade Smile and recent Big Brother contestant) to play the eccentric Tess Runckle, Nicholas Vince (Hellraiser I and II and Nightbreed) to play misunderstood barber Moe Baxter, and Warren Speed (Zombie Women of Satan) to play unscrupulous businessman Steve Belmont.
DC: When and where do you plan to film?
RG: We are planning on filming exclusively in the North East of England to stay in keeping with the novel and should begin principal photography around November/December.
DC: You say on Indiegogo that this will be the “largest independent film production the North East has ever seen.” Can you elaborate?
RG: The North East has hosted one or two big studio feature films over the years, including cult classics like Get Carter, but in terms of low-budget productions like ours, due to the size of the cast (40+), over 30 locations, and the snowstorm finale, we expect Sinema to be by far the largest independent production to date.
DC: What do you think about the current state of British cinema?
RG: We have some amazing talent both in front of and behind the camera, but independent UK films are few and far between and successful ones even rarer. We do have more US films being made in the UK, which is helping the industry, but what we need is more of our own films.
DC: You wrote the sequels to the book, Sinema 2: Sympathy for the Devil and Sinema 3: The Troy Consortium. Any chance of those also being adapted into a film?
RG: It will all depend on the success of this film. I would love to see those adapted into films as well, but time will tell.
DC: You’ve written and contributed to a number of other horror books like Holiday of the Dead and Wild Wolf’s Twisted Tales. Anything else in the pipeline?
RG: I am currently writing an action horror entitled The Fortress, which is like The Wild Geese crossed with Lord of the Rings.
DC: How does it feel to be both a successful actor and writer?
RG: I really do feel like I’m living the dream, as corny as that sounds. I have had a huge amount of support from my family and friends and in particular my wife, Vanessa.
Be sure to check out Nerdoh, who are creating merchandise for the film.
Poster below designed by Michael Grote:
Poster below designed by Danielle Tunstall:
Categorized:News
