If you're a Whedonite, an online gamer, or a fan of internet mini-musicals, you should already be familiar with Felicia Day and her work. The actress has long been familiar among nerdier circles thanks to her web show The Guild and her work on Season 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but she's been an especially busy little bee as of late: between her work on Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, the new video game Fallout: New Vegas, and now the SyFy channel Red: Werewolf Hunter, she has officially solidified her reputation as Queen of the Geeks.
Hi, Felicia, how are you?
I’m good, how are you?
I’m good. First I’d like to hear you talk a little bit about Red: Werewolf Hunter.
All right. Red: Werewolf Hunter is a SyFy movie [that aired] on the channel Saturday, October 30th, and it’s an update of the traditional fairy tale about Red Riding Hood. The movie’s about me taking my fiancé home to introduce him to my family and to hopefully reveal to him the fact that my family is tasked with controlling the werewolf population. We have this secret and we keep the werewolves from the mainstream population. During the movie my fiancé gets caught up in it, and I have to—I’m caught between two loves: my family and duty, and my fiancé. It’s definitely a dramatic take on the tale and it seems really perfect for Halloween, that’s for sure.
Absolutely. You seem to have a knack for choosing projects on the fantastical side—even The Guild focuses a lot on what goes on within the game itself.
Yeah. I mean, I grew up homeschooled and I definitely cultivated a love for a couple of things besides acting: sci-fi/fantasy and video games. I read so many books, even now, that are sci-fi and fantasy; I’m a huge fan of the genre. When I started to write The Guild, I decided to start defining what I really loved to do. Rather than just take what anybody gave me, I decided to define what I wanted my career to be, and it didn’t matter whether it was on a small scale or on a large scale. I wanted to define myself, and that’s what I’ve been slowly doing over the last three years since I started doing The Guild, which has led to more and more opportunities within the genre—which is completely fine with me because that’s what I love as a fan. It’s really cool that SyFy, seeing what I’ve done on the web with The Guild and Doctor Horrible and even seeing my work on Buffy, decided to offer me the role, and I really had a fantastic time making it.
I was wondering if you were a fan of the game Dragon Age.
[laughs] I’m a huge fan of Dragon Age! I finished the game in Origins, and I’ve done the expansion, and I’ve yet to do any of the smaller downloadable expansions but, yes, I’m a huge fan of that game.
Oh, man, I’ve played it multiple times just to try the different origins.
Yeah, I’ve played through every origin except the dwarf commoner origin, which is still on my list to do. That’s what’s great about that game: there’s so many different ways that you can enter that world. I think the storytelling is just fantastic.
Do you have a favorite character? I think mine is Zevran.
You know, Zevran is cool, but Leliana is my favorite. I play a woman who looks very much like me, which means she’s a readhead as well, but I definitely stuck with the Leliana romance until almost the very end and then I went with Alistair, and I regretted it the whole time. I really should’ve stuck with her! [laughs]
I don’t know, I tried going with her and I was bored.
Really? I felt that way about Alistair. He was a little bit too whiny to be hot. He just wasn’t hot enough for me.
I haven’t tried him. I’ve mainly stuck with Zevran!
Oh, no, I do like him. He has a very interesting backstory, and he gets to quip a lot, which I like. A sense of humor is definitely very attractive.
I agree. Anyway!
[laughs] Yes?
Much of what you’re known for at this point is web-based. What’s the different between doing web projects and TV projects?
Well, definitely on the web—even with The Guild being one of the most successful web-based shows—we have very little budget. We still shoot at my house, and we don’t have trailers, and we have a very small crew, so we definitely still do things on a shoestring because that’s the budget we’re given for the web. We’re very lucky that we have a constant sponsor in Microsoft and Sprint, which actually keeps us going, but we’re still working on a very small scale so we can’t make more than one season every nine months or so. When I walked onto the set of Red all the actors had trailers and we were shooting on location and the crew was very large, so it’s definitely a change of pace. But as far as the web stuff goes—with The Guild I’m a writer and a producer and I’m definitely involved on every level, so it’s definitely a change of pace to be only an actor, reading other people’s lines and not having to worry about the crew getting there on time or feeding them or making sure the shots look right. It was definitely a change of pace, which was welcome, but I love what I do for the web so much that I would never give it up to do only acting. It’s definitely two different worlds.
Did you get much input on Red as an actor?
It was more of a situation where I read the script and really thought it would be a fun thing to do. It’s a different kind of role; the only other kind of role I’ve played sort of in the vein of it was in the two episodes I did on Dollhouse. That’s the only character I’ve played who was similar to Red, and I thought it was just a great opportunity to stretch as an actor and just be an actor for a really intense period of time. When you’re on a movie you don’t really have the time to work on other things. So it was a change of pace, and I got to shoot guns, I got to stab things, so it definitely was a life opportunity I couldn’t pass up and I had a great time.
Once you get into games like Dragon Age the opportunity to stab something yourself can’t be passed up.
Oh, absolutely! I was just playing the new Fallout last night, and I’m one of the main characters in the game and I just recruited myself, which was really odd because I’m talking to myself from the game and I’m playing the game—which was really weird. But my character in Fallout has this glove and she can literally punch things across the room, so it was actually one of the most fun characters I’ve ever played or played with. [laughs]
Have you played Mass Effect? Seth Green’s in it, actually, and he’s great.
Yeah, no, Mass Effect has excellent voice acting. I think all the Bioware games have excellent voice acting, and Mass Effect I almost like better than Dragon Age. It’s definitely neck-and-neck because I romance Thane, and I don’t know if you’ve played the game so you might not know him but he’s really hot and it’s a really fun storyline.
Oh, believe you me, I’ve played Mass Effect!
[laughs] So you’ve definitely played it.
So using Seth Green as a segue into the Whedonverse, I’ve heard Joss is working on preparing a sequel to Doctor Horrible. I don’t know if you’re involved with that, but in general are you in talks with him about any other projects?
Actually I think Joss is working on The Avengers, which has got to be the biggest movie of all time. I think he’s got every star in that now, so I think that’s what he’s working on right now. I don’t know the plans for Doctor Horrible 2 because all the guys are in production on other jobs right now, but I know the intention is to do a sequel; I just don’t know what the status is or whether I’m involved or anything. But Joss is definitely working on The Avengers right now.
Well, that’s huge. It’s only the most anticipated comic book project in ever.
Exactly. So I don’t think he’s going to be doing any side projects until that one’s over. [laughs]
Are you excited for The Avengers?
Oh, yeah. You know, his X-Men arc—for The Astonishing X-Men—is one of my favorite comic book arcs of all time. He is able to humanize superhero characters in such an incredible way that I can’t wait to see him bring to the big screen.
Just in general it’ll be awesome to see all those heroes on screen at once.
Yeah, absolutely.
Are you a big comic book fan? I’m assuming yes.
Yeah, I am. More so since writing the comic book for The Guild, which required me to do “research”—and that allowed me to read a lot of comic books in a row. I’m definitely a graphic novel fan especially, mostly the fantasy stuff.
I’m assuming you’ve read Watchmen by now.
Yeah, of course.
Good.
[laughs]
Are you an Alan Moore fan?
Yeah, I am. I’m a huge fan of Brian Wood as well. He’s one of my favorites; I just can’t get enough of anything he’s done. I actually have tons of his stuff on my shelf, so if I’m an especially big fan of anybody it’s him. He’s on the top of my list.
You can catch Red: Werewolf Hunter on the SyFy channel.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
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