Ice-T Breaks Down Bloodrunners
Matt Boiselle
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Ice-T: let’s face it, the guy’s done it all. With a career that’s spanned many years, he’s covered the rap game to perfection, branched out to cover the metal subset with his band Body Count, acted in both TV and film for numerous roles, and his latest portrayal has him not only bootlegging but harvesting a little bit of the crimson in the prohibition-era in Dan Lantz’s Bloodrunners. We were lucky enough to catch the O.G. as he was celebrating a little down-time, and he was gracious enough to answer a few questions for us – sit back and enjoy!
DC: Can you tell us a little about the film itself, as well as a description of your character, Chesterfield?
IT: Well, the film was pitched to me by a guy named Mike Harvey, who does my makeup on “Law & Order: SVU”, so we’re friends – so he comes at me and says “Ice, would you like to play a vampire in a movie?” So I said “yeah, I’ve been playing a cop for 18 years – fuck it, let’s go!” So he told me the idea about the job – the movie’s in the 30’s, and the vampire’s cover is being these bootleggers. My brain was like “well, vampires have been here for 2,000 years, so I guess they would have had to live through the 30’s.” So I said “let’s go”, and he said “well, we have no money.” Now that’s usually the deal-breaker for me – that’s where the conversation stops! (laughs), but because he’s my friend, I was like “fuck it, I’ll do it anyway.” I mean, people do independent movies for a couple of reasons: one being that you’re broke, and you need to make a movie because you’re trying to get your shit up, and the other is that you don’t need the money, but you just want to have some fun. I saw this as a chance to just have some fun, and we went down to Philadelphia to make the movie, and it turned out pretty good – I was really impressed with the CGI and all the other stuff they did, and these guys had passion. My character Chesterfield is a guy that is a vampire, but you think that he’s a bootlegger for a minute, but he’s living in this world, doing vampire shit. (laughs)
DC: It definitely was a role that you delivered on.
IT: It was fun – well written, and the concept was decent, and I had a good time. They did really good special effects, and they came over to my house one day with a green-screen, and we shot the last scene of the movie in my garage. With indie films, you have to have passion, and you’ve got to keep pushing when people are telling you no, and these guys got this thing done. I’m very excited for this film – I went and watched it, and was really entertained, and the people that watched it had a good time with it, so I’m proud of it.
DC: Now with this being one of a small amount of horror roles that you’ve had, can you see yourself doing more work inside the genre?
IT: I love horror films – I’m a horror buff – I watch hardcore stuff and Japanese shit, you know, like grotesque, heavy shit – you know, like borderline snuff movies. It’s nothing new to me, and if I ever start directing films, I’ll probably start an occult-horror zone – you’ve got blood-horror, then you’ve got disturbing-horror, and I’m more into the disturbing type, like The Human Centipede, and really weird shit that you think “this is really fucked up!” I’m also into these Japanese crazy-gore movies- I just watched one the other night about vampire-Yakuza motherfuckers, and there was a dude in a Gumby suit doing karate, and I was like “what the fuck is this shit?” I watch all types, so I’d love to do another horror movie.
DC: With everything you’ve got going on, do you ever sit back and think “damn, I need a break!”
IT: Yeah, that’s why I play video games!
DC: Lastly, after the release of Bloodrunners, what can your fans expect to see from you in the future?
IT: Well, I don’t have any movies lined up, but the closest thing is a video from the Body Count album, Bloodlust – Michael Harvey, the executive producer of Bloodrunners, also did the special effects, and it’s a horror movie. It’s called “Here I Go Again” where I play a serial killer, so I think any horror fan will dig the shit out of this video – it’ll get on the horror blogs, for sure. Everyone can also follow me on IceTFinalLevel.com – you can watch me behead trolls, and all the fun shit I do on Twitter.
Categorized:News
