Feature Category: Interviews

Sandeep Parikh is an American comedian best known for his role as Zaboo in award-winning web series The Guild, and he is well known for his roles in shows inspired by gaming and geek culture, including super hero series Save the Supers and the Nintendo inspired comedy The Legend of Neil. Starburst caught up with him to find out what he was planning to do next.

Starburst: So, what’s next for The Guild?

Sandeep Parikh: That’s entirely up to Felicia. She officially announced that The Guild, at least as a web series in its current format, is over. Maybe a movie someday?! We have such a great fanbase and I think they would love some more Guild in some form, but I think it’s time to blow it up so it can evolve, or alternatively, we could let it just be what it is. You don’t necessarily give Michelangelo’s David bigger junk, ya know what I mean. And yes I think The Guild is as good as the 16TH Century masterpiece.  What?!

Are you a gamer yourself? What games do your prefer?

I like games that have an ending. I’m not a big MMO fan (sorry, please don’t hate me). My favourites include the Zelda series, Portal, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Arkham Asylum. Just beat BioShock Infinite, a huge fan of the story in that, though not totally in love with a forty minute cut scene for an ending, but it was cool that the story was challenging and made you think. I also love TableTop games. I’m currently totally obsessed with Dominion. I also love backyard games like cornhole, spikeball and kanjam. So yeah, basically if there’s some competition and a way to humiliate someone that’s bigger and stronger than me, I’m in.

How was Legends of Neil different from The Guild?

Very. Legend of Neil is about a regular dude that gets sucked into the Legend of Zelda. It’s crass, Felicia plays a foul mouthed fairy, we built the entire world of Hyrule, puppeted dragons, had kung fu fights, lava, German skeletons, break dancing centaurs, etc etc. It’s fun, you should watch it. Stop not watching it. Why are you still reading this and not watching it. Actually just buy the DVD… Support stuff like this so we can make more!

Why Zelda?

Because it’s frickin’ Zelda! The golden cartridge is like the most magical thing to ever have been produced. It’s a game that I was totally immersed in and consumed by from the ages of 8 – 11 (yeah it took me 3 years to beat and no I did not subscribe to Nintendo Power for hints, I found it on my own.) Yeah, so, Neil came from an absolute love and adoration of that original 8 bit masterpiece (equivalent to the Sistine Chapel, there I said it!).

Will we see more Save the Supers soon?

I don’t know. Maybe. It’s an expensive show to make and I love it and want to make more, but it needs a real budget behind it. The costumes alone that Greg Aronowitz made should’ve cost the entire budget that we did have, so we just need more resources to make it happen.

Tell us a bit about your next big project.

We’re producing a load of new shows on Effinfunny on YouTube. We’re doing a show with the Nerdist called Game Off about what Goombas from Mario talk about in the moments before they get stomped on by Mario, it’s a topical animated show. It’s chock full of guest stars like Brandon Routh, Kevin Pereira, Yuri Lowenthal, Phil Lamarr, and Tony Janning. I’m super proud of it. We’ve got a show called Code 5 that I created with Ed Brubaker about 2 cops on the longest stakeout ever coming soon. And a show called ERliens about an emergency room for aliens coming out soon as well.

How different is doing a web series from improv?

Well it’s different because a web series is something you shoot and create and though we do a lot of improv in our webseries, the finished product is something that the audience will watch at a time far removed from when we shot. So the immediacy of the audience’s reactions isn’t there really. Doing an improv show is awesome in its own right, and it’s very ethereal because it’s something that only that audience that sees it is going to really get. That experience can’t really be reproduced. There’s an intimacy that’s created between the performers and the audience, that this show is only for them, for us, really and these jokes can’t really be retold in a way that’s going to feel quite the same as the moment it was told. I don’t know, there’s a magic to that that I really love. I don’t think I’ll ever stop performing improv.

What single work of yours are you the most proud of?

You know as an actor, I’m really proud of Code 5. I can’t wait for the world to see it. It’s really simple. Just two guys sitting in a car and riffing and vamping. (Mel Cowan is the other performer with me.)  I just think that, more than any other character I’ve played, this type of humour is quintessentially ME. I actually watch it and don’t cringe, which is a first for me. It’s a new experience to watch myself and say, “Hey that’s actually funny.” Usually I’m thinking, “why the hell does anyone think this guy is funny, ew.”

Is there a particular tie-in franchise that you haven’t been involved in yet that you’d love to work for? What are your other ‘dream’ projects?

I did an episode of Community which is one of my favourite shows that has ever existed so I’m pretty happy about that tie in. I wish I could go back in time and just be an extra in the Princess Bride. Right now I really love New Girl, I think that show is brilliant. So yeah, please show this to the people that make New Girl and tell them to put me in it, thanks. I would love to be in anything that’s directed by Tarantino, or Wes Anderson, or the Coen Brothers or J.J. Abrams, or Joss Whedon, or Peter Jackson or Sam Raimi and Michel Gondry and Ricky Gervais and Baz Luhrman and Spike Jonze (I’m literally looking at my shelf of DVDs and listing off my favourites).

I also am going to make a movie by 2015, that’s my next big dream, and I plan on seeing that out 100%.

What is the weirdest thing that has ever happened to you?

I once had a fan ask if he could swaddle me for a photo. I said no. I still regret that to this day. Who knows where that would have led?

If you were stranded on a desert island and could only have one book for company, what would that book be?

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

The Simpsons or Futurama?

Futurama.

Traditional Games or Video Games?

Traditional Games.

Mario or Luigi?

Mario.

Swords or Sorcery?

Sorcery.

Lenny Bruce or Woody Allen?

Lenny Bruce.

Truth or Beauty?

Truth is beauty and beauty truth, that is all ye need know on Earth. An ode to a Grecian urn paraphrased by me for twitter. You’re welcome.

What happens when you take Luke Evans (Clash of The Titans, The Three Musketeers, and future star of “The Crow” reboot), Adelaide Clemens (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Silent Hill: Revelation), Lee Tergesen (Tobias Beecher from Oz), professional wrestling’s only “living breathing rompin’ stompin’ Funkasaurus” Brodus Clay, and director Ryuhei Kitamura (Godzilla: Final Wars, Battlefield Baseball), and lock them all away in deepest darkest Louisiana for a few months? We caught up with WWE Superstar Brodus Clay to find out exactly why No One Lives…

Starburst: How did you get involved with No One Lives?

Brodus Clay: John Laurinaitis (Executive Vice President of WWE Talent Relations at the time) got me that. He was telling me he had a project coming up and I said, “yeah I’ll do it”. He said, “I didn’t tell you what it is yet” and I was like: “I don’t care, I’ll do it.” So we just kind of went from there. I was coming off that pay-per-view where Christian had busted me in the head with a ladder, so I had staples and I was going to be on the shelf for a few weeks. It was perfect timing.

Tell us about your role in the film.

I play Ethan, he’s a real man’s man who reports to his brother Hoag who runs a local gang. He’s loyal to a fault and not very smart unfortunately, and not a tremendously gifted fighter either. Then he’s face to face with Luke Evans who is quite possibly the most sadistic human being on the face of the planet. So even though I play a very tough mean man I’m at the absolute worst spot for being faced with a psychopath.

He got to you quite early on in the movie, didn’t he?

If I’d have got one punch in, it would have changed the whole course of the movie so I kind of look at it that way. And if you’re going to go out, go out big. I think I was the first male Caesarian birth in a movie and I’m very proud that I gave birth to a 5′ 10″, 135lb English male. I mean, that’s not an easy task to accomplish.

You worked with Ryuhei Kitamura on the movie – were you familiar with his work before taking the role?

I knew about Midnight Meat Train and Godzilla: Final Wars. I’m a huge Godzilla guy, I love Godzilla, so I was very excited to be one of those monsters. I was a big S.O.S. and Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla guy, I love those, and when he and I actually talked about the role all we talked about more than anything else was the Godzilla movies. But then he was like, “Ethan! He’s a big guy, he’s aggressive, he doesn’t say much” and I was like, “OK cool” but then he kept adding lines and lines and lines and kept giving me more opportunity. He was very gracious and he was very good at telling me exactly what he wanted. That was a tremendous help to me, he was a very good director.

Some of your fellow cast members have had some pretty big roles in their own careers. With you being relatively new to the movie world, did they have any words of advice?

Oh yeah. I was nervous about being the new guy and working with Lee Tergesen and Luke Evans. They’d give tips, not ask questions, and they were a lot of fun. They were very open, we had dinner a few times on set. They were very cool guys. For the amount of work they’ve done they could easily have been like, “who’s the new kid?” and kind of done that hazing thing. But then again, the new kid was 6′ 8″ and 420lbs this time, so… They were very fun and I hope to work with them again, I really enjoyed it.

Now that you’ve appeared in a movie, would you say you’ve caught the acting bug?

Oh yeah, a hundred percent. I would like to try a different genre although the next movie I do I would like to be the actual killer and get some kills under my belt. Ethan didn’t get any kills. He might get credited for that scene with Luke Evans’ girlfriend but it’s very sketchy whether I’m a killer or a suicide aider. There’s an asterisk next to that kill, I don’t know if I get a full movie kill credit for that.

We did wonder when you were “giving birth” in the film if you were about to come back as a zombie…

Huge curveball. At the film festival a lot of people thought when I sat up, “oh it’s a zombie movie” but then they were like “what?!” and they all clapped, so… I hadn’t seen it until I actually saw it in the movie theatre, and I didn’t realise how badly I had been murdered until I saw it in the movie theatre. And the way it was done, it was very old school. It wasn’t CGI and all this animation and stuff, it was good old fashioned latex and make-up, and Luke Evans did a tremendous job.

We were going to ask how you coped with the gore on set, but it sounds like you were probably OK with it.

Oh yeah. My favourite horror film of all time is An American Werewolf in London for the simple fact that I just really appreciate the animatronics. I love the old school films and things like that, and American Werewolf was very well done. I think a lot of movies kind of cheat with all the extra effects and whatnot, I think you’ve got to have the real fake blood and screaming girls and everything. I’m very happy and honoured that my movie was filmed like that. Being covered in gallons and gallons of sticky hot syrupy fake blood in Louisiana in the summertime, it’s like basically just being in the shower all day on hot. It’s really hot and unbearable, very muggy. It’s a very tough place to be covered in mud and blood and all that stuff.

How do acting and wrestling compare to each other? Is it possible to say whether you prefer more than the other or are they so different that you can enjoy both in their own ways?

I think you can enjoy them both, creativity and entertainment go hand in hand together. Movie characters take more repetition and there are different scenarios and film angles, and the WWE is kind of more “live right now” so you interact with the fans and you feed off the people. The people are, a lot of the time, the director, whereas in movies you have an actual director and you’ve got to do a certain thing a certain way no matter what. Things happen in WWE in the middle of the ring, a situation will happen and you don’t know how the fans are going to react so a lot of WWE is impulse, instincts, and feel the crowd and know the direction your character is going. When the WWE asks you to produce, that means now, so I think there’s a lot more pressure in terms of delivery in the WWE. But in terms of separation, overall, in terms of trying different things and going in a certain direction you’d have to go for movies. They’re both very interesting, and different but similar at the same time.

Were you a fan of wrestling when you were growing up?

Growing up I was a big Heenan Family guy, I was a fan of “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes, a huge King Haku fan, and “Mr Wonderful” Paul Orndorff was probably my favourite wrestler hands down. Double A Arn Anderson, so many guys. I didn’t miss it – I’d go from playing outside with my brother to running into the house to catch WCW or NWA or WWF. It didn’t matter what brand it was, I was going to watch it.

Starburst Magazine mainly covers movies and comics, so some of our readers might not be familiar with the world of wrestling. For the benefit of those readers, tell us what an average day looks like in the life of a professional wrestler.

Take today for example, I’ve got phone calls with our WWE publicist and so I’ll do my interviews and then I’ll get up and stretch, then I’ll hop in the car to go and train with my trainer Bill DeMott to work on some new moves. Then I’ll hop back in the car and drive for another 45 minutes – I’ve been working on breaking my deadlift record and my bench press record so I’ll go and do some powerlifting with Rob MacIntyre at Hard Nock’s South. Then I’ll go home and pack my bags and get some sleep, then in the morning I’ll fly out to Denver, Colorado. I’ll drive again there, find a place to stretch and lift, and then get ready to have a wrestling match and entertain the people of Denver.

WWE fans know you as the Funkasaurus, but when you first appeared on the main roster your character was completely different. What was the reason for that, and is it something you’d like to go back to?

In WWE your character always has to evolve. You have to keep changing, and situations dictate behaviours. I would like to see a marriage of the two characters eventually. I think having a mean streak is a good thing in certain situations if done right, and having the Funkasaurus is also a tremendously cool thing so it would be cool to do both together. Almost a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde type relationship, I think it could be a lot of fun. My goal is to bring the two together.

You mentioned a few of your favourite wrestlers earlier. Would you consider any of them to have influenced your own career in any way?

King Haku, yes, quite a bit. I tape my fingers like he did. Dusty Rhodes as far as showmanship and just having a good time and being relaxed out there. Bam Bam Bigelow and Terry Gordy were some other favourites of mine, just being aggressive and going forward. Hacksaw Jim Duggan was another one, and Andre The Giant. There are so many different guys that you want to emulate and hope they rub off on you. You have to be influenced to be inspired to want to do things and go after it and want to go out and put in the work that you do to have that opportunity to be in the WWE. I think without those inspirations I probably wouldn’t be here.

What have been your personal career highlights so far, and where do you hope to go from here?

Obviously to be a world champion – you wouldn’t do this if that wasn’t something you wanted to be. To be recognised for your work and to be more than just a pretty face, so to speak. I haven’t had a match at WrestleMania yet – due to circumstances, it didn’t happen but it lead to my “365 To Redemption” on Twitter where I’ve been working every day to get back to WrestleMania. It’s been a journey with the fans, with all the ups and downs. We talk about it every day – today is Day 168 of 365 To Redemption so I’ll finish training and I’ll drop some words about my day to my fans on Twitter. It’s kind of become almost like a cult following a little bit – people send me pictures of tough things they’re trying to fix or goals they’ve set and where they’re trying to go. I look at it as a personal low in terms of anticipation in that you always want to have that match at WrestleMania, but it’s kind of turned into a positive. We’re building on it and trying to get some momentum going through things coming up like the Royal Rumble and Survivor Series, and hopefully be in a spot at WrestleMania where they can’t mess with our time. Everybody wants that Undertaker or that John Cena or that Randy Orton match. To have that moment could take your career to a whole other level.

NO ONE LIVES is out now on DVD/Blu-ray.

Failbetter Games are best known for their award-winning browser based story adventure game, Fallen London, which lets people explore a version of Victorian London which has fallen into hell. Starburst caught up with the writer and creator of the game, Alexis Kennedy, to talk about their latest project, Sunless Sea.

For those unfamiliar, tell us a bit about Fallen London…

Fallen London is the game we’re best known for and has been running for four years. It’s got a couple of hundred thousand players. What we’ve realised over those four years is that a lot of the game mechanics are rather pedestrian, so we’ve been looking for a way to tell the story of Fallen London in a different way.

We’ve already done a comic and it was met with an enthusiastic response; we did have a publisher lined up but that didn’t work out. We asked our fans what they’d like to see as a Kickstarter, and an Elite style, top down trading game came back as the preferred option, so that’s what we’re doing. We audience tested Sunless Sea with our fan-base very far in advance and we got some really good feedback, such as realising that most of our US audience don’t know what Elite is.

How similar will Sunless Sea be to Fallen London?

The main difference is the interface; ships sailing around a lightless ocean. It’s more of a visual/sensory experience than Fallen London. We showed video to one of our testers and they pointed out that it looks a lot like the early Grand Theft Auto and GTA: Chinatown Wars in the way you explore the world, unlike Fallen London which is pretty much a text only game.  There will be actual movie images; this is the first time we’ve had animation in our games.  In terms of what’s the same, we have a very distinctive style which I think is sardonic, gently observed and quite dark and that, from the early feedback we’ve got so far, really comes through.

We’re also importing, wholesale, the Storylet Engine from Fallen London. Little self contained situations and nuggets of story will appear and require you to make a choice and it effects what happens later. So for example, if you run out of supplies, rather than the game being over your hunger starts to rise and storylets will pop up about the increasingly desperate measures your crew starts taking; people jumping overboard, cannibalism, mutiny, that sort of thing.  So you get a story that’s made up of lots of tiny little bits which assemble to make a larger clockwork whole is something that should be familiar to Fallen London players.

The mechanics include things like trading and negotiation, so you could hug a sea monster if you want.  They all wind back into the story; for example if you pick up zoological specimens from an encampment and decide to bring them back home, those specimens might escape. In which case you may find yourself resolving storylets that evoke the feel of the movie Aliens. It’s not just about fighting a succession of indentikit monsters and just defeating them to get the loot. Some of these will become adversaries, emissaries or even obsessions. You may find yourself fighting a white whale, and it escapes to come back again and again until you get a climactic showdown; though you could break the story early on if you wish.

Should we expect the same level of storytelling and humour from Sunless Sea that we expect from Fallen London.

Enormously so. You may be familiar with Bartle’s Taxonomy of Players; you get explorers, killers, socialisers and achievers. We always felt that with Fallen London players tend to fall across the explorer axis, and that’s certainly where the creative team comes from; poking about a world, finding the interesting stories in it and exploring the nooks and crannies. That’s one of the reasons we went for a world assembled through tiles rather procedurally generated ones. We love the idea that when you’re exploring, you don’t just come across a slightly unusual rock formation or a slightly awkward trade route, you instead find a city built on a turtles shell or a lost Mongolian empire or town composed entirely of sentient monkeys. All these sort of things mean that there will be always something else to discover at the edge of the map.

Will the mysteries in Fallen London carry on into Sunless Sea?

They are probably three maybe four core mysteries in Sunless Sea which touch on existing mysteries  in Fallen London. The Dawn Machine and its relationship with the admirality is a big one and ties back into the main theme of light and darkness.

Would you describe the two games as steampunk?
I have a difficult relationship with the word steampunk, because as a genre, steampunk tends to be one of optimism, chrome and polished brass. Fallen London is gothic in the literary sense of the word, it’s the eruption into everyday life of the dark and chaotic, and how people deal with that.  So I was quite precious for a very long time about not calling Fallen London steampunk, but so many enthusiasts are keen on it.  Ultimately we have clockwork and goggles and we are set in the Victorian era so it’s futile to fight it. Andrew Eldritch has gone on record saying that the Sisters of Mercy aren’t a goth band, but everyone else has decided that they are. I think Fallen London is a bit like that, maybe in some sense it’s true.  Sunless Sea is probably more steampunk because it’s populated with steam ships.

The art is very distinctive, and your mention that Sunless Sea will have animation. What should we expect?
The keyword is painted. A little bit cartoony in a slightly grotesque way. Sort of if Edward Gorey had gone to work for Pixar. One of the key features of Fallen London was silhouettes and we use those again with Sunless Sea. Because it’s a top down game you get this sense of a particularly macabre dollhouse, and it looks like it’s been painted, rather than rendered on the 3D engine.

You’ve got the browser game, you’ve done a webcomic and the video game is currently in the works; what other media would you like to use to tell tales of Fallen London?

More games; games are our heritage. Films or short films would be great to do, but it’s not something that we really have funding for at the moment.

If you were trapped on a desert island with only a book for company, what would that book be?

The Desolation Road by Ian McDonald.

Who or what are your main sources of inspiration?

David Lynch is a god, though you’d be pressed to find Lynchian influence directly in our work. He’s the granddaddy in terms of enticing symbolist narrative, a dream like air and the strong themes of sex and death. The fathers of Steampunk, people like Tim Powers and James Blaylock, I love to bits. King of Dragon Pass is also a big influence on us.

Zeppelins or Rocket Ships?

Zeppelin.

Simpsons or Futurama?

Simpsons.

Sherlock Holmes or James Bond?

Mycroft Holmes.

Truth or Beauty?

The two are indivisible.

The Kickstarter Campaign for SUNLESS SEA is running now, and can be found at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/failbetter/sunless-sea

Geek Pride Cosplay Calendar Launched!

One of the many signs that the year is beginning to come to a close is that calendars for the following year start appearing in bookshops and online stores. If you haven’t picked out a calendar for your year quite yet, you may be interested in the 2014 Geek Pride Cosplay Calendar, which intends to raise money for Cancer Research UK and is currently looking for crowd funding via IndieGoGo. We caught up with organiser Katie Fairfield to find out a bit more.

Starburst: Why a Calendar? And why Cosplayers?

Katie Fairfield: The idea came up a few months ago and everyone seemed really keen to be involved, we had various different ideas but we wanted it to be something we could all sink our teeth into in one way or another, and most everyone who writes or contributes to Geek Pride is doing something towards the calendar, be it artwork, cosplaying, videoing, blogging or designing. It’s a real inspiration to have so many talented people on board and willing to help and give their time so freely to the cause. I think a calendar gives us the opportunity to include as many different styles as possible and is a really effective way of showcasing what we are really made of. We decided on the cosplay aspect mostly because we all love the characters we’ve chosen, and the themes we are working to are really exciting too.

Why Cancer Research?

I think it’s safe to say that almost everyone on this whole damn planet has been touched by the big C at some point in their lives. Whether that be a family member or friend that has suffered, or if they have been affected personally. We thought long and hard about what we wanted to do with the money, and many great causes were bandied about, but when it came down to the vote it was almost unanimous that we want to do our bit to kick cancer’s arse.

Who will be involved? Where have the photographers and cosplayers come from?

Our photographer is Matt Geary, master of the camera. I have cosplayers coming from Kent, Wales, Chester, Manchester and Southampton, to name a few.

Who are the cosplayers? What else have they done?

Most of the cosplayers are hobbyists with high quality cosplay outfits, but we have a few models on board. Most people will be familiar with Lady Noctis and I’m also cosplaying in the calendar on top of arranging it all. Even though we’re not all professional cosplayers I have been vetting the outfits as we go along and I can promise that they are absolutely incredible. We are releasing sneaky peeks (low res images) of the costumes so people can get a little taste of what’s to come as we move forward so keep an eye on the Indiegogo page for more information.

What costumes should we expect to see?

You’re in for a treat. If you like comic books we have Wonder Woman, Superman, Catwoman, Deadpool, Harley Quinn and the Joker amongst others. If you prefer gaming we have an entire month dedicated to Left 4 Dead and a very special Final Fantasy shoot and for fans of TV shows/movies/anime we have Game of Thrones, Despicable Me and Watchmen shoots in the pipeline.

Those interested in the project can find out more by clicking here.

Sarah Jane Honeywell was one of the most recognizable faces on BBC children’s channel CBeebies. As presenter of Tikkabilla, Higgledy House and Mighty Mites she soon became a firm favourite with both children and parents alike. Since leaving CBeebies she’s embraced her love of horror, appearing in a number of independent British productions, including Bloody Cuts and the Eschatrilogy. She also stars in the upcoming sci-fi short Tempus Fug’it, which has been overseen by Michael Haneke, the Oscar winning director of Amour and Hidden (and yes, a Michael Haneke sci-fi action film is something we need to see!). We caught up with her to discuss her somewhat unique career path and love of horror.

Starburst: You’ve just done Tempus Fug’it. What can you tell us about that?

Sarah Honeywell: Yes, it means ‘Time Flies’. It was done in Vienna and we also filmed just outside Bratislava. It’s about a woman whose husband gets killed while she’s pregnant, and she finds a way that you can bring people back in time for a moment by making these windows of opportunity. You steal these windows of opportunity from other people and you build them up and remake time. She gets her husband to come back to life so that he can see his child seven years later. But, in doing so the government are very angry with her and they try and kill her.

Which is why you’ve been posting various pictures online of you with machine guns?

Yeah, which was so much fun! The people who did it are to do with the Vienna Film Academy and they are under the guidance of Michael Haneke. He teaches at that school, he’s one of their professors. I wanted to do it because it was under his guidance. It was filmed on 35mm which is really unusual. I’ve seen it, there’s some bits that are properly European and beautiful.

It’s an arty action movie?

It is quite arty but Béla Baptiste, the director, he wanted to do it because he’s sick of European films not being action movies. It’s a short, it’s like the Bloody Cuts one that I did. It’s the same sort of premise, it’s a short to do more. It’s 15 minutes long.

Is it being released online?

We’re going to film festivals first with it, and then out online.

This isn’t your first venture into genre filmmaking. You’ve also appeared in both Bloody Cuts and the Eschatrilogy…

I did the Eschatrilogy first, and basically I’m in the last scene, I’m a zombie survivor, so I’m clearly a tough bird! I look about 150 in it, I nearly died when I saw it! I thought “What have they done to me?” Basically they wouldn’t let me wear any make-up and covered me in mud. I did not know I looked that old covered in mud! I get to slash somebody and be a tough girl in that.

Good fun for a horror fan then?

Yeah. It was more exciting than kid’s TV! It was in the woods and we had fires going and I was filthy. It made me feel like a wild person! It was absolutely freezing, it had been snowing and we were on the moors. Also, Damian Morter, who is the director and writer, is awesome. He’s in it, he’s in my scene, and also Stuart Wolfenden from Dead Man’s Shoes and George Newton who plays Banjo in This in England are in it as well. George Newton plays a zombie and he was properly scary. He ate raw liver. I saw it and it’s a really good film, and I’m not a massive fan of zombie films, it’s the one thing I’m not keen on. They’re really slow, they’re not scary!

But it’s not their speed, it’s their numbers, surely that’s what makes them scary?

They don’t scare me! 28 Days Later really scared me, and I quite like The Walking Dead because I like the concept. But this, I was a bit worried as it’s on a small budget, but they had some crazy prosthetics and it’s a really good film, people are going to love it.

And after that you did Bloody Cuts…

They’re short horrors. I’m in Dead Man’s Lake but their best one is Sucka Blood which is a Victorian horror, that’s my favourite of theirs. They’re going to do thirteen and after that I think they’re going to try and do a feature film. It’s a family who do it. We literally stayed in the family’s houses, it was really cool. Millennium FX did the prosthetics for them, they do Doctor Who. It rained a lot but I really loved it. I kind of blagged my way into that. I said, “I want to make a behind the scenes film of a horror, can I be an extra?” and they said: “we’ll give you a little part.” So for two days I was there I didn’t film anything, I was just doing behind the scenes, having lots of fun, and finally it got to my scene and I could see that they were all nervous. They were really nervous for my scene, I was in a car which was all smashed up and I was mucking around and I could see that they were going “what have we done? We’ve got a kid’s TV presenter and we’ve actually given her lines!” Then I did it and (director/producer) Ben Franklin he really laughed and said, “I should have given you more lines!” I said, “didn’t you think I could do it?” and he said no! They gave me three lines and that was it because they didn’t trust me! Literally I felt their relief when I did those three lines, I just felt everyone go, “Oh thank God for that, she’s actually alright!”

What else have you got coming up?

I’ve got a film called Five Pillars, that’s a gritty Northern drama and I’ve got a full length film, Gift of Light, about depression, and one called The Attachment, but they’re not sci-fi or horror. I’ve done an online comedy as well, but again that’s not in the right genre…

Yeah, this bit will get cut as it’s not about zombies.

Ha! Exactly.

And you’ve worked with a former Doctor, Colin Baker.

Yes, Shadows Of A Stranger . That was amazing to do actually. Again I was only in one scene in a dream sequence…

You’re queen of the one scene cameo aren’t you?

I’m that stupid girl where everyone goes, “She obviously can’t act but we’ll get her in because she tweets about it!” I play a girl where you’re not sure if she’s an angel or not. Chris Clark and Richard Dutton got in touch with me on Facebook because Chris has got kids and had seen me on kid’s TV and said: “We really want you to do this part, will you do it?” It was literally just after I filmed Mighty Mites. It was in Lincoln and they asked me to come up the night before filming for rehearsal. So in the middle of the fens I was driving out at 10 o’clock at night to this barn on an old farm down this country lane thinking, “I wonder if I’m actually going to get killed?”

You drove out to a remote house in the middle of nowhere to meet someone you didn’t know?

Yeah, I thought, “This could be a snuff horror!” Luckily they were genuine and they did not kill me. What was amazing was they built a bluescreen in this barn themselves. They did everything themselves. They’re still directing and editing it now because they’ve done all the animation for it themselves. It’s amazing, it’s got people in it like Colin Baker. They also let me film my music video ‘Karma’ on their bluescreen studio and they animated it for me. What I loved about them is they got this film, they decided, “we’re gonna do it” and they just did it. It was in this old barn, it was raining, we had to keep waiting for the rain on the roof because it was a tin roof, they’d got a caravan off eBay that you went to the toilet in. I love them for going for it and not being held back by money. Hopefully that’ll be out this Christmas.

Doing horror is quite a departure for someone best known for CBeebies. Was it a conscious decision to take your career in a more adult direction?

Well after my picture appeared in The Sun . I was kind of glad because they’re very strict at kid’s TV and they kind of want you to be a child yourself, and I’m not. I remember when I got tattoos they were horrified and I don’t think I ever really fitted in there. I remember doing a magazine questionnaire when we first went on tour with CBeebies Live. They asked us: “What’s your favourite song”. Justin Fletcher put “The Grand Old Duke of York”. I clearly didn’t get where I was in life because I put “Anarchy in the U.K.” I thought “Yeah, I’m not in the right job here!” So it was lucky I did break away. I’ve always loved horror, and I’ve always wanted to be a scream queen. And I love stuff like Twin Peaks. I’m obsessed with it, I’ve been obsessed with it since I was a kid, so I wanted to do something that dramatic. Also, I’ve always wanted to be like that guy who plays Gollum.

Andy Serkis? Doing performance capture?

Yes. Because I do contortion and acrobatics, I feel like I’d be good at that sort of thing. Just to create characters. But there is something I really want to do in a horror movie, and someone’s really got to let me do it. I can lie on the floor and I can get up without any arms. It’s the perfect zombie move. Somebody needs to put that in a film. I’ll be a zombie or a vampire. While I can still do it someone needs to put it in!

In the past you’ve worked in both West End shows as well as kid’s TV, both of which are seen as more respectable, and presumably pay better than low budget horror. Do you think it’s important to support independent filmmakers?

Yes, really important, and I like the way Bloody Cuts have done theirs. They’ve done their 13 shorts to prove they can make a good film and then they’ll do a feature, and by then they’ll have got their fanbase, which I think is really clever of them.

Despite your small roles, you’re often among the most recognisable faces in these films, and your name’s used quite prominently in their publicity. Do you think that lending your profile to these films helps them out?

No I don’t think it did! I think with horror it doesn’t matter. Maybe people would hear about it that wouldn’t normally hear about it, but I think people like George Newton and Stuart Wolfenden would have more of an impact with publicity.

You’ve got a bit of a weird dual career. On the one hand you’ve done kid’s stuff like CBeebies and panto, on the other you do horror movies. Which do you prefer and do you see these careers as contradictory?

I like doing both extremes. You don’t have to be just one thing. Essentially I’m an actress, so whether I’m playing Peter Pan at Christmas, which I’m doing this year, or I’m killing zombies, I’m just acting. And I quite like breaking the stereotype.

Is there anyone you’d love to work with?

John Lydon! And I want to work with Shane Meadows, it’s my dream to work for him. I would of course like to work with David Lynch, and Oliver Stone. At the moment Shane Meadows is my goal, even if he just gave me one scene!

You said once that you’d like to be in Doctor Who?

I’d love to be in Doctor Who! I’d love to be either the Doctor or the Doctor’s assistant. I’d like to be the Doctor!

You’ve missed your chance at being the 12th, but next time it could be time for a 5ft tall, female, blonde Doctor?

Yeah, it’s what the fans have been waiting for! I’d quite like to have been in the Sarah Jane Adventures. Surely with my name I could have played her younger sister or daughter?

Finally, you’re a big horror fan. What kind of stuff do you like?

I’m really into The Strangers at the moment, with Liv Tyler. What I love about it is that the soundtrack should have won an Oscar because it’s actually scary. I also love Session Nine, which stars David Caruso. I love , and I think of things like Twin Peaks as a horror as well because it’s quite surreal and scary.

Tempus Fugit and Shadows Of A Stranger will be released later this year. The Eschatrilogy is available on DVD shortly. Dead Man’s Lake can be viewed online or purchased on DVD from the Bloody Cuts website.

Earlier this year, Random House made their first foray into online gaming, in the form of Rob Sherman’s grossly physical interactive fiction, Black Crown. Putting the reader in the role of a shambling clerk working for the Widsith Institute, the narrative plunges you into an exploratory world of Victorian squalor and obscene body-horror. Themes of archeology, entropy and infection pervade the story, offering branching story-paths that open up over time as your ghastly metamorphosis progresses. Calling the experience original would be an understatement. Black Crown is a mesmerising, disgustingly immersive journey into the bowels of a brave new world.

Author Rob Sherman created Black Crown in collaboration with Random House Digital Publisher Dan Franklin and Failbetter Games, using their interactive story platform StoryNexus. Starburst’s P M Buchan caught up with Rob Sherman and Dan Franklin about the inception of this innovative, Cronenbergian nightmare.

Starburst: Could you tell us specifically how Rob Sherman, with his suitcase full of ideas, found his way to you at Random House?

Dan Franklin: I took a call from Rob’s creative writing tutor at Exeter University, Sam North in Summer ‘11, and he advised me that I should meet a student of his who had delivered a suitcase as his final piece of work for his creative writing MA. At the time I was working with Failbetter Games on the digital marketing experience at www.nightcircus.co.uk and wanted to explore a fully-fledged digital publishing project using that platform with an original piece of IP. Rob came in and talked me through the suitcase, I asked if he could ‘write it up’ in as linear a fashion as possible so I could fully engage with the story (and see if Rob could write ‘one the line’) and I gave that document to Alexis at Failbetter and we went from there. What the case represents is the heart of the mystery of Black Crown, and it was really a question of turning that experience inside out, putting the peripheral comments and editing of the Widsith Institute as the main game framework, and a lot of the objects, text and art elements of the case into the ‘Miasma’ zone around it.

At what point did it become apparent that you could support the Black Crown project?

Well it wasn’t the Black Crown project to begin with, and it was when Failbetter and Rob spent a month working up the creative and business proposal for the project last summer that I became sure this was something that Random House could get behind. But then I wasn’t fully certain until our publishing strategy board approved it. The key thing was from the start that I felt Rob was a raw talent whose work was publishable, up to that standard. It was a question of defining and refining exactly how.

If Failbetter Games provide the platform, and Rob provides the content, how much involvement would you say that you have in the project?

If I hadn’t been introduced to Rob the project wouldn’t exist, at least not in this form. I know he had conversations with other people in the industry, but it came at a moment where it made sense in terms of what I was focusing on, where Random House wanted to be, how our relationship with Failbetter was developing. I am the patron of this project from a financial perspective, Random House has taken the risk, and we’ve provided editorial, marketing and publicity support. Not to mention involving Popleaf, our art department, and other resources to bring it into existence. It’s properly creative, commissioned publishing…

Where do you see digital literature in ten years time? Do you have any wild ideas that you can’t bring to fruition yet, but that you envisage as becoming possible in the future?

It’s almost impossible for me to say. Even a year ago things looked very different. I think the idea of web-based, yet somehow ‘bound’ narrative experiences is going to get looked at hard in the coming year or two. Does the ebook inevitably collapse into the web? Questions like that. It will be dependent on technological innovation and how storytelling adapts to that, or reacts against it. Wearable technology, and Google Glass etc, have real implications for participatory narrative, with all the utopian and dystopian ramifications. I fully expect our notions of reality and fantasy to collapse into each other. If reading is an act of hallucination, then hallucination can now become an act of reading the world around us. It’s brilliantly terrifying. But books (ebooks) have always functioned as an escape, so I can see a counter-trend away from immersion to full-on self-expulsion. That’s why print will never die; the book that isn’t reading you as you read it, that isn’t capturing your data. Paper will seem classy and stupidly friendly.

Nobody at the forefront of digital publishing could ever be accused of being conservative professionally – does this extend to your tastes? What do you read for fun?

I’m not sure that statement is a given, actually. The risk is that as the digital book market matures we play it safe under the illusion of stability. Right now I think it’s upheaval all the way into the future and we need to push the envelope. I’m reading Red or Dead by David Peace, who I think is the most important writer in the UK in the risks he takes formally in his writing and the way he constructs mythologies in his work. I generally like contemporary or classic fiction and non-fiction which sits at the margins, but that draws the mainstream to it. So, David Vann is such a writer and I enjoyed the first book in Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle series.

The contents may cause queasiness. Is this overt physicality a symptom of your writing style in general, or a product of the world that you’re creating in Black Crown?

Rob Sherman: Some of my friends chide me for adoring words like “larynx”. It is a pretty accurate picture of my own literary universe, the body and its various extrusions as a major interest. I have always been interested in my own disgusting form, but its functions are not really designed to make people feel unwell, or titillate; they are designed to be a grounding mechanism in a fantastical setting. Everybody knows what it feels like to have eyes full of sleepydust, or a cut on their leg, or a stomach ache, or ingrowing hairs. That we find these things disgusting rather than admit that they are interesting and fundamentally human is something that I write about a lot. Black Crown is, then, perhaps the equivalent of hoovering up cheese from the fridge at 2am; a glut of everything on this shelf that interests me, at least at the moment.

What was the origin of the project? Would you say that the narrative itself or the idea of telling an interactive story came first?

The project came about with me trying to be a big clever arsehole. I was in my Master’s year at university, and wanted to impress the tutors for my final project by creating something different. So I took the last of my student loan, and went to Otto Retro in Exeter, a now-defunct (I think) junk shop that completely replenished its stock every week. With a previous project in mind, which involved old photographic portraits paired with captions describing an abandoned town, I bought an old suitcase and began, just… filling it. With shards of life from this ruined town, which came to be called Loss. I created the character of the Miasma Eremite to provide an impetus for these things being collected, and the Widsith Institute as a reason for my tutor being given such a collection of things. Through a combination of novelty and a direct threat of infection with a fictional disease, my tutor recommended it enough to help me begin the process of getting it picked up for development. It was always interactive in the sense of ergodic exploration, traversing through these items to work out what happened. The current format of Black Crown is just a projection of that original “artefact fiction”.

Do you identify the Black Crown project with any particular genres?

A microbiologist contacted me the other day and proposed that we call it “biopunk”, which delighted me. People have called it “body horror”, but the horror is secondary to my interests; as I stated above, I think that these things are more human than anything else, and our reaction to them is fascinating. I have just sat here for a few minutes trying to put it into traditional terms, and I am getting a headache. Just give it a whirl, I say.

Who would you say have been the biggest influences on your writing?

Victor Pelevin is a humungous touchstone, in his verbosity and happiness with transformational insanity. Ted Hughes is my godhead, if I can have one. However, the biggest influence and impetus is probably the constant, anxious fug that surrounds me, telling me I am not original enough, and must crawl out further on the yardarm. It will get too much, one day.

Is there an end in sight to Black Crown? Is this the kind of story that we can ever finish reading?

Just because of the very real dangers of fingerprint erosion and nervous exhaustion, this is most definitely a story you can finish. We did consider having it dissipate or augment itself down and down and down through reader discussion and theoretics, but a solid ending provides a quite real chemical to the human brain that I feel benefits the experience. It also justifies the at-times maddening opacity of the story. It will be ended. I hope that it will be satisfying; I think that it will be the ending it needs, after all that comes before.

Do you ever see yourself adapting the Black Crown project into a conventional novel, or revisiting the story in a different medium?

I am not sure that the world would work as a novel. It is so segmented, suspended all along a narrative rope like little lights, but the world could certainly expand along that rope. There’s a fairly crunchy amount of backstory and extra material, and I would like to bring that to light in as many different ways as possible. A videogame, a coffee table book of background material, a themed Angry Birds spin-off… I’m rubbing my hands maniacally now. It makes it difficult to type.

Any tips for playing Black Crown?

The game is designed to be traversed as a constellation – hubs of light leading to weaker, yet still integral stars. Read the forums. Read the item descriptions and mouse over the qualities that your character accumulates, as the text there are mostly quotes from books which are not quite real. Try and cause a game error and read the resulting screen. Go through the text shards and objects with a fine, enamelled comb. This all presupposes interest in the game to begin with. It requires some patience and tolerance for mystery and words. There are a lot of words. I’m aiming for holy-book length. Given what Alan Moore is doing at the moment, it seems like a good marketing hook.

What’s next for Rob Sherman?

I would love to continue spending my days doing this sort of thing, but I am more than aware of the limitations of that path. I have about three stage plays bubbling away, a Brummie science-fiction short film called Kings Of Mercia which we are filming in winter, maybe a novel, and a randomly-generated boardgame about 14th century explorers. I’ll keep chipping away at these, as long as I can, and if I get paid, I can chip a little quicker, and enjoy myself a little more. If Irrational Games want to give me a job, fly me to Boston, put a bib on me and feed me Atlantic lobster, I might like that as well.

Bloodline is a new horror flick that’s about to scare up U.S. audiences at the end of the month. Written, directed, produced and starring promising newcomer Matt Thompson, it’s an Evil Dead-esque yarn about a young man, originally on a path to lead a priestly life, who goes in search of answers about his real identity and finds out some disturbing, horrifying truths.

Christopher Frontiero, whose many credits include Dexter and Parks & Recreation, plays  Davy, the film’s ‘light relief’ – if you will.

Hey Chris, so how did you get involved in Bloodline?

I was lucky. I saw the audition posted online, submitted myself, auditioned and booked the job. Jesse (Kristofferson, my co-star) was at the audition with me. I just assumed he had already been cast because he’s good-looking and I generally resent good-looking people.

Tell us a bit about your character, Davy.

Davy wants to have fun but on his own terms. He has become more of a city dweller and does not appreciate the beauty or the quiet of the country. Davy is Kevin’s cousin. How those two are related, I have no idea.

Matt Thompson not only stars in it, he’s the director. Did you find, since he’s an actor too, that he’s more in tune with actors?

Matt had a very difficult job. Writing, co-producing, directing and starring in a film at the same time requires an incredible amount of discipline. You really have to know what you’re talking about and you have to have the respect of the cast and crew because as soon as people believe you are spread too thin, anarchy and mutiny can sneak up and bite you in the ass. Matt was somehow able to do all of those jobs and make his film, something I could have never done. His efforts are certainly commendable. I’d work with him again in a New York minute.

How long did the movie film in Sacramento? What was the atmosphere like up there?

I only shot for a day or two in Sacramento before the production moved to Pollack Pines, so I wasn’t really able to get a firm grasp of Sacramento as a city. I did hear it referred to as ‘Sack Town,’ a nickname I’m sure most residents regret. Pollack Pines was a trip. There were times where I felt like I was in the middle of Appalachia but the folks in town were nice and by the end, the bartenders remembered my name, and in the end, that’s what’s important.

And have you kept in touch with any of your co-stars?

In fact, we have all become very good friends. Other than Matt, the rest of the main cast live in Los Angeles. Jesse, Grainger (Hines), Kimberly (Alexander), Gina (Comparetto) and I see each other often. They are all incredibly talented and getting to hang out with them is always a blast.

BLOODLINE hits U.S. Cinemas September 27th. (UK release date TBC)

CLIP:

Graham McNeill is best known for his novels set in the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 settings. His works include the incredibly successful False Gods, and the Gemmell award winning book, Empire. His latest novel, Lords of Mars, was released recently…

Starburst: Tell us a bit about Lords of Mars.

Graham McNeill: Lords of Mars is the second part of my Mars trilogy. It’s set just as an exploratory fleet gets across the edge of the galaxy and into the unknown wilderness beyond that. It’s a chance to take the readers beyond their comfort zone and challenge all the things they know about the Imperium. It’s a region where all the normal institutions are gone, and they’re properly on their own.

What’s in Lords of Mars for those not entirely familiar with the Warhammer 40,000 setting?
It’s a way that you can explore what The Imperium of Man is from an outsider’s point of view. The Mechanicus are part of, but separate from the rest, and because the story is set in an exploration fleet, there’s all sorts of branches of The Imperium that we can observe. We have Rogue Traders, Space Marines, Imperial Guard, so we get a nice spread of the culture.

What’s the lasting appeal of the Warhammer 40,000 setting?
For me, it’s that it isn’t all shiny. Everything is broken down and mankind is fighting for survival in a hellish, nightmare world. 40K is very grimy and very little works; the only stuff that works is the robust stuff, not because people understand how to fix it. When I’m writing, I tend to look at the story first and then bring out the 40K-ness out of it later.

Will we see anymore Ultramarines stuff?
Yes, absolutely. You’ll see a lot more Ultramarines stuff from me over the coming years.

What real world influences do you bring to your work?
I have an interest in science as a discipline and I think that to understand what things are and how they work is a beautiful thing. If you don’t understand, you ask and learn and grow. It’s something I’ve tried to do all my life. I’m very interested in history. Anything that really appeals to me as a person I try to bring into a story in a way that works but without crow-barring it in. Just because I like something it doesn’t mean it will fit the story.

Tell us more about the Arkham Horror books you’ve written.
Writing in a day to day setting was very different from the Warhammer books. The main characters’ concerns are very much like ours are, they’re ordinary people. Reporters, Universtiy lecturers, that sort of thing. Their concerns are things like a roof over their heads, so writing people who aren’t necessarily going to be dragged in to save the world or save the galaxy or what have you was, weirdly, more of a challenge. Trying to write someone who is “ordinary” while still making their conversations interesting whilst at the same time dragging them into this Lovecraftian world was tricky. Writing real world fiction should be easier given that we live in the real world, but it’s not. The books are set in the 1920s, so getting used to the way people speak and live was interesting and a lot of fun. They were probably the three books I had the most fun writing, especially when that world was ending and everyone was going mad.

Your background is in table top gaming. How does that mesh with the writing?
These days almost not at all. I’ve two little ones under four, so the time I have for tabletop gaming is next to zero. I still keep up to date with what’s coming out, because that informs my work, but it’s very rare I get the chance to throw dice on a table top and move toy soldiers around.

What can we expect from your next Horus Heresy novel?
Currently I am working on Vengeful Sprit, which is a Sons of Horus centric novel. It brings the Warmaster back into centre frame, because for a while we’ve been telling stories about the other Primarchs. What the Warmaster was doing is something that we don’t know an awful lot about. We’ve spent a lot of time figuring out what the major characters have been doing, and it’s about time to remind the readers why it’s his name on the series title. The book will bring him front and centre to the Heresy and remind the readers just how terrifying The Sons of Horus are when they make war.

Who will write the last Horus Heresy book?
It’s not called the long war for nothing. That’s a question that will come up much, much later on. There’s plenty more to come, and we’ve got a lot planned, right down to the artwork. At this rate I’ll be getting my four-year old to write it when he comes of age. As Aaron put it, “I fear for our friendships when we get to the end of this.” We are all very invested in it, and yes, there will be one book that ends it all, but everyone will be writing an aspect of it. Holographic Storytelling, as Jim Swallow puts it.

Is there a tie-in franchise you’d love to be involved with?
There’s the obvious ones like Star Wars and Doctor Who, I’d love to do stuff with that. I’m a big fan of the Firefly universe. I kind of hope there isn’t any official tie-in stuff for that but I’d love to do something with that.

What other things inspire you?

Films, music, art, books, people around me, things I over hear, things I see and then do a double take and realise that it’s not what I thought it was, and then wonder what if it was. Comics, anything, it’s all grist to the mill. You need to fill your mind with idea fuel. I might read the same things as another writer and we’d both come away with different ideas. Everything and anything, it’s all sensory input that you bring in and mash up to see what comes out the other end.

What’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you?

There’s too many. Probably being given an Axe for Empire, The David Gemmel Legend Award.

If you were stranded on a desert island what book would you want for company?
Legend by David Gemmel.

Tzeentch or Nyarlathotep?

Tzeentch, because you would never be bored. With Nyarlathotep you’d be endlessly entertained for a fraction of a second and then it’d all be over when your mind broke.

The Simpsons or Futurama?
Futurama.

Fantasy or Science Fiction?
Those are my babies. Fantasy.

Sigmar or The Emperor?
Sigmar.

Truth or Beauty?
Truth. Beauty fades but truth is eternal.

Lords of Mars is out now.