Scene Magazine May/June 2013

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MAY/JUNE 2013

ESSENCE FEST 2013

TRUE BLOOD’S

KRISTINA ANAPAU BEFORE THE SCENE WITH

CRAIG ROBINSON

ANNALYNNE

McCORD Gives Back

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VOL. 4, ISSUE 3 • May/June 2013 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Micah Haley CREATIVE DIRECTOR Erin Theriot DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Katianna Bear EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Jenny Bravo, Jillian Aubin GRAPHIC ARTIST Burton Chatelain, Jr. SALES Brinkley Maginnis, Jeremy Paige FASHION STYLIST Alicia Estrada

EDITOR’S LETTER

T

he 2013 Louisiana Legislative session is in full bloom. In the general public, the film and entertainment incentives enjoy enormous popularity.

That sentiment is echoed in the state legislature, but there are also many competing interests vying for lawmakers’ attention, some with little support in the general public.

For many Louisianans, the session seems distant, an annual occurrence far removed from their day-today lives. Daily recaps by the local media bring surface level updates into homes, but there’s still a widespread sentiment that citizens only have input during elections.

Nothing could be further from the truth, especially in state and local politics.

Contacting the people that represent you about support for the film industry is easy and effective. Because so many citizens are convinced that they won’t be heard, few even try to contact lawmakers.

That means even just a

8 | May/June 2013

phone call or an email will have a measurable effect.

And if you are available during the week, go to the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge. You don’t need an appointment.

Anyone that passes through a metal detector can observe the lawmaking process.

Lawmakers walk the halls freely. You can respectfully approach them and express support for the film industry.

For contact information for your state senators and representatives, along with photos and other information on the current legislative session, visit www. legis.la.gov. For info and email updates on how currently proposed bills will affect the film and entertainment industry if they become law, join the Louisiana Film & Entertainment Association (LFEA) for free at lfea.org.

COVER PHOTO Isaac Matthew White CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Isaac Matthew White, Katianna Bear, Teddy Smith, Art Streiber, Davide Tuma, John P. Johnson, Niko Tavernise, Elizabeth Shaw, Tate Tullier, Scott Simon, Julia Pretus, Pete Stone, Matt Kennedy, Ron Phillips, Jonathan Olley, Zade Rosenthal, Joe Lederer, Phillippe Bosse, Ron Batzdorff, John Darko, Kelli Binnings, Nabil Elderkin, Andrew Zaeh, Jimmy Fontaine CONTRIBUTING WRITERS AJ Buckley, Dimitrios Kambouris, Andi Eaton Jillian Brown, Susan Ross Scene Magazine At Raleigh Studios Baton Rouge 10000 Celtic Drive • Suite 201 • Baton Rouge, LA 70809 225-361-0701 At Second Line Stages 800 Richard St. • Suite 222 • New Orleans, LA 70130 504-224-2221 info@scenelouisiana.com • www.scenelouisiana.com Published By Louisiana Entertainment Publishers LLC CEO, Andre Champagne President, AJ Buckley Vice President, Micah Haley Display Advertising: Call Scene Magazine for a current rate card or visit www.scenelouisiana.com All submitted materials become the property of Louisiana Entertainment Publishers LLC. For subscriptions or more information visit our website www.scenelouisiana.com Copyright @ 2012 Louisiana Entertainment Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used for solicitation or copied by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording by any information storage or retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher.

MICAH HALEY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

editor@scenelouisiana.com

CONTENTS

Antique rentals for your next production!

ON THE COVER

Annalynne McCord photo: Isaac Matthew White style: Alicia Estrada for Stop Staring! h/mu: Robbert Rapport

ABOVE THE LINE

38

Annalynne McCord gives back

SCENE ON

12

Celebs currently filming in Louisiana

BEFORE THE SCENE

20

A conversation with Craig Robinson

LAST LOOKS

24

True Blood’s Kristina Anapau

TODAY’S SCENE

30

34

Colin & Brad from Whose Line Is It Anyway?

SCENE EXTRAS

For fine furniture to fabulous jewelry, We travel the world!

Notable News and Celebrities on the Scene

MUSIC/SOUND SPEED

46

Preview: Essence Fest 2013 Brooke Waggoner in NOLA

FASHION / THE RED CARPET 58 Andi Eaton on NOLA Fashion Week F/W 2013 Fashion Five

CREATING THE SCENE

68

Dave Davis

ON THE SCENE

72

Oscar Experience 2013

THE UNSCENE

10 | May/June 2013

76

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SCENE ON SOFIA VERGARA Modern Family

Colombian-born beauty SOFIA VERGARA became a household name playing opposite Ed O’Neill on the single camera sitcom Modern Family. On the ABC comedy mega-hit, the brunette mombshell (that’s mom bombshell) is well known for her fiery portrayal of Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, mother to Manny Delgado (Rico Rodriguez) and trophy wife to Jay Pritchett (O’Neill). Now Vergara is in New Orleans to film Heat, a new action film from director Simon West and star Jason Statham.

KERI RUSSELL Dark Skies Sofia Vergara as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett photo by Pete Stone/ABC

Former Felicity star KERI RUSSELL has kept busy since the conclusion of the JJ Abrams-created drama series in 2002. After re-teaming with Abrams on Mission: Impossible III, his feature directorial debut, Russell earned acclaim as Jenna in the indie feature Waitress, starred alongside Adam Sandler in Bedtime Stories, and later, she returned to television to star in Running Wilde with a former magician named Will Arnett. She also recently starred in the sci-fi horror flick Dark Skies. Now on hiatus from her role as an undercover KGB agent in the FX drama The Americans, Russell is in New Orleans filming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Keri Russell as Lacy Barrett photo by Matt Kennedy/Dimension

JASON CLARKE Zero Dark Thirty

Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon photo by Ron Phillips/Warner Bros.

After filming Texas Killing Fields in Louisiana a few years ago, Australian actor JASON CLARKE co-starred with Jessica Chastain as counter-terrorism operatives in the thriller Zero Dark Thirty, an Academy Award nominee for Best Picture. Clarke is currently in New Orleans with Gary Oldman and Keri Russell to film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

GARY OLDMAN

The Dark Knight Rises One of the greatest actors of his generation, GARY OLDMAN has worked with some of the greatest filmmakers of all time, including Robert Zemeckis, Oliver Stone, Ridley Scott, Quentin Tarantino and Francis Ford Coppola.

He recently completed a trilogy of films with director Christopher Nolan, reprising his role as Commissioner Gordon in The Dark Knight Rises. Now Oldman is in New Orleans filming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Jason Clarke as Dan photo by Jonathan Olley

MORE SCENE ON 12 | May/June 2013

SCENE ON ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. Iron Man 3

One-time Brat Packer ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. was once considered risky casting, and a very unorthodox choice to anchor a second tier superhero movie. But after Iron Man grossed $585 million worldwide, the man behind the iron mask was reborn. Now the indispensable metal anchoring the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Robert Downey, Jr. is decidedly back on the A-list. With Iron Man 3 in theaters, RDJ is currently in Louisiana filming The Judge.

VERA FARMIGA Bates Motel Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark photo by Zade Rosenthal

Another alum of The Departed, VERA FARMIGA earned an Academy Award nomination for her work as Alex Goran in Up in the Air. This spring, Farmiga brought to life Norma Bates, the famously deceased star of Alfred Hitchcock’s horror classic Psycho, in A&E’s timelinebending prequel Bates Motel.

Now dear Vera is in New Orleans with Jack Nicholson and Robert Downey, Jr. to film The Judge.

Vera Farmiga as Norma Bates photo by Joe Lederer/NBC

KATHERINE HEIGL One for the Money Jack Nicholson as Frank Costello courtesy of Warner Bros

JACK NICHOLSON The Departed

Three-time Academy Award winner JACK NICHOLSON was working in familiar territory as mobster Frank Costello in the 2006 film The Departed. The veteran actor is well known for portraying villainous characters in films like Batman, The Shining and A Few Good Men. Now the most famous mischievous grin in the world will be in New Orleans to appear in director David Dobkin’s The Judge.

Katherine Heigl as Stephanie Plum photo by Ron Batzdorff

After entering the hospital halls of Grey’s Anatomy, where she earned an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress, KATHERINE HEIGL became a force in the feature world after starring opposite then-unknown Seth Rogen in Knocked Up. The surprise hit comedy made international stars out of both actors. Now, after graduating from Grey’s and with a slew of rom com credits to her name, Heigl’s next project is decidedly darker: she’s currently in New Orleans starring with Patrick Wilson and Scene Magazine partner AJ Buckley in Darko Entertainment’s North of Hell.

MORE SCENE ON 14 | May/June 2013

SCENE ON PATRICK WILSON Insidious

A veteran stage actor and accomplished singer, PATRICK WILSON has seamlessly transitioned to the film industry, balancing critically acclaimed dramas like Angels in America and Little Children with the comic book tentpole Watchmen and the terrifying low-budget horror indie Insidious. Wilson joins Katherine Heigl and Scene partner AJ Buckley in director Anthony Burns North of Hell, now filming in New Orleans.

MICHELLE MONAGHAN Eagle Eye Patrick Wilson as Josh Lambert photo by John Darko/FilmDistrict

MICHELLE MONAGHAN is a rare breed: an everywoman with exceptional beauty. Her unique combination of talent and likability has landed her roles in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Gone Baby Gone and another role coveted by every woman in America: the wife of Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible III. She also co-starred with Shia Lebeouf in the box office smash Eagle Eye. She is now in New Orleans filming True Detective with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.

Michelle Monaghan as Rachel Holloman photo by Ralph Nelson/Dreamworks

Ron Perlman as Clay Morrow photo courtesy of FX Networks

RON PERLMAN Sons of Anarchy

Master of masked acting, some of RON PERLMAN’s most memorable roles have been in films where he is virtually unrecognizable, including as the titular red hero in Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy and Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Perlman has played Clarence “Clay” Morrow on the outlaw biker drama Sons of Anarchy for five seasons.

He’s currently in New Orleans filming Nth Degree.

16 | May/June 2013

Addison Timlin as Rachel Lewis photo by Phillippe Bosse

ADDISON TIMLIN Zero Hour

Brunette beauty ADDISON TIMLIN made a memorable impression as a savvy, if slutty, young ingénue in Showtime’s Californication. After finishing that supporting role in the veteran comedy, along with her role as Rachel Lewis on the ABC series Zero Hour, Timlin will next topline The Town That Dreaded Sundown. The remake of the 1976 serial killer flick of the same name is filming in New Orleans now.

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CRAIG ROBINSON Craig Robinson is a veteran actor best known as Darryl Philbin on the NBC smash hit The Office. He has also starred in Hot Tub Time Machine, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and Pineapple Express. He can next be seen as the lead opposite Kerry Washington in Peeples, and in Seth Rogen’s New Orleans-shot directorial debut This Is The End.

What made you want to become an actor?

I started acting in grade school, just doing plays at church. I didn’t pursue it early on. It was just doing plays at church and what have you.

Once I got to college, I decided I was going to be a musician, but then comedy just overtook me and chose me. I figured I would be a stand-up, so I started doing stand-up and then on my way to learning stand-up, I stopped in at Second City and I started taking classes. I thought they were going to teach me stand-up but it turned out it was this improv stuff. So I thought, “Okay, well, let’s see what goes on here.” I thought, “Just in case I get on a sitcom or something because of my stand-up, maybe I’ll learn some of this.” I was that naïve to think that could happen.

What was your biggest fear?

Going into stand-up, the fear was always that you would get booed, or you won’t be successful. They won’t laugh. Then there was this quote I read, right at the right time, when I was debating whether to do stand-up or not because of those fears. It said, “Do it despite of being afraid.” Go on despite of your fears. I guess my biggest fear was in the stand-up world. It was to not be able to take what I do with my friends and my family and translate that to a larger audience.

What was your lowest point?

There was a period of about three years. I was on The Office, but I wasn’t on it all the time. Stand-up wasn’t as steady, and I was like flat broke. I don’t know how I made rent, but I made my rent every time. Sometimes I had to borrow, and sometimes I had to do other things, but I made my rent every time. I remember going and collecting all of the coins around the house and going to the grocery store to one of those coin machines to exchange it for cash. It was a point where I was being real lazy and feeling real sorry for myself. It was a period of just not wanting to move. I was just straight up lazy…I guess there was some depression there.

What kept you from walking away?

One time I was on a treadmill and I was looking at the TV as I was jogging, and I stopped and said, “You’re trying to get in that box.

That’s ridiculous! What are you doing? You’re trying to fit in that box.” And then I shook it off and I got back on. I’m always there to inspire others and tell them to shake something off, so I have to be able to do that for myself. It might have been me thinking, “This is ridiculous. Why are you trying to do this?” But at the same time I will follow it with, “Yeah, whatever. I chose this. So, what am I going to do? Go back and teach? Get up and get in there.”

20 | May/June 2013

Who has been your closest ally?

My younger brother, Chris Rob. We lean on each other pretty heavily.

What were you doing before the audition that changed your life?

I still don’t feel like, “Okay. Everything’s okay.” I have some nice things going on, but I’m good until about August. I just did a sitcom pilot for NBC and if that doesn’t get picked up, I’m out of work by August. The goal is to keep working. The first audition that I got that I thought, “Okay, maybe I can do something in this game,” was for Lucky for FX, this John Corbett show. This was before The Office. These guys, the Cullen brothers, wrote it. And I went in, and Robb Cullen told me, “You were the only one that seemed like you cared about your friend’s situation. Everyone else threw this one line away, but you actually cared.” That’s what got me the part, that one line.

What were the words that kept you going?

A quote by John Greenleaf Whittier. He said, “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been.’”

I’ve always kind of thought about that. Instead of getting to be seventy-five or eighty years old and have a family and go, “Oh, I could have been funny, I could have been in movies.” No, it’s like, if you could have, then you can. So let’s see what you got!

How have you changed?

No. Maybe a little bit. I’m pretty much the same silly dude. I go in lanes. When I came out to L.A. it was like, “Find out how to get auditions.” And then, I got into the next lane, which was “getting auditions.” The next lane is “callbacks” and then “getting the part.” Things have always happened like that.

Even in The Office, I started out in the warehouse for a couple of episodes here, a couple there. Then I moved up to seven out of thirteen episodes, and then all episodes produced, and upstairs in the office. It’s always like I get a little bit at a time.

What words do you have to inspire others?

Be yourself. You’re the only you, and you’re different everybody else. You have to bring that to the table. gotta be you. You gotta take what makes you you, push forward with that. Put all of your money on

than You and that.

How does it feel to land a wife like Kerry Washington?

It feels like I wish it was real. S A partner in Scene Magazine and the president of Louisiana Entertainment Publishers, AJ has starred for the last eight years as Adam Ross on the hit TV show CSI:NY. Originally from Dublin and raised in Vancouver, he has spent the past twelve years in Los Angeles acting, writing and directing. He is currently in Louisiana producing and starring in North of Hell. Find out more on Twitter @AJohnBuckley and at www.ajbuckley.net.

BEFORE THE SCENE

CRAIG ROBINSON photo by Dimitrios Kambouris

www.scenelouisiana.com | 21

FILM |

KRISTINA ANAPAU’S faerie tale

by Micah Haley photos: Davide Tuma h/mu: Teal Druda production: Laura García Jiménez

W

ith a smash series returning and four films scheduled for release this year, Kristina Anapau has a full slate.

On June 16 is the return of HBO’s Louisianaset vampire saga True Blood, where for the last two seasons the brunette beauty has played Maurella, a fellow faerie to series star Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin). “It’s the best family of any on-set family experience I’ve ever had,” says Anapau.

“It’s a pleasure to come to work every day. You look forward to it. When the season ended, it was such a downer because it wasn’t just that you missed the actual work of it, but you missed seeing your family every day. It’s a wonderful environment.”

With each of True Blood’s first five seasons, creator and showrunner Alan Ball has kept the show centered on camp-infused character development, while also expanding the world in and around the fictitious town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. Season two expands out of Louisiana to Dallas, where a pseudo-Christian cult is hellbent on killing vampires, and into the drunken world of a maenad named Maryann. Season three takes us to Texas, where we meet Mississippi King Russell Edgington and a pack of werewolves.

Season four crowns Bill the King of Louisiana, and introduced Marnie, who leads a coven of witches, which had never before been seen in the vamp camp series. And season five finally began to reveal more about the faerie world from whence Sookie, and Maurella, came.

Anapau joined the series on season four. “It was a very quick 24 | May/June 2013

audition. I just did the scene once through with Alan [Ball] in the room,” she recalls of the audition that earned her the role of Maurella. “HBO really trusts Alan to make the call, so there wasn’t a really big bureaucratic process of meetings that I had to go through.

That is usually the case on an established television show. Usually there’s at least one more meeting where there’s a bunch of executives, but there wasn’t any of that. They really trust him to create the show he wants to create. Maybe three hours later, I got a phone call.”

“I was a fan of the show, and was up-to-date on everything that was going on,” says Anapau. “I was very up-to-date with what was happening in the faerie world, and with Sookie finding out she was half-faerie. It was exciting to be a faerie!

At the time, I couldn’t think of any other creature on the show that I would rather be than a faerie. To read people’s minds and shoot balls of light out of your hands?! I got this!”

The Hawaii native notes how much the depiction of faeries on the show has changed since they were first introduced. “The faeries have changed a lot,” she says. “Even from my first episodes in season four to the episodes in season five, our whole look changed.

When Sookie first found out she was a faerie, she was eating those golden fruits. It was a totally different world than it is now with the faerie night club, where it’s sexier and edgier. It’s almost like a different species of faeries. It’s a fun realm to be a part of, for sure.”

Unlike a feature film, in which an actor can read their character’s

| FILM

www.scenelouisiana.com | 25

FILM | entire arc in one sitting, television expects the actor to learn about the character piecemeal, in much the same way that the audience learns. “I was just trying to find my niche within Alan’s world,” says Anapau of her first days on set. “I didn’t know I was five hundred years old until [later]. I didn’t know that I was the next in line to become an Elder, so I had to incorporate that pretty quickly. On set, I tried to inject an element of regality. Not aristocratic, but a timeless regal nobility. A way of carrying myself. That helped physically.”

Joining the show midstream, Anapau relied on one of the show’s veterans to help her acclimate to the humid Southern weather.

“Chris taught me a bunch of things about shaping the character and how the writer’s write on that show,” says Anapau of her costar Chris Bauer, who plays Bon Temps sheriff Andy Belfleur, the father of Maurella’s faerie child. “It’s a Darwinian process. The little things you do as an actor, that you inject into the role, they will take that and run with it. You’ll be a part of shaping the character into who you want them to be. We decided together, in that first scene, that she should have an element of ‘creatureness’ to her, and that has helped shape the character on down the line. She’s a faerie; essentially they are little woodland creatures. I always think that before a scene: how can I inject a sense of ‘creatureness’ into her?”

The little hints of animal instinct embedded within Maurella’s voluptuous pixie persona are just one of the character’s attributes, though. “You have to make sure to keep a sense of humanity in the scene,” she says. “Which all of the supernatural creatures on True Blood do really well. All of the werewolves and vampires. That’s part of the success of the show, I think. They are these fantastical creatures that have very human experiences that people can relate to.”

“Andy is such a sweet character, and so innocent in a lot of ways,” says Anapau of her character’s mate. “And I feel like, ‘Oh Maurella! Always taking advantage of Andy!’ He allows it to happen, of course, but the faeries need the humans. They are obviously trying to repopulate their faerie population. It seemingly doesn’t matter if it’s a hybrid faerie or not. Maybe a hybrid faerie is better in some regard: maybe it can kind of straddle both worlds easier. Maybe the vampires are less likely to kill them. But the faeries do seem to be repopulating with the help of the humans.”

With her character very pregnant, Anapau had to wear a body suit to provide the necessary belly bump. “It’s like a one piece bathing suit. It’s very lightweight. It’s made of foam. Very comfortable,” she recalls. “I missed it when it was gone. I missed having something to rest my hands on. I started feeling very maternal! I would be rocking back and forth, rubbing it, without thinking about it. And castmates would be commenting about it, like, ‘What is going on?!

Maybe she’s just getting into character.’ But I wasn’t! It was sort of a biological thing that happened. Just having that pregnant belly triggered something in my brain that I gotta take care of that belly!”

During the filming of season five, Anna Paquin was actually pregnant, while her character Sookie Stackhouse was not. The camera had to be carefully placed to hide Paquin’s stomach. “If our characters were walking together, they would put me in front of her to hide her real belly.”

Prior to entering the ether of the faerie world, Kristina Anapau landed a plumb gig in director Darren Aronofsky’s ballet horror opus Black Swan. Though the film shot in New York, it was financed by Louisiana-based Cross Creek Pictures. Alongside Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman, who 26 | May/June 2013

won an Oscar for her performance, was Anapau as Galina.

“Auditions were here in L.A., even though we shot in New York. I went in for the casting director and did a reading, and she brought me back the next day for Darren, which was frightening!” she remembers of the casting process. “I read for Darren, and he wanted me to put myself on tape doing ballet. He sat me down on the couch next to him, and he wanted to show me a clip of ABT doing Swan Lake.”

The clip featured the American Ballet Theatre, one of the best ballet companies doing one of the most difficult ballets.

“They sat me down and showed me this woman doing one of the hardest solos in ballet. Darren asks, ‘You can do this, right?” I was like, ‘Yeah! Oh, no problem!’ And I really wasn’t lying. I felt like I could, I believed it! And so, I left the room, super excited, and I thought, ‘I’ve got to do this. This is the final step to being in Black Swan. I’m going to be in Black Swan! This is going to be great!’”

“I took out my old pointe shoes. I had my computer up with the ABT woman dancing, and I was just going to do the same thing. I downloaded that piece of music. I strapped on my pointe shoes,” she remembers. “But I hadn’t danced in so long, I forgot that you are supposed to cut your toenails short, or else bad things can start happening. And bad things did happen.”

Anapau hadn’t danced in years, with the exception of

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FILM | attending classes sporadically for essentially. Most of us had had a lot exercise. She estimates her absence of dance training, but there’s a huge from regular training at ten years prior difference between having a lot of to her audition for Black Swan. “First dance training and looking like you are of all, I couldn’t emulate that lady a professional ballerina who has been like I thought I could. So, I got a little in a company for five years and danced panicked, but I had a few weeks to eight hours a day, every single day.” prepare, and I just thought, ‘I’ll work Black Swan was one of the most really hard, get back in class and get prestigious opportunities of her my endurance back,” she says. “But the career to date, but there was no time next day, I put my pointe shoes back on for nerves. “My focus was so wrapped and I couldn’t even put any pressure on up in ballet, I didn’t have any time to one of my feet. I’d bruised my toe so bad Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky be nervous. I should have been! But photo by Niko Tavernise because I forgot to cut it. I ended up it eliminated any nerves I had about having to have that toenail removed. It working on a project with such an was so bruised because I’d jumped back incredible director that I admired, into things so ambitiously. So I had and this amazing cast that I admired.” to put myself on tape in flat shoes, in “I think all of those stressful ballet slippers, knowing that they were moments were there to help going to ask to see me on pointe. But us experience the things that a that’s all I could do for that weekend.” struggling professional ballerina While at the podiatrist’s office having in the dead of winter in New York the damaged toenail removed, Anapau’s experiences,” Anapau muses. “We agent called, telling her, “They love it, all lost so much weight! Natalie lost but they want to see you on pointe.” a lot of weight, I was eighty-seven “No problem, I’ll get right on pounds. We were all super, super that!” was all she could tell her agent, skinny and it was really cold. It was while looking at her injured foot. what a ballerina would experience.”

“It seemed impossible that that was Anapau saved a memento from going to happen. But I somehow did the painful ordeal of auditioning, it, within that week,” she says. “It and later, after she received the was excruciatingly painful. But I got part and principle photography had in a ballet studio, and had a friend wrapped on Black Swan, she gave come and video it. I remember not it to Aronofsky as a wrap present. being able to keep up with the music, “I saved the toenail!” She laughs. and my whole foot was throbbing “He doesn’t even know the whole like my leg was going to fall off. But story! I’ve never told him, ‘I lost my I remember thinking, ‘If I can’t put toenail in the process of auditioning for this on tape, I’m not going to get the you.’ I wrote it in the card after we had Anapau as Maurella photo by John P. Johnson job.’ I don’t know what happened, completed filming. It was a fancy card but that final take, I just channeled everything I had and was with the paper on the inside, so I wrote on the paper, and underneath able to keep up with the music enough to send a clip to them.” the paper was a little plastic bag with the toenail in it. He said that There were several months in between the audition and I’ve joined the long list of actors that have dramatically injured when casting for the film would be finalized, so Anapau took themselves. I told him, ‘You can’t do voodoo with this, Darren.’” the initiative to begin training. “I had trained since I was four up “This is an industry that allows for so much expansion as a until the time I was about seventeen. I had a good base for sure. person,” says Anapau of filming Black Swan. After growing up From when I submitted my toenail-less audition tape, until I training as a dancer, the film allowed her to fulfill a childhood found out I got the role, I just decided I may as well be in class dream of being a ballerina. “The whole thing was cathartic.” everyday,” she says. “I went to a school here in Los Angeles that’s Aside from True Blood’s return, Kristina Anapau will a classical Russian school, and did intense training, got back on appear in several other projects this year, including Blackjacks, pointe, and was able to get comfortable with everything again.” which she describes as a “special ops action thriller,” and After winning the role, the ballet classes continued. “Even before Sighting, a paranormal thriller set in West Coast wine country. arriving in New York, we had teachers from ABT – very, very strict She also recently finished a Verizon campaign to raise money Russian teachers – that were assigned to us,” she says. “We had for the charity Stand Up to Cancer. It was a tribute to her mother, intense training sessions leading up to the first day of filming, and who was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, and passed away even filtered in during filming. For me, that was very stressful, and only a few months ago. Find out more about how you can help at I was so focused on that. We had to become professional ballerinas, standup2cancer.org, and by following her on Twitter at @KristinaAnapau. S 28 | May/June 2013

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TODAY’S SCENE

TWO OF A KIND Q&A WITH IMPROV ACES COLIN MOCHRIE & BRAD SHERWOOD

by Elizabeth Shaw

photos by Elizabeth Shaw

V

eterans of the ABC improv sketch comedy Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood regularly perform a two-man improv show at intimate venues across the country. The pair recently brought their brand of belly laughs to the LSU Student Union Theatre in April. In their interview with Scene Magazine just before taking the stage, they revealed that after a ten-year hiatus, Whose Line would be returning to American television this July on The CW network.

Scene: Whose Line Is It Anyway is such a beloved show. What is your favorite memory of shooting it?

Colin: It was kind of the perfect gig. It didn’t take a lot of time… about three weekends out of the year. It was just getting together with friends and goofing around in front of an audience. There was a chance for us to do improv, which we love doing. It was the best of gigs because it was short enough that we didn’t get on each other’s nerves and we were always looking forward to getting together and working.

Brad: It was just like a regular comedy show that we would

do performing live because we had an audience. But the only difference was a camera crew and the producer was there.

Colin: We had more control in a way because we were making it up. They really depended on us to even have the show. Executives couldn’t really do anything because we were coming up with the show.

30 | May/June 2013

Scene: And that offered a lot of creative freedom?

Brad: You can only improve something after the fact. There was no

script for [the producers] to look at so they just sit in the chair, watch the show, and write down what they didn’t like, and if they were worried about the censors or something.

Scene: Did you have a favorite skit?

Colin: Sometimes you hit a plateau with a game so the next time you play

it, you start to grow weary of it. “Hoedowns” were never my favorite. I think my consistent favorite was “Greatest Hits,” because it was a chance to just mess with Ryan [Stiles]. So that was fun, and then pass it over to these guys, and they would do these amazing songs. It was fun as a participant and as a spectator to see what these guys would come up with.

Brad: I love doing all the music stuff because it’s hard. I’m good at it, but it’s still scary and hard every time I do it. You’ve got to make it rhyme, you’ve got to be on key, it’s got to make sense, and your brain is just going a mile a minute. As fast as your brain is going just in a regular improv show, it’s just going a little faster every time you try to make a song make sense.

Colin: I really thought those guys never got the credit they deserved with the songs because, as Brad said, they’ve got to be funny, they have to rhyme, but they’ve also got to sound good and they would consistently knock it out of the park. I think that was one of the ones where people always thought, “Oh, they’ve got to be cheating somehow, they’ve

TODAY’S SCENE written it beforehand.” But I can attest, they didn’t. Although, there were times I thought, “Oh, they must’ve written that beforehand,” even though I just gave them the title of the song off the top of my head.

Scene: To this day, I still have some Whose Line songs stuck in my head.

Colin: They are pretty catchy! I’m actually surprised they didn’t come out with a CD. A CD collection of “A Squirrel Chewed a Bag of My Nuts” or whatever.

Scene: What is a skit that you get asked about during the two-man show?

Colin: “Props” is definitely one of the ones we always get asked about because there is no way we can improvise it, unless we traveled with our gigantic Styrofoam cut-outs.

Brad:

[On Whose Line], They have prop people who make them. We wouldn’t get to see them beforehand because they would literally just walk them out on stage.

Colin: And they always just looked like genitalia. That was always the first thing that came into my mind.

Brad: I always liked that game because you had to come up with ten jokes for the same thing. To me, it was like a crossword puzzle.

Scene: You guys are masters of short-form comedic improv. Have you ever tried long-form improv or dramatic improv?

Colin: I did, once. I was in a movie with my wife. It was about this woman who was about to give birth, a sort of a free spirit about to have a home birth with the three prospective fathers and her sister, who is my actual wife. We shot it in about twelve days. The woman playing the pregnant woman was actually eight months pregnant and I think only three of us had actually improvised before. It turned out really well. It was fun using a different improv muscle.

Scene: You enjoyed the change of pace.

Colin: I did, although I would never give up comedic improv.

You really need the laughs. We’re kind of laugh-whores.

Brad: I’ve done long-form improv, where you’re telling three stories sort of simultaneously to the first act, the second act and the third act. It was still the comedic effect but because you were telling a story, it wasn’t like what we do with this show, which is more of a game improv where it’s laugh after laugh. There was a lot more set up and conversation, setting up the scene and creating plot points. It’s not that it was dramatic but it was more of a narrative.

Colin: [Dramatic improv is] basically the same rules as comedic improv, but it’s harder as a comedic improviser to get the audience to buy into it. “Oh he’s not going for laughs,” or “Oh, he’s just horrible.”

Brad: The only real use for dramatic improv is when shooting a movie where you’ve done the script and now the director says, “Do a couple more takes.” You can just start with the first couple of lines and then

just continue with a monologue or something. There’s no real practical aspect for it, as far as live performing, because I just don’t think audiences will want to see guys doing something dramatic.

Colin: It’s so precious and it gets really self-indulgent, I find. When you do it onstage everyone’s just trying to outact each other, which is just horrific.

Scene: Do you think improv has

helped you with communication in the real world?

Colin: [laughs] You would think it would help in some way!

Brad: [laughing] You’d think we would have really great people skills, considering we can think so fast on our feet.

Colin: There is a thing in improv called “Yes, and” where you accept peoples’ offers and then build on them. So we always think that’s something we should do in life because the first thing you usually want to say is, “No, but…” So every once in a while I think, “Today, I’m going to have a ‘Yes, and’ day and accept peoples’ ideas no matter how stupid they are.

Brad: He lasts five minutes.

Colin: Yeah, I mean, I still can’t win an argument with my wife.

Brad: Is that even possible?

Colin: No, she’s really good.

Brad: I’m talking about wives in general. I haven’t won one.

Colin: No, and she’s not even an improviser.

Scene: Do you think it’s just women?

Brad: Well, in the old days, guys could win with violence. That was just

the way to end the argument.

Colin: I think through improv, I’ve found it easier to accept things that I can’t control. (Turns to Brad) Not so much for you because you’re more of a control freak.

Brad: I am.

Colin: But I tend to think, “Okay, this is what is happening and there’s nothing I can do at that particular point to change that, so let’s just see what plays out and maybe we can get out of this somehow.” Aside from that, it hasn’t really helped my life at all.

Brad: I’ve actually started to make an effort to be less of a control freak.

Except in aesthetics, especially in our house. I like things organized.

However, as life goes, I’m trying to let go of the need to have everything happen according to my plan.

Scene: The “Yes, and” approach is very pervasive in comedy improv. When do you say no?

Brad: Once you get good at improv, there are plenty of times you can say “no” and throw obstacles. In the early stages, you just have to say “yes” and not throw obstacles because your brain isn’t as www.scenelouisiana.com | 31

TODAY’S SCENE experienced enough as an improviser to get around the obstacle someone else throws you. We’re constantly blocking each other and throwing up traps and pits for each other. But that’s because we’ve gotten to a place where it’s more fun to have obstacles.

Colin: And our “no’s” are kind of “yes’s” because it doesn’t stop the scene and it does something to the relationship that we’ve built up on that scene.

bands, so we don’t have to be on the roads for three months solid.

Colin: And the show’s always different so we never get bored with it.

We keep coming up with new games. We actually surprised ourselves by coming up with one a couple of days ago. At a point, you’d think we’ve reached a point where we cannot come up with anything else for a twoperson game and yet we still do it. It still feeds our creative fire and it’s fun to do.

Brad: There’s no monotony, which is great. The only monotonous part is the travel and the hotels but the show itself is exciting every night, even when we’re playing the same list of games we did the night before, because we’re bringing up new audience members and different suggestions, so it’s always fun.

Scene: You both hosted the Press Correspondent’s dinner with President George W. Bush in attendance. What was the highlight of doing that and how in the world did you get Karl Rove to do the rap improv?

Brad: We were sitting at a table and I just saw he was sitting at the table next to ours.

I made a mental note to myself that I’m Scene: What’s your favorite venue going to ask him if he would do the show Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood with Scene’s that you guys have performed at as because we typically just grab people Elizabeth Shaw a team? during the show. We typically don’t ask them in advance. I thought Karl Colin: Milwaukee. For some reason, they’ve really taken to us. I Rove was probably going to say no to me, so then I’d just ask Wolf Blitzer think we’ve done about seventeen shows there. instead. But Karl just jumped up, raised his hands, and followed me to Brad: Yeah, they’ve sort of adopted us. This January will be our tenth the stage and I thought, “Oh, boy this is going to be a media freak show.” year playing there in a row. We haven’t played any other city every single Colin: The day after we got a call from his office saying that Mr. year of our tour except for Milwaukee and the shows sell out. We’re Rove wanted us to come to the White House. So we went to the just like they’re little adopted comedy show that they come to every White House and he took us on this tour of the place. He took us single year. It’s tradition now because families come every year to see it. into the Oval Office and the President and the Vice President were Colin: It’s great for us because we try to come up with something both there, so we talked to both of them for like twenty minutes. new for the show for Milwaukee.

Brad: That was the highlight. Politically, I’m more of a liberal but Brad: Every time we go there we have the pressure of coming up it was still cool. I mean, two guys who do improv and make fart with something new and creating a new set list. jokes just wandering into the White House not even expecting to meet the President. Most people get cleared months in advance Scene: That’s great to have such a strong following. There’s to go to the White House. We literally were told to just stop on by been talk of a Whose Line is it Anyway? reboot in the works. Is the next day and we didn’t even know we were going into the Oval there anything you guys could tell me about that?

Office. We thought we were just going into Karl Rove’s office and Colin: There is a Whose Line reboot in the works! I believe we start just see part of the West Wing. He just walked us right on into the shooting next weekend and then it premieres July 16th on The CW. Oval Office right after his meeting. That was a pretty big surprise.

Colin: I was thinking, man, this looks exactly like The West Wing.

Scene: But it’s a different host this time, correct?

Brad: How many people have ever gone into the Oval Colin: Yes, Aisha Tyler will be the host. Brad actually knows her Office not knowing that they were going there? We might from the olden days. I think everyone’s excited but there’s also that be four of the only people that have ever done that! pressure because we’ve found that, doing our show, we’re getting Colin: And then to get to chat with the President for about twenty a younger audience again because all these kids who weren’t even minutes. born when the show original aired have caught up with it on Brad: Dick Cheney was in the corner looking like a live bunny. YouTube. There are all these classic scenes they have memorized.

Colin: Yeah, he looked a little bit evil.

Brad: And kids who watched it when they were ten are now adults and buying their own tickets so it’s like this whole new Scene: You guys have both been doing your two-man show for generation of people with discretionary income are coming to see it. ten years. What is it that keeps you coming back to work with Colin: There’s also that pressure of “it has to at least be as good as it each other? was before” but I’m sure it’ll work out.

Brad: We both like making people laugh and improv is our favorite type of performing. We’ve been doing it for ten years now and for the Scene: I’m sure it will be great. How long has it been since the most part, it pays our bills so all the other work we do is just icing. original American series?

This became a sort of full-time, part-time job and it’s doing what Brad: I think about twelve years. we love to do. We just go out on the weekends a couple of times a month and the rest of the time work at home. It’s not like we’re rock Scene: Well, we’re definitely looking forward to it. S 32 | May/June 2013

scene

DISNEY MAGIC IN METAIRIE

by Jillian Brown

photos courtesy of Disney

A

fter swimming with Ariel in the deep blue sea, crossing our fingers that Cinderella would make it back by midnight, and making magic with Mickey one night on Bald Mountain, the magical world of Disney lives on in our hearts, regardless of age. The lucky locals of Metairie celebrated the grand opening of an award-winning new concept Disney Store at the Lakeside Shopping Center on April 13.

One lucky child was chosen to “unlock imagination” with an extravagant oversized key on the official opening day. Disney has decided to continue this tradition every morning at the Metairie location, to give many more children the unforgettable opportunity. Parents brought their prince and princesses to enjoy the interactive shopping destination, furnished with magical mirrors, translucent magical trees, a princess castle, a DisneyPixar Cars neighborhood and the Disney Store theater, a set featuring the latest Disney entertainment.

The first five hundred guests to attend the grand opening ceremony received free Disney gifts. Special guests, Mickey and Minnie Mouse surprised the imagination seekers in the food court at noon for a meet-and-greet photo op. Elated, the children—and some parents—waited patiently in line to capture the memorable afternoon.

“Disney Store brings the magic of Disney to life every day in Metairie,” says Paul Gainer, senior vice president of Disney Store North America. “We’ve created an interactive shopping destination that offers technology-infused, engaging experiences for the entire family to enjoy.”

Since the launch of the new concept design in 2010, Disney Store has been transforming their stores all around the world. To celebrate the release of Iron Man 3, the Metairie Disney location will offer an assortment of Iron Man 3 apparel, toys and costumes for all ages. For more information, be sure to visit www.disneyconsumerproducts.com/press/us. S

34 | May/June 2013

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SCENE |

The Breton Sound

photo by Julia Pretus

THE BRETON SOUND BIRTHS ROCK ‘N’ HOPS

by Katianna Bear

W

ith influences varying from Weezer to Van Halen, The Descendants to Dredg, Oasis to Foo Fighters, mixed with band members’ diverse musical experience, The Breton Sound has created an impressively original rock feel.

Based out of New Orleans, the group began with lead vocalist Jonathan Pretus and lead guitarist Stephen Turner. The two first produced an EP named Eudaemonia, a blend of Pretus’ Beatlesque-pop background and Turner’s Rush-infused guitar work. After an experimental year of playing the set, the band added Brian Pretus on bass and vocals, and Jonathan Alcon on drums. The foursome now not only shared the bond of the brothers Pretus, but also the strong musical connection between Alcon and Turner, previous band members of Epic, an experimental progressive rock group.

Now after two years, the Breton boys are teaming up once again with another New Orleanian: Better Than Ezra bassist Tom Drummond. Drummond, who also produced Eudaemonia, will produce their upcoming foursong EP, Maps (or Cartography and the Art of Generalization).

“The idea was to start a project where our polar opposite musical backgrounds find a common ground and see what happens,” Turner says. Not certain their sound fits one single genre, he says they are a mixture of punk rock, pop rock, classic and current. Their unique sound is matched by the musical originality each member of the group brings to the table.

36 | May/June 2013

Whatever the foursome has produced, the public response has been positive. Recently, The Breton Sound was deemed one of the “12 Louisiana Bands You Should Listen To” by Paste Magazine. Their impact in the New Orleans music scene marks a bright future. “There’s such an incredible amount of talent in this state, in all genres, and rock doesn’t usually get singled out much here. So to be singled out makes us feel like we’re doing something right,” says lead vocalist Jonathan in response to the Paste list.

The Breton boys landed a coveted spot at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on the Lagniappe Stage for opening day on Friday, April 26. The guys performed their electric live show right alongside Maroon 5, Fleetwood Mac and Band of Horses.

“Our live show is really high energy and fun.

You can tell that we’re having a good time on stage, and that extends to the audience,” say Jonathan Pretus. “We all love playing rock music, and we’ve stayed true to ourselves, and I think people appreciate that.”

Shortly after their Jazz Fest debut, The Breton Sound brings us Rock ‘n’ Hops, a rock concert to show off Maps and showcase a group of Louisiana musicians they admire.

Southern bands like the Coyotes, Liam Catchings and the Jolly Racket and Bantam Foxes, among others, will take to the outdoor stage for locals and festivalgoers to enjoy.

Rock ‘n’ Hops takes place Saturday, May 4 at NOLA Brewing.

For more information, visit www.thebretonsound.com. S

ABOVE THE LINE

ANNALYNNE

McCORD gives back to New Orleans

by Katianna Bear

S

he’s the sweetest vixen you’ll ever meet. Star of The CW’s 90210 and films such as Blood Out and Excision, the on-screen wild child is a kindhearted philanthropist offscreen, supporting causes across the world, and one in

particular in New Orleans. Annalynne McCord has been back and forth to Louisiana, not only for work, but to support a charity close to her heart: the St. Bernard Project. For six years, the actress has made her way south to work with her own hands, rebuilding the homes Hurricane Katrina destroyed. Over Easter weekend, Annalynne left Los Angeles to help the Jackson family reconstruct their storm-wrecked home, which was taken from them over eight years ago.

38 | May/June 2013

ABOVE THE LINE

www.scenelouisiana.com | 39

ABOVE THE LINE KB: There are so many good charitable organizations. What is it about the St. Bernard that has continued to hold your interest?

AM: The St. Bernard project is singled out in my mind as an organization that gets down to business. With only twelve percent overhead, the organization is spending eighty-eight cents on the dollar, which goes directly to putting families back into their homes.

They have proven to be successful, with just under five hundred homes. That’s five hundred families back finally in a house after almost eight years since Katrina hit New Orleans. And President Obama recognized this organization as the resilience and the heart of the rebuilding process. The organization has proven to be a very successful post-natural disaster recovery charitable cause and I think that this particular business model can continue to prove successful.

This is becoming such a successful model because the number one objective is that the organization will cease to exist. The number one goal at the St. Bernard Project is that they will no longer need to be, because every family will be back in their homes. That’s why they are, in my opinion, the best organization to actively make that choice to get the homes rebuilt. They utilize absolutely every possible grant and all volunteer work. Every opportunity that they can take advantage of, they do. No stone is left unturned.

KB: You’ve worked with the St. Bernard Project for quite a while.

How did you find out about the work they were doing?

AM: It started with my first trip to New Orleans, which was my first trip to Louisiana, actually. It was some time in the early months of 2007. I was visiting someone working down here and I was just going to go see the rebuilding process, take a taxi down to the lower ninth ward. The person I was here to visit was working on a project right in New Orleans, in the French Quarter, and didn’t really care to venture out on their weekends off, so I just hopped in a cab myself.

I remember my first part of the experience: the taxi driver was like, “Where do you want to go!?” And then, “Why? Why do you want to go to lower ninth ward?” And I’m like, “I want to go, I want to see what happened. I want to see how the rebuild is going.” The taxi driver seemed very leery at even taking me to the areas that were really damaged and very leery of leaving me there.

I soon found out why. It was like a ghost town. I was looking around and there was no one. You would expect one of those dust bunnies to roll across the way, and in that moment, I sensed this overwhelming feeling of death and desolation. I had this awareness of the fact that this is in my country. This is in the great United States of America.

How is this possible? I felt incredibly ignorant. I felt that here I was, going to see the progress of what’s been done, because two full years had passed. I had no idea. CNN just stopped talking about it, no one cared anymore. It was like, “Well, that sensationalized issue is passed. It’s been two months. Let’s move on to the next exciting new hurricane or exciting new Tiger Woods-cheating-on-his-wife-story."

Here we are in 2013, and these people almost eight years later are still in need of people donating their time and money to put these people back in their homes. They lost everything eight years ago. It’s not a two-month process, it’s not a two-year process. It’s decades of time that they took up in their life, saving up for this, to be able to buy their first home or whatever the case may be.

So, my interest was born out of ignorance. It was born out of my 40 | May/June 2013

hatred for the fact that I was so ignorant about something going on in my own country. Not long after I started 90210, I was on the show for a bit and, I think it was during Emmys weekend, I was at the gifting suite.

There was a booth for a lovely charitable organization and I was much more interested in that than what everyone else and their egocentric mentalities were talking about during that event. I spent probably the better part of an hour talking to Zach Rosenberg about the fact that they had started this organization down in New Orleans and they had built two hundred houses in the time that other organizations down here had built thirty, at the most. They were turning over homes. They were putting families back in their houses in weeks — not months, not years — in weeks. It sounded like a really remarkable business model and so I said, "When I wrap my show in a couple of months, I’m going to come back and build." I guess every actor probably told Zach and Liz that because they looked at me like I was selling a line of crap. I was just like, “I’m gonna come down when I wrap! And I’m gonna help build houses with you guys!” And they said, doubtfully, “Great, that sounds great. Thanks.”

KB: But you were able to go down.

AM: I wrapped the third week of March and that weekend, I came down and just spent the week meeting families and working on houses and they were like, “You really came!!” That was five years ago and I’ve come down a couple times a year. I always try and get down for the anniversary of Katrina in August. Because of that, my cousin now works with Americorp with the St. Bernard Project. I’m so proud of her!

She wanted to spend her sixteenth birthday three years ago down here, which is August 27, and the anniversary is August 29, obviously. So, we did that for her birthday. Now it’s a birthday thing because we’re here this weekend: March 26 was Heather, her younger sister’s 17th birthday.

KB: What kind of outreach have you been doing on behalf of the St. Bernard Project?

AM: It’s been a process of raising the money, using Twitter, using social

media, which has been really spectacular across the board in raising awareness. I can’t think of a better outlet than social media. I have such incredible fans online who have raised money, who have come down and volunteered, just by seeing me tweet about the work. It’s really, really remarkable what can be done when a volunteer comes and spends their day. People don’t realize: they think they need to have a construction background. You don’t. You don’t have to know anything. I know because I didn’t! And I’ve learned pretty much every process. Today I’m learning one of the last processes I haven’t done yet, which is laminates: doing the actual flooring. You can learn how to build your own house.

We’re not going to have you do plumbing, we’re not going to have you do electricity, so don’t worry! Not anything that you need a license for. It’s the simple things like painting, and putting in baseboards…things that are time-consuming for the homeowners, for the construction workers.

Volunteers can come in, they can pour their love and pour their energy into this home and when the family comes back, not only do they have their home back, they have their life back. They have what they had pre-Katrina. They also have energy in their home. All of that love that is invested in the three to four week process of the building of the home.

Sometimes, in the early stages, like when we put the sheetrock in, we’ll put notes—we’ll write love notes and prayers and we will put it in the walls. It’s incredibly gratifying for the builder, and for the volunteer. It’s

ABOVE THE LINE

humbling for the clients and they are so wonderful and gracious and we are always so thankful for them allowing us to come in their home because we’ll spend nine hours a day in there. If I was building my house I would be complaining, “I’m hot, I’m this, I’m that.” You don’t even know you’ve been there. You’re like, “What! It’s already time to go?” I know it’s cliché, but the greatest gift of all is the gift of giving.

Because you don’t realize it’s the one thing that breaks the universal law.

When you give to someone else you also receive. Normally the law is, if I give, I have less. When I give to you, I have more in this situation. It’s a remarkable thing. That’s why people should come out and volunteer!

KB: And the homeowners work alongside the volunteers, right?

AM: Absolutely. There will be situations where that’s not possible, but, whenever they are able bodied, they help. I was here last August, and the woman was eighty-five years old. She was telling us, “Will you put my TV over here?” Haha! I’ve worked with eight year olds who are helping build the house that they are going to live in. And they are so excited! They are telling me what color the walls are going to be. One little boy I remember, he was pointing out the window where he was going to build his tree house. He was going to have a little rope ladder to his window so he could escape to his tree house. When you hear these stories, if it doesn’t bring you to tears, I don’t know who you are!

It’s just a simple thing. They just want a home. They want something that we take for granted and they get so excited. If anyone can come to a ribbon cutting ceremony, it’s the most incredible experience. You hear the stories, you hear the struggle, you see the incredible resilience www.scenelouisiana.com | 41

ABOVE THE LINE of these unbelievable people here. What’s happened for me is that I call New Orleans my family, my home away from home, because the people are so family-oriented. A lot of times when you’re in Los Angeles, or New York, or Miami, these large metropolitan cities, the first question people ask is, “What do you do?” I’ve found here, they’re like, “How’s your family?”

They want to know about what really matters, core things. I've learned that's what's behind their mentality: the psychology behind the desire to stay and have your home rebuilt. It’s because they live across the street from Grandma and down the road from Aunt Jenny and over two blocks down is cousin Lucas.

It’s not just an establishment, it represents family. It represents photo by Katianna Bear home. And that’s why I think St. Bernard Project has been really successful in giving that back to these wonderful people here in New Orleans.

KB: How many different houses have you worked on?

AB: Ha! I have no idea. Maybe twelve or fifteen different houses

in various different stages. I’ll never forget my first experience was putting sheet rock into the ceiling. They start me off with a bang! It was just like, “Get in there!!” You want to talk about ten feet of sheet rock and three little girls trying to lift it above their head? Then I learned there were easier processes to do that.

If I’m here for a longer period of time doing a movie or whatever, I try to work on as many different houses and meet as many different families as possible so I can continue to spread the love. One experience was a young girl, I guess Zach and Liz at St. Bernard Project had informed the family that an actress was coming to visit and the little girl came running out of the house, “Are you the girl from Hollywood?!” And it was cool that something that I do for a job, that was my dream - I love what I do, but it’s still a job - that made her feel excited and special. She came and grabbed me by the arm and took me to her princess room.

They were just able to move in within that year I believe, so she showed me everything. Her room was purple and pink and couldn’t have been more adorable. Simple dreams come true when people take the time to volunteer or have the finances to donate to this project. They are allowing people to be able to come home. It’s a really incredible thing.

KB: Do you keep in contact with any of the families?

AM: I have one little special family that is close to my heart. I love all of them, but there is one particular family that I check in with. I’ve watched the little girl grow up. Her nickname is Words (Words, I love you!). Early on, due to the trauma of all of it, she didn’t say much, so we called her Words. She is growing, and doing well in school, and talking all the time now! She really is Words now! Joyceln, her mother, worked with the St. Bernard Project mental wellness center. It’s the only free psychological care that’s offered by any organization in the New Orleans area, but it’s specifically for Katrina victims and victims of the Gulf spill.

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The first thought in a disaster is usually, “We need to feed our family. We need a roof over our head.” Going to get psychological help doesn’t sound as important. But the truth is, getting their mentality on track and letting them know that they can overcome this is a huge part of them going to the next step.

St. Bernard Project has been, in my opinion, remarkable in opening their doors and giving personal care. Psychologists and doctors have donated their time or are working for very small fees in order to facilitate that help. To me, it's one of the most incredible parts of what the organization does and I am so proud that they decided to do that and that Joyceln headed that up for quite sometime.

That carried over into another issue that is very strong for me, which is anti-sex-trafficking and fighting domestic violence and domestic abuse. There was a situation where someone reached out to me in the Louisiana area in regards to something happening to her in her family. St. Bernard Project was able to allow her to come down to New Orleans and receive counseling. Just speaking with the doctors, who allocated the time for her, she’s doing incredible now. She sent me a letter maybe six months ago now just checking in because it had been awhile. She was just like, “I want you to know my life is so good now.” She was eighteen when she reached out to me. And what was happening to her was happening to her when she was a child by a family member. She had the wonderful gall to actually finally come forward and stand up for herself. And I am so incredibly proud of her and so humbled that she came to me. We were able to set her on a path to know that this is not her fault. There is no reason to have any shame with this. There is no reason to think negative thoughts toward oneself because of this. That this is an atrocity that it even happens. What I told her was, “Not to take away from anything you went through. But for whatever reason this happened, your story will help other people.”

And this is what we talked about and I told her, I said, “You are strong.

The fact that you are standing up at this point shows me your strength.”

She is pursuing a career in documentary films. She wants to tell other stories in that kind of context and help the healing process for other girls. I’m so incredibly proud of her and that’s what happens when you get in this world of non-profits. I’m personally invested in each one of the non-profits I work with. I know when the money comes in and I know where the money goes. I know the Zach and Liz, who just had a baby, they are making ends meet and they are the founders of the organization. This is an organization that puts everything into its clients. It is all about actually creating a successful business model. They are working in New York with the victims of Hurricane Sandy, they’re working in Joplin with the victims of the tornado. They’re showing that this is a very successful post-natural disaster business model for any kind of organization that is going to come in and give disaster relief.

President Obama has come down and highlighted St. Bernard Project. The work clearly speaks for itself. Just under five hundred families are back in their homes. Thousands more need to be replaced obviously, but that number speaks for itself. I work with this organization

ABOVE THE LINE because it’s credible. I know the people. I know the founders. I call them my very close friends. Same with Somaly Mam Foundation.

I call her my sister. I sleep in her house. When I put my name beside something it means that I’ve been there, I’ve worked on the ground with them, and I’ve seen what they’re doing with what they have. New Orleans is like home: the people make the place.

KB: You have been extremely hands on with the organizations you have been involved with. Do you see yourself starting a new charity or sticking with your current projects?

AM: This is a very interesting question; I have not been asked that before. In the future, I do want to have an Annalynne McCord Foundation. I don’t know if that’s what I’ll call it, but I think that the managing of the organization and the causes that I care so deeply for will be definitely better overseen by a full time team. The money allocated in such a way that I am one hundred percent responsible and can therefore bring in the funds based upon my credibility and that’s something I intend to continue to build. That’s a far future thing. But for now, it’s Somaly Mam Foundation, St. Bernard Project and Artists for Peace and Justice, which works for the ground team in Haiti.

KB: You’ve said that you are interested in roles that require action, and you seem like such a natural fit for action films that require a kickass femme: even looking back at your roles in Nip/Tuck and 90210, there’s a ferocity lurking beneath the surface of those characters.

What is it that draws you to those films? Are there any particular action films you watched as a child that had a big impact on you?

AM: Absolutely. I one hundred percent love, love, love being a kickass action star whenever I get the chance. That has a lot to do with many of the movies that I loved growing up. We would watch all of the 007s when they would play on TBS. I just remember wanting to be Jane Bond. I called myself Bond, Jane Bond. And for a female, Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider, that was just amazing. I think my sisters and I all got the outfit and pretended to be Tomb Raider. I played the game as well, so I really felt like a badass! And Indiana Jones, I just loved the mystery side, being that kind of hero. I read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, all of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

I loved the mystique and history mixed with kicking ass.

KB: Blood Out was shot in Louisiana! And you were all kinds of badass in that movie. Was playing that role of an undercover cop something you really enjoyed? How involved were you with creating the extreme look of the character?

AM: Thank you! And that’s a great question. I did everything, I actually did my own hair and makeup and all of the wardrobe

Annalynne McCord in Blood Out photo by Teddy Smith www.scenelouisiana.com | 43

ABOVE THE LINE was mine with the exception of that really crazy red pleather spike outfit at the very end of the film. Everything else was mine. All of the leather corsets, all of the leather pants and the studded belts and the boots. There’s a little hidden femme fatale in my closet, in my eclectic fashion style. That was absolutely as much fun as it looked and really enjoyed the parts where I got to kick people in the chest.

The director did not want to meet me.

To this day, he is like, “Can you stop holding that against me?” But I think it makes the story better. I just wanted to get inside her skin and put on the shoes of something that I could create. Richard Bates, the director just gave me full control. He let me do whatever I wanted and to just really, really be free with that project. It was really spectacular.

KB: Jason Hewitt, the director of Blood Out, is a friend of Scene Magazine.

What was it like working with him, who was a first time feature director on that film?

KB: Ok, a couple of girly questions now. You seem to travel a lot. How are you influenced by fashion choices you see abroad?

AM: Honestly, he was really, really great.

The cast of 90210

He was a producer first and a director second. You always saw when the clock started ticking he turned from director Jason to, “We need to get this and we need to move on.” That film was interesting for both of us. We had a similar sensibility as far as how we felt about certain people on the project. We were able to have those random glances at each other where we were able to take it lightly and see the humor in everything. When it would get too crazy, I would make a pretend dramatic display of some actress over dramatization of something. And he would know that I was doing it for his amusement.

It would just take the heaviness of the crazy shoot off. It was such a short shoot, it was only fourteen days and we lost a day or two in there.

KB: The trailer for Excision absolutely blew me away when it emerged from Sundance. It showcases a completely different side of your talent, and reminded me of other dark, intelligent films like Donnie Darko. What was it about the project that initially interested you? How did you go about creating the look of the character? Were there any specific inspirations for the character?

Was playing Pauline as much fun as it looks?

AM: It was a much darker place for me to be. I know there were times when I came home and my poor man… he was the victim of the wrath of Pauline when I was incapable of fully removing her from me. But, creating her was very gratifying. I had this feeling that I wanted her to have this boyish quality because, to me, she was such an androgynous girl. I felt that she should embody both the feminine within the male and the masculine within the female. Having both sides like that, that was a lot of fun.

I had a lot of fun creating the look, along with my personal makeup artist Robert Rapport, who is just spectacular. I read several interviews where people said that I wore false teeth, which is hilarious because I didn’t. I held my mouth in a certain way to alter my way of speaking. Apparently it appeared that I was wearing buckteeth! I was like, “Ahh, are my teeth that big!?” The initial interest was this: I had been searching for a project that would just allow me to be a character. The great thing about a show like 90210 is it gives you opportunities. The bad thing is that those opportunities are often only projects that have a character like the one you are playing on the show. People sometimes can’t always see you in something else. I had to really fight for the role of Pauline.

44 | May/June 2013

AM: I am so incredibly affected by it. I was just speaking about this today! My really good friend was helping me organize my closet and she was like, “There’s just so many categories, where do you even start?” I realized that I have so many different styles of fashion that I like, and it has a lot to do with the fact that I have traveled so extensively and I have picked up little things here and there. When I’m in Southeast Asia, I love linens and head wraps and these Aladdin paints that I rock.

Then I try to come back to Los Angeles and wear them and people are like “Uh, okay?” And in Japan you can get away with anything. I am definitely affected by the fashion that I see traveling. photo courtesy of The CW

KB: You have the most beautiful hair of any starlet since the 1970s! What advice do you have for having great hair every day of the week?

AM: Thank you very much! My advice is this: know your hair. That is key. I know that I have very curly which tends to be on the dry side, but, my hair happens to be fine. I have to balance the need for moisture, curly hair needs moisture, but at the same time, fine hair, if it’s too weighed down, doesn’t do what you want it to do. It’s all about utilizing, for me, light leave-in conditioners and natural oils like macadamia nut oil. I use that oil because it’s not a silicone, it doesn’t weigh my hair down, it allows my hair to have the moisture but then my hair absorbs it and it doesn’t stay greasy. Knowing your hair is key and finding the little tricks and trades within getting your hair the nutrients or the conditioning or whatever protein it needs. Keeping it as healthy as possible will help to be able to style it the way you want it.

KB: You’ve returned to New Orleans frequently for work and while volunteering for the St. Bernard Project. What are you excited to return to?

AM: Dante’s Kitchen. One hundred percent my favorite place in the world. Oh my gosh! The cheese…the Vermont white cheddar cheese grits. I can taste it right now in my mouth. I love you, Dante’s Kitchen! S

For more information on and to volunteer with the St. Bernard Project, visit their official website at www.stbernardproject.org.

Follow Annalynne McCord on Twitter at @IAMannalynnemcc.

MUSIC |

SCENE MAGAZINE AND NOLA FASHION WEEK PRESENT

BROOKE WAGGONER

AT THE W FRENCH QUARTER presented by Gaudet Bros. photos by Kelli Binnings

F

resh off of performing with Jack White at the Grammys, and on the road to perform at South by Southwest, singer/songwriter Brooke Waggoner stopped over in New Orleans to play an exclusive show in the W French Quarter

Hotel courtyard. A perfect spring day, the late afternoon light fell as the Louisiana native played her set, much of the music from Waggoner’s new album Originator.

The show was sponsored by Scene Magazine, NOLA Fashion Week and Gaudet Bros. Hair Salon.

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| MUSIC

www.scenelouisiana.com | 47

MUSIC | BROOKE WAGGONER

AT THE W FRENCH QUARTER

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MUSIC | BROOKE WAGGONER

AT THE W FRENCH QUARTER

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MUSIC |

HOT AND HUMID: A PREVIEW OF

ESSENCE

FEST 2013

BEYONCÉ

by Susan Ross

B

eyoncé reminded the world she was a superstar at Super Bowl XLVII last February. She returns to New Orleans to close out the Essence Music Festival 2013, which starts early this year on Thursday, July 4. One of the best music festivals in a city filled with them, Essence Fest’s reputation continues to grow.

On Friday, July 5, the Essence Mainstage will feature Maxwell, Jill Scott, LL Cool J, Brandy, and returning host Nephew Tommy, now a mainstay of the festival. The Superlounge will host Maya Azucena, Anthony David, Blackstreet, Emelie Sande, Les Nubians, Mali Music, Shamarr Allen and the Underdogs, and Simphiwe Dana.

Saturday, July 6 welcomes New Edition, Charlie Wilson, Trey Songz, Keyshia Cole, and Solange to the Mainstage. The Superlounge has Avery Sunshine, Big Daddy Kane, Bridget Kelly, F. Stokes, Faith Evans, Jody Watley, Leela James, and PJ Morton.

And the big Sunday, July 7, the final day of the festival, will feature the incomparable Beyoncé on the Mainstage, along with Janelle Monae and TGT. The Superlounge offers Alice Smith, Daley, Greta Prince, Kourtney Heart, Luke James, Mia Borders, Mint Condition, Rachell Ferrell, and the always beautiful Tamia.

Though they are yet to be announced, Essence will also feature a full compliment of speakers and workshops, one of the many highlights of an already excellent event.

The all-indoor festival is always a welcomed reprieve from the heat and humidity of July in New Orleans. For more information and tickets, visit the official website at www.essence.com/festival. S 52 | May/June 2013

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AVERY SUNSHINE

CHARLIE WILSON

| MUSIC

LL COOL J www.scenelouisiana.com | 53

MUSIC | HOT AND HUMID: A PREVIEW OF

ESSENCE

FEST 2013

BRANDY MAXWELL

DALEY 54 | May/June 2013

MAYA AZUCENA

| MUSIC

EMELI SANDE

www.scenelouisiana.com | 55

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FASHION |

NEW ORLEANS

FASHION WEEK F/W 2013

by Andi Eaton

photos by Tate Tullier

N

ew Orleans Fashion Week wrapped its fifth season in March. During the two and a half years since the style event’s inception, the Southern-born or based designers sharing their collections each season are proving that the South is quite the force, featuring unique voices and a serious amount of talent.

The Fall/Winter 2013 season’s runway was home to eighteen designers: two Project Runway stars (Anthony Ryan and Matthew Arthur), two emerging student designers (Noel Martin and Ella Rose), one Kickstarter-funded darling (Heather Williams of Tallulah) and thirteen others whose goal is to continue creating a sustainable business model, allowing their unique perspective on Southern design to set the foundation for the apparel industry in New Orleans.

The New Orleans Fashion Week seasons follow that of New York, Paris, London and Milan: the collections run a season ahead of the actual season.

Fashions for this fall and winter were featured this spring, and this fall, we’ll feature styles for the spring and summer of 2014. The intention is to give buyers, media and tastemakers an opportunity to prepare in advance. Want to know what styles you’ll see in the stores this summer to build your fall wardrobe? Here, we’ve got five trends and some standouts from the Fall/Winter 2013 season.

TALLULAH

1 GEOMETRICS AND BOXY SHAPES. Anthony Ryan and Tallulah each had a fresh approach. Boxy shapes are meant to be worn oversized, paired with skinnies or volume, these looks were rocked on the runway. There’s a severity to geometrics that is especially forward-thinking. Anthony Ryan nailed it on Project Runway and did so again on the NOLAFW runway.

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| FASHION

ANTHONY RYAN www.scenelouisiana.com | 59

FASHION |

NEW ORLEANS

FASHION WEEK F/W 2013

2 TEXTURE PLAY. Especially in a southern climate, layers upon layers of interesting fabrics from bouclĂŠ and winter wools to leather and velvets, allow for perfect dressing in a very short winter season. Blackout stayed true to its name, featuring looks in all black. But what makes this line a star every season is the unique approach designer Ashlie Ming takes to the little black dress.

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| FASHION

3 SEQUIN ANYTHING. Amanda deLeon’s sequin dress and pants look as if they were caught in a golden meteor shower. Amanda’s couture techniques wow the crowd season after season. www.scenelouisiana.com | 61

FASHION |

NEW ORLEANS

FASHION WEEK F/W 2013

4 CLIMATE CONTROL. The New York runways Fall/Winter is typically full of cold-weather appropriate looks. New Orleans designers, however, keep in mind Southern Louisiana’s tropical climate. My own Hazel & Florange, inspired by ladies living on the river, included a mix of crop tops, bare arms and lightweight fabrics. Jolie & Elizabeth always stay true to the needs of the Southern girl, with silks and sweet little dresses.

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| FASHION

IACONO

LORETTA JANE

MATTHEW ARTHUR

5 LENGTH. Whether it’s maxi, midi or mini, dramatic lengths showed up again and again. From Hazel & Florange (maxi) to Iacono (midi) or Loretta Jane and Matthew Arthur (mini), the chicest girl in the room dresses how she feels on any given occasion.

www.scenelouisiana.com | 63

FASHION |

NEW ORLEANS

FASHION WEEK F/W 2013

ELLA ROSE

BY SMITH The next season of New Orleans Fashion Week - Spring/Summer 2014 - takes place this September 28 through October 5. The weeklong event includes something for everyone interested in fashion and related creative industries. Workshops, parties and show schedules can be found on the official website at nola-fashionweek.com. S Andi Eaton is the Creative Director and Founder of New Orleans Fashion Week, a lover of vintage and local fashion plus editorial styling. Her newly launched women’s apparel line Hazel & Florange is available at hazelandflorange.com. Read more of her musings on Southern fashion on her blog at ouiwegirl.com.

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FASHION |

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model: Jessica Stokes

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5 4

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Lace TRF Short $39/zara.com

5

Addison High-Wasted Cargo Short $138/BCBGMAXAZRIA Canal Place

www.scenelouisiana.com | 67

DAVE DAVIS ACTOR

by Katianna Bear

W

hile most of us were banging building blocks with crusty Goldfish fingers at the age of three, Dave Davis was swinging his hips - curled lip and all – singing “You Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hound Dog.” His family video recorder captured his very first debut as a performer, an endearing bit of memorabilia that would foreshadow the New Orleans native’s near future.

Although he wasn’t certain of his exact career path early, Davis dabbled as a child with possibilities for his future. “I was convinced I wanted to be a tap dancer on the street,” he laughs. “Then it was stand up comedy, and then ventriloquism for a while. I thought that would be a fun thing to do.”

A fiery student at Lusher Charter School, Davis did know that he wanted to perform. In the third grade, he watched the adoration one of his best friends received after landing the lead role in a school play. “He got so much love and attention from it, I was like, ‘I could have done that!’ The next year I did, and I got cast as the lead and I never looked back.”

While Davis grew up dreaming of a career in entertainment, the film industry in Louisiana was growing up around him.

Many actors before him may have been forced to relocate to Los Angeles or New York, but Davis was living in a city that would soon accommodate his professional interests. Unlike so many others, he would be able to pursue his career while staying close to his strong core group of friends in the heart of New Orleans.

“The small town encourages tight relationships,” says Davis.

Without much warning, his education at Benjamin Franklin High School — and his entire life in the Crescent City — was cut short by Hurricane Katrina. His family was forced to evacuate and move to New York. Cleanup took longer than anticipated and the losses were deeper than damage to homes. Davis transferred to a private boarding school outside of Princeton. “My friends never let me hear the end of it: the fact that I didn’t come back to Ben Franklin,” he says. “But I did what I had to do at the time.”

A blessing in disastrous disguise, his new school offered hands on experience in film and theater. “I had the opportunity to write, direct and act,” says Davis. “I wouldn’t have been able to do that elsewhere. But really, it just made me miss New Orleans so much that I knew beyond a doubt that I wanted to go to Tulane.

As soon as I was accepted, I didn’t care about any other school.”

Davis took a break from acting in his freshman year of college, creating the opportunity to catch up on the fun he missed while away from Louisiana. But come sophomore year, the yearning to be on stage trumped all other activities.

“I just went at it full force. I was in every play. I did as

68 | May/June 2013

Dave Davis in Ladies Man

photo courtesy of MTV

ON WORKING IN HIS HOME TOWN:

As long as the film industry stays in New Orleans, I will too. many roles as I could and I loved every minute of it. I missed out on a lot of [other] things,” Davis recalls. “The nights I had rehearsal or performances [were the same nights as] the fun party or the sporting event. But it was worth it.”

Looking back on his college career, Davis smiles as he recalls a recurring trend in his college roles. “I was basically typecast as the ‘macho a******,’” he laughs. “I played Valmount in Dangerous Liaisons, who is just a seductive piece of s***. And I played

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CREATING THE SCENE Buck in Betty’s Summer Vacation, who is just a penis-obsessed jock. And then for my senior thesis, I played Dennis in This is Our Youth, who is a drug-dealing, a******-womanizer-bully.”

Davis also became involved with the Shakespeare Festival. For five years, he devoted time to the theater. His last summer with the company, he landed the lead role in Hamlet. “It felt like an apex,” he says. “It was a dream role, and after having the opportunity to play it, to really delve deep into it, that was my chance to take a step back.”

The same day of his final Hamlet performance, Davis was expected to be in Atlanta for a role in The Walking Dead. Luckily, his filming days were pushed back. “After that right there, I basically knew I couldn’t do theater anymore,” Davis explains. “I had to focus on what’s going to advance my career. It was a rude awakening that film and theater don’t go together very well.”

The Tulane grad with a BFA in performance focused his attention on the silver screen. Through a friend, Davis was introduced to New Orleans-based casting director Meagan Lewis, who worked on The Wire in Baltimore before moving to New Orleans to work on Treme.

After a few auditions, his foot was in the door and Davis landed an agent in Claudia Speicher of New Orleans Model and Talent.

Davis started booking, including roles on television in TNT’s Memphis Beat, Leprechaun’s Revenge, Active Entertainment’s American Horror House, and roles on the big screen in Stolen and the upcoming Darko Entertainment flick Hell Baby.

He noticed his type transfer from the jerk to the nerd, and he landed his first lead role as Toby in MTV’s Ladies Man: A Made Movie. Excitement ran through Davis’ veins when he first read the script. He realized the character was perfect for him, a noticeable break from the mold.

“I decided that there is nobody who could play this role better than me,” Davis says. “This role was mine.” His audition was scheduled to take place the next day, but he also had the option to send a tape in the following Monday. Davis opted for the latter and spent the time crafting the perfect tape, complete with a finale of him singing and playing the guitar, a requirement for the part. When Davis was officially offered the role, the director said, “Get ready, because me and you are going to be the hardest working people on set.”

With part of the cast and crew of Ladies Man from Los Angeles, the local boy played host. “I made everybody in the cast and crew go to Cajun’s Pub and sing karaoke,” Davis remembers fondly. “Me and the director and some of the actors were constantly bouncing around Bourbon Street and downtown.

We were having a blast. But the truth is, I was one of the last people off set every night and one of the first people on set every morning. I stayed pretty focused, but we still had a lot of fun.”

With no intention of slowing down or even limiting himself to acting, Davis shares his interest in writing, directing and creating his own music. He’s a part of a band from college named the Bare Handed Bear Handlers, a mix of acoustic-country-rock-blues-love song-ballad-death jams. He is also currently working on writing a script with a close friend, a potential starring vehicle for him.

“The dream for me really, though, as much as I would love to be the guy that directs and acts and does it all, is to find those roles that you can really sink your teeth into. That, even though it’s the director’s story, you embody it. The dream is really to just be as close to the creation as possible.”

With film in his hometown of New Orleans showing no signs of slowing down, Dave Davis’ career is following suit. A true advocate 70 | May/June 2013

Dave Davis in his homemade Mardi Gras float

Dave Davis in Ladies Man

photo by Katianna Bear

photo courtesy of MTV

for his native city, and especially its chief sacrament Mardi Gras, the actor believes that the entire world would be a better place if everyone got to experience a little bit of the Big Easy. “As long as the film industry stays in New Orleans, I will too,” Davis says. “I’m a character actor, I’m a leading man, I’m an entertainer. Anything I can’t do, I’ve made it my job to look like I can do. I want to do it all.” S

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www.fredsbar.com www.scenelouisiana.com | 71

ON THE SCENE

The American Red Cross presents OSCARS 2013 photos by Elizabeth Shaw

Celebrating the 85th Academy Awards, the American Red Cross held its annual Oscar Experience in New Orleans on February 24 at the THEATRES AT CANAL PLACE.

A silent auction was held to benefit the Red Cross.

72 | May/June 2013

ON THE SCENE

Patrons of the RED CROSS and their guests walked the red carpet on their way into the Theatres at Canal Place.

www.scenelouisiana.com | 73

ON THE SCENE

The American Red Cross presents OSCARS 2013 photos by Elizabeth Shaw

Prior to the beginning of the Oscars ceremony, patrons gathered at Canal Place for an exclusive Patron Party, featuring live music, food and an open bar. A photo booth was available to guests.

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74 | May/June 2013

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THE UNSCENE The Oil and the New While the Bayou State has cultivated the most successful motion picture incentive program in history, every two years, mere whispers of change challenge its stability. This year, those whispers were shouts, coming from the office of Governor Jindal. His sweeping tax proposal release prior to the legislative session would have forced film funding to change in a fundamental way by eliminating the state income tax, against which the motion picture tax credits are applied.

The Governor’s tax proposal was shelved after his popularity plummeted as a result of its introduction. Although at the time of print, there were no immediate threats to the film industry, the mere discussion of changes to the state’s tax code makes producers nervous. Their sensitivity is understandable: they’re making hundred million dollar bets.

With a tested, successful, lucrative program in place, the next piece of the puzzle is stability. The answer is to allow film and entertainment tax credits to be applied against not only state income tax liability, but against oil and gas severance taxes. An industry with old roots in Louisiana would literally be funding the development of a new industry, whose roots are still shallow.

Tie the financial interests of the oil and gas industry to the interests of the film industry, and their economic incentives will be aligned. And the stable growth of the film industry will continue.

- The UnScene Writer Submit tips to unscene@scenelouisiana.com.

Anonymity guaranteed.

76 | May/June 2013