Movies

A Quickie With Erin Kelly

Six years ago, actor Erin Kelly was sitting in the audience at a play, minding her own business, when filmmaker Katherine Brooks walked up to her and said, “Please tell me you’re an actress.”

Luckily for Brooks, the answer was “yes.” Four years later, Kelly was starring in her first feature film, playing a self-possessed and passionate Catholic schoolgirl in love with a female teacher twice her age in Brooks’ smoldering tale of taboo attraction, Loving Annabelle.

If loving Annabelle was wrong, droves of fans didn’t want to be right.

This fall, Kelly inhabits the role of a seductive, yet disturbed mental patient in the new Brooks film, Waking Madison, which stars Elisabeth Shue, Sarah Roemer (Disturbia, The Grudge 2) and Taryn Manning (Cold Mountain, Hustle & Flow).

Kelly sat down with AfterEllen.com recently to talk about meeting and forming a lasting friendship with Brooks, the unsexiness of shooting sex scenes, and what she loves about her lesbian fan base.

AfterEllen.com: Katherine Brooks said you’re her muse. How much does being a muse pay these days? Erin Kelly: [laughs] Not nearly enough.

AE: In Waking Madison, your third project with Katherine, you play a character named Grace. Who is Grace? EK: Grace is one of the patients Madison meets at a mental institution. And Grace is there because she’s a sex addict and a drug addict; she has an addictive personality.

AE: Sounds like Grace has some issues. Does she indulge her addictions with anyone on the ward? EK: [She] seduces orderlies, but none of the other patients.

AE: Does Grace connect with the patients in other ways? EK: Yeah, all of the girls. In the story, there’s a community room where we all connect and [develop] relationships with each other. There’s the bully, Margaret, played by Taryn Manning, and Imogen Poots as Alexis, the wounded girl who’s tormented by Margaret. And I’m the character between the two of them.

AE: You were originally going to play the wounded one, Alexis. EK: Right. I was. But I ended up playing Grace, which, in the end, worked out. I thought the role of Grace was much more interesting for me, as an actor.

Erin Kelly as Grace in Waking Madison

AE: Your role was switched because, according to Katherine, you’re so good at playing a “focused, promiscuous seducer.” Do you agree? EK: [sarcastically] Oh, no. I’ve never had any experience in that area. [laughs] No, it’s all just pulling from my imagination.

AE: Oh, really now? EK: [laughs] No, nothing.

AE: Come on. EK: [laughs] I’m no fun.

AE: I don’t believe that. Tell me one story. EK: Well, I wasn’t promiscuous or anything like that. [long pause] OK. When I was 16, my dad caught me selling “beverages” out of the trunk of my car.

AE: How did you buy “beverages” at 16 years old? EK: I stood outside the store and I was somehow able to get college guys to buy it for me.

 

AE: Seems the “focused seducer” in you was actually a budding entrepreneur. What’s wrong with that? You showed initiative. EK: My dad thought so, too, although he was obviously angry with me. He and my godfather were also sort of laughing about it. But no one should ever do that. It’s not something to be proud of.

AE: Does Grace seduce for fun and profit, too? EK: She uses sex as a form of manipulation, to get what she wants. But it’s also her safe spot. It’s comfortable. She can mask her vulnerability and all the issues that are going on inside, through sex.

AE: What does it take to create a very intense sex scene? EK: Well, it’s very unsexy; there’s a crew there. I mean, I’ve joked about this before that [when] Katherine clears a set of men, I’m like, “Katherine, the people who aren’t men on this set are all gay, so it’s the same thing.”

AE: You have to watch out for those lesbian gaffers. EK: [laughs] And then, on top of that, you have hair and makeup coming in while you’re lying on top of each other, and someone to arrange your legs, and you can’t move, and Katherine is yelling out, “Take her bra off, Erin!”

Diane Gaidry (left) and Kelly in Loving Annabelle

AE: It’s good to be the director. She said she taught you the one-handed bra unsnap, which makes sense because Annabelle would know how to do that. EK: Oh, yeah. Definitely.

AE: Can you still do it? EK: [laughs] I haven’t tried in a while.

AE: Katherine mentioned that if she could, she’d shoot a new ending for Annabelle. What ending would you like to see? EK: [laughs] Annabelle jumping off the roof of the school.

AE: [laughs] With a falcon on her shoulder. EK: Shouting, “Simone, I love you!”

AE: And then, death. EK: Yeah, of course!

AE: OK. Which existing ending do you like better? EK: I don’t like the alternate ending because it’s not true to life. And I know that we often use movies as escapism and we want to see the happy ending, but I like the shock value of not having the happy ending. I like having it be true to life and, as the audience, you’re left going, “Aww. No!”

AE: You’ve known Katherine for years now. When she approached you at that play with “Please tell me you’re an actress,” did you immediately think, “Who the hell are you and what kind of line is that?” EK: No, because I had just recently moved to L.A. I wasn’t jaded. Not like now. [laughs] So I listened to those strange women who come up to you and say they’re going to make your career.

AE: ‘Cause that never happens here in L.A., right? EK: [laughs] And they just want to sleep with you. But Katherine did not. So then, I was just excited.

AE: The first time you worked with her was on her short, Finding Kate, about two female cousins who have an affair with each other. EK: Yes, I auditioned for that two weeks after I met her.

Kelly and Jessica Lancaster in Finding Kate

AE: What’s the deal, were they first cousins? EK: Yes.

AE: You just made that up. EK: [laughs] Yeah.

AE: But they were cousins. That was a bold choice for your first role with a director you had just met. Why do you like working with Katherine? EK: She’s a director who understands actors and knows how to talk to them. Also, now we’re friends and we can talk to each other on that level. It’s great working with people you love.

AE: How has starring in Loving Annabelle affected your life and career? EK: Well, first of all, it’s an honor to have such a loyal lesbian fan base. Women are strength … they have much more power than society sometimes tells us they do. Women kick ass. What could be better than kick-ass fans?

AE: Kick-ass fans who will wash your car. EK: [laughs] Actually, I was surprised that the fan mail for Loving Annabelle went in the direction that it did. I do get a lot of very flattering emails, but I’ve also received letters from older women saying: “Because of your movie, I’ve finally been able to come out of the closet, tell my family that I’m gay, tell my friends, and be proud of the fact that I’m gay. Thank you for that.”

And then there’s the other side – young girls writing me asking, “How do I tell my family I’m gay?” and “How do I tell my friends that I’m gay?” or “How do I know if I’m gay?” And that portion has been overwhelming because I don’t know the answers to those questions. I know what it’s like to be a teenager and to struggle there, so I can offer that, but as far as answering those questions … I haven’t worked out the best way to respond to those fans yet. Maybe an “Ask Annabelle” site or an internet video series? I’m still thinking about that.

AE: I smell a vlog. The other day, you told me you don’t own a television. EK: No, I don’t.

AE: What do you do for fun while everyone else is watching Project Runway? EK: I live on the water. I like to surf. I also hike and do yoga. I just partnered with a company called LOL, which is where I’ve been spending a lot of my time. We go to inner city schools, schools across the board and all around the world, and teach improv and acting to kids.

AE: You do improv? EK: I do. I studied at Upright Citizen’s Brigade … took my first class two years ago.

AE: I didn’t know you did comedy. EK: Well, I don’t, so improv is definitely a good exercise for me.

AE: You don’t think you’re funny? EK: I don’t feel other people find me amusing. But I amuse myself.

AE: That’s all that matters. EK: And I amuse Katherine.

Kelly with Katherine Brooks

AE: Even better. You’re also a member of the Ruskin Group Theater Company in Santa Monica. They do “Café Plays” which, from what I can gather, is something akin to speed theater. What is it? EK: Yeah, I’m one of the creators of that; it’s an ongoing project that happens the first Sunday of every month, and it’s a great exercise for writers, directors and actors.

At 9 o’clock in the morning, writers meet at the café and are given two headshots at random. Then, they have four and a half hours to write something that takes place in the café. At 1:30 p.m., it goes to the theater and those two actors are there with a director – Katherine’s directed this before – and they have five and a half hours to get the play up on its feet. The shows go on at 7:30 and 9:00 that night.

AE: Life doesn’t have enough pressure? You have to go out and do this? EK: [laughs] That’s the industry we’re in.

AE: Have you ever forgotten your lines because you had a nanosecond to rehearse? EK: Well, yes. The only time I’ve ever forgotten my lines onstage was during a Café Play. It was with Jake Newton, who played Cat’s brother in Loving Annabelle. He and I looked at each other – it wasn’t for very long – but it felt like an eternity.

AE: What character would you like to tackle, but hasn’t come your way yet? EK: I would love, love, love to do comedy. It would be so much fun. But I like the dark, f—ed-up roles.

AE: Like Grace, the drug and sex addict. EK: Yes. Another role that comes to mind is Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal.

AE: Another teacher-student thing. I’m seeing a theme with you, Erin. EK: [laughs] Hmm.

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