Death Sentence
This movie was one of my favorites to work on. I am a huge fan of action films and also love the director, James Wan (he created the “Saw” franchise). I was so fired up when I got this offer, as I’d been doing lots of comedy films up until that point. We filmed in South Carolina, and we were living in a hotel by the side of the highway for two months. There wasn’t a lot to do, and I was one of only two women in the cast. Kelly Preston would fly in and out for her work days, but I was pretty much there for the run of the show. No nightlife, no fine dining, and the hotel bar closed at 11. Needless to say, I got a lot of writing done!
Kevin Bacon was a joy to work with and was very generous with the rest of the cast, both with his time and in buying everyone drinks and gifts. And I got to meet one of my idols, John Goodman, who was just a peach and amazing to watch. All the guys who played the gang members were so scary on screen, but in real life they were all sweethearts. I made some great friends on that movie. A lot of the gang members were also stunt guys; they were hilarious and super nice, and would have mini-ultimate fights in the lobby of the hotel. I loved it, but the hotel did not.
Since I was usually the only girl on set, the guys took great care of me, and I got the royal treatment everywhere I went! Unfortunately, since we were in suburban Columbia, South Carolina, “everywhere we went” consisted of the Waffle House, the Cracker Barrel (our favorite haunt), and the movie theater. We went to the Cracker Barrel so often that we had our own table there. I ate a different fruit pancake every time I went, finally settling on the apple ones—those were killer, and huge. By the time I finished that movie I needed to go on a little diet!
One day a bunch of us went to the movies to see a film one of the other actors was in. All the guys had semi-permanent tattoos and looked pretty scary, and when we got to the theater they wouldn’t let us in. They thought they were all real gang members! Luckily Kevin Bacon showed up and saved us all from having to go back to the hotel and watch UFC on the bar TV, which was our main pastime. When we weren’t at the Cracker Barrel, anyway!
I am very proud of how the movie turned out. The director made a beautiful film with very little money, and the stunt and prop guys made big explosive mountains out of tiny cheap molehills! A lot of people criticized it for being too violent, but I felt, and I know James intended, just the opposite: The film is an allegory against bloodshed, a portrait of what happens when a man embraces brutality. It shows that using violence to solve problems becomes a cancer that eventually kills the perpetrator and victim alike. Plus Kevin Bacon was totally badass in it.
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