Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes during a radio interview? The other day I had the pleasure of a really fun one (
and trust me not all interviews are that!! Though I usually tend to be very lucky in that department)
Sometimes I get wined and dined. Sometimes my hair even gets towel dried for me when I arrive rain soaked (
ala James Brown (R.I.P) & his bodyguards ) or sometimes it is a nightmare of a grotty dive or of arriving early and being kept waiting for ages (translation: hours ) by someone who does not think I may have a schedule as well!
I have been extra extra busy recording various music/tv/film/theatre features at present so after a few busy stressful days when I found myself at the chilled , laidback incense scented home of photographer/writer/producer/director
Leanne Hanley sipping chamomile tea and chatting about this and that until actress
Carla Bonner arrived (along with trusty
nutribullet smoothie in hand ) I was by then relaxed and ready to talk movie!
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| Carla Bonner |
Now
Carla is probably best known for her role in
Neighbours as
'Steph Scully , albeit she has of course had other roles as well and later this month they are about to start filming a short film noir called
MAMA's GUN in which she will take on the gritty challenging lead role of
Mary Wylie. Which of course I was there to find out more about.
Mama's Gun is set in
Melbourne in
1942. It is the dark twisted tale of a 'diabolical mother, 2 sons & an opium business set to go up in smoke.' It will be made by all female crew. (hurrah)
So why is Mary so scary? I am sure being sold into prostitution as a young girl can make you hard and twisted . Mary is obviously scarred and complex , complicated - deep down yearning for love, yet unable to give it apart from via
the S word (you know!)
Leanne Hanley
Excerpt below transcribed from part of radio interview*:
Marilyn Michaels: Steph Scully ( Carla's role in Neighbours) started off as a really cool 'biker chick' , looked like a rock chick too I thought, and then somewhere along the lines became 'psychotic'
(Carla laughs) Poor poor Steph, my heart was breaking for her, though some great scenes came out of it. Do you think it might have given you a bit of a grounding for this twisted
twisted role that you are going to play as Mary in Mama's Gun?
Carla Bonner: Oh, well, I like to think that Steph wasn't evil like Mary Wiley ,
(chuckles)
Steph was just a bit, you know, she was on medication and she went off her meds, so you know it wasn't something that was with her her entire life, unlike Mary.
Umm Mary has a history of abuse and just a really really tough life, she had no love. There are many, many differences between Mary and Steph. But poor Steph! (
laughs) She was cool, she is
stll cool she's just in a facility right now. (
laughs)
MM: Nobody could blame Steph for having had a breakdown, because she had an accident with her best friend on a motorbike, went off with her best friend's man, what else did she get up to, oh yeah her sister, her sister Felicity aka Flick (
played by Holly Valance) stole Marc! I don't know it all off the top of my head, oh I do to a point, (but) no wonder she ended up having a breakdown, and didn't she run over 'Ringo' ?
CB: Yeah but she was drunk! No, no, no ! Ok technically she had alcohol in her system. I don't advocate drink-driving at all, absolutely not, Steph was going through Post Natal Depression at the time, regardless of the fact that she did
indeed have a baby to her best friend's ex husband
and
then got her other best friend to step in and say that
he was the babys father and then they even went to the lengths of getting married again you know and
okay so she made a few little woopsies but you know she's paid for it, she has ,and like i say, she's recuperating. she' ll get there
MM: We love Steph in the UK and hope she is better soon, ok that's our
Neighbours bit out of the way, I want to know how the idea for
Mama's Gun came up, what was the background to it ?
Leanne Hanley: I guess, you know, it came quite organically from conversations between my partner and our writing and producing partner
Jonah Klein who, we all have
interesting mothers let's say - it just sort of developed from conversations over dinner and we started talking about an interesting female character because we find that there's a lack of them and 'women of a certain age' let's say. so I started thinking about
Ma Barker actually, and did some research on her , then the idea for Mary came from that research and we decided to do an Australian version of this, kind of not quite
'Mafia Mother' but you know, a very strong gritty mother
MM: And she's a very dark Mom isn't she, when I read the synopsis I thought gosh this is the Mom Of Nightmares
LH : True but I think in reality people maybe have even much more to deal with that , with their mothers, and i guess that
Freudian aspect of things crept in unintentionally in a lot of ways but when we read the script we looked back and went ' wow either we're really screwed up,' (
Carla laughs) 'or Mary is' , so I'm going to blame Mary!
MM: What do you think Carla?
CB : I think it's actually really sad , I think Mary unconsciously just wants love , like everybody just wants love , but she doesn't know
how to express that. She doesn't know how to
give it because she's
never had it , therefore she's a product of her upbringing and it's really sad.
She does yearn for a type of love that she is familiar with but it's not the pure beautiful organic rich love that we are all fortunate enough to feel so yeah, even though Mary is all those things, I still really love her, I
LOVE her !
LH: Someone's got to
CB: No judgement
MM: Well someone's got to be in her corner, do you think she equates sex with love then?
CB : Yes most definitely, even if it is with...
LH: Don't spoil it Carla!
CB .
(laughs) I'm not, i wasn't going to
(laughs more) yes ,
dot dot dot! You'll have to wait and see!
MM : There's a teaser! So without giving too much of the story away, what can you tell me about how it develops?
LH: In a lot of ways it's a traditional noir film that opens with a murder and actually we give you almost all of the information in the very beginning so there's not much to spoil but basically it's about a family in 1942 Melbourne, so it's war time .They are obviously in a type of struggle, however Mary has a little more money than most at a time when she shouldn't because what she's actually doing is running an opium den. she owns a haberdashery store , which is her 'front' but she, out the back, is running probably a lot of scams that we don't even know about so it's just the tale of woe really of that family and how they are all embroiled in terrible goings on
MM: Opium den, I haven't visited one of those actually
CB (laughs) Can't say i have either
That is just part of our interview. It was a most enjoyable one with a lot of laughter, as well as it's serious moments.
But wait, that is not all ! How would you like to be 'involved' in the 'film family' that is behind the production. Mama's Gun is being funded through crowd-funding and there are some great perks to be had for contributing some money!
How about your name in the credits, or an executive producer credit? Oh and chocolate, (a girls best friend, diamonds tend to crack the teeth) Carla will also be on a limited edition Mama's Gun chocolate wrapper (she told me she had been on the cover of a condom pack but I think chocolate is uhhhh better to chew over ;-) )
Or she can even answer your phone for you as your voicemail message when you are busy chewing on whatever (chocolate??) and cannot answer your phone. If that has got you curious to know more, may I suggest you swiftly head on over to
HERE and find out! I say
swiftly because the
indiegogo crowd-funding campaign for this film ends today
May 8th at
11.59 PST. so get your skates on! The clock is a-ticking! There is a short video teaser on that page also .
Having appeared in two indies myself and sick of multi-million $ CGI/FX I have a love of indie film and was happy to contribute to this project earlier today, after all these films are where the
acting tells the story not expensive and fancy schmancy computer effects
My thanks to both Leanne and Carla for a very enjoyable interview which then turned into a modelling session of my
No More Page 3 campaign T-shirt. However that is a another story!
Carla in my No More Page 3 campaign shirt, I don't usually tend to point at other women's boobs but I guess there was always a first time!
Carla gets in on the No More Page 3 Campaign
*The Mama's Gun interview feature aired a few times the last few days on Loose Ladies show on
Radio Deeside (click here) I will let you know when it can be heard again
PS -this post is not sponsored by Nutribullet however I am open to offers from them. Radio is thirsty work ;-)
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| go on, make me a smoothie please! |
(c) Marilyn Michaels
e
Tommy Rando
visit the Waiting Room HERE (and say hello to the 'good doctor' too)
Tommy with band
Herald Sun press cutting
