website tracking
Search The Big Picture

« Another 'Arrested Development' Confirmation | Main | More 'Paul Blart,' More of the Time »
Thursday
29Jan2009

The Big Picture Interview with Alexa Vega from 'Repo: The Genetic Opera'

DateThursday, January 29, 2009 at 8:22PM
It's not the sort of movie that would ever get released in 3,000 theaters, so Repo: The Genetic Opera spread the word another way. Director Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw II, III, and IV) took the movie around the country on a whirlwind tour, hitting different cities every night and appealing to the midnight movie crowd.

The film is an unusual mix of a musical, a horror flick, and a post-apocalyptic dystopia movie, and its cast is just as peculiar: Classically trained singer and actor Paul Sorvino, Bill Moseley from the Rob Zombie movies, Paris Hilton, musical theatre legend Sarah Brightman, and one-time Spy Kid Alexa Vega.

The Big Picture recently caught up with Alexa to talk about Repo, which is now available on DVD.

Big Picture: I thought the plan to release Repo the way they did was really unique. It made it more of an event, and I know in certain cities, it played very, very well. I know you kept video journals during the production of the film. How important was it to you to reach out to your own fan base that way, people who may not be into this sort of thing normally, to get the word out?

Alexa: It was really important letting our fans know, because most of my fans have grown up with me, so people who were fans of Spy Kids are now 20, like me. Luckily, through MySpace I was able to get through to a lot of people and get support that way. And then between [director Darren Lynn Bousman and co- stars Bill Moseley and Paris Hilton], all of their fans were very supportive.

That's the thing about this movie - it brought such a diverse group of people together. If you think about who was showing up at the theaters, not everybody was gothed out, not everybody loved musicals, not everyone loved horror, and we were able to bring all of those groups together.

When you first found out, was it just the script, or did you know - "Wow, this cast is sure a strange mix. I hope it all works out"?

Well, at first, we didn't know Sarah Brightman would be involved. We were looking at other people for that part because we didn't think we could get Sarah Brightman. And then when that happened, it really brought everything together. But when I first found out about Paris Hilton being in it, I was like, "Are you kidding me?" This was when there was a lot of negative stuff in her life and it was very public.

Oh, was this around the time she went to jail?

Yeah, yeah. And the moment I met that girl, I ate my words. She was so professional, she came in and recorded her stuff, and she was so nice. And she proves it on screen; she did a great job and she did her homework for this movie.

Shilo is the center of the action, but she's probably not the centerpiece. There are so many unusual characters and songs in this film, did you struggle with keeping her normal? You could've amped her up to match the weirdness around her, but then she loses some of her appeal, right?

What's great about Shilo - and at first I was a little worried that she'd be boring because all these characters are so over the top - but Shiloh was the one who kept it all sane. She brings the innocence to the flim. And it's hard to do that when everything else is really big.

But originally, Shiloh was kind of the third character. I mean, she guides us through the movie, but it was always Repo Man, that Rotti Largo, then Shilo Wallace. So when the movie came out and my name was first on everything, I was kind of like, "What??" But Darren told me, "You deserved it. You worked really hard on this movie."

Before this, would we have known you could sing?

I did Hairspray on Broadway. Literally, the day I wrapped on Hairspray, I had to record for Repo. But this all happened about a year before [Repo]. But on Spy Kids, I was goofing around with Robert Rodriguez and recording stuff for fun, but he ended up using it for the movie. And I think because of that, Hairspray called me up and asked if I would audition. And they really prepared me for the kind of workload that Repo had.

One good thing for you now that you're 20 is that you're technically no longer "a kid actor." And a lot of them start out cute and adorable at 12 and then by the time they're 18, they look like sea monsters.

(Laughs) Oh, believe me, I feel like Sleepover was my really rough, ugly phase. I was going through puberty and I finally realized what calories were. It was weird. My body kind of stopped. I was putting on all this weight, but I was eating the way I always had, and it lasted for about three years.

It was really, really hard, because it's all on screen. I got the phone calls - "You need to lose weight," "You're looking fat in our movie," "This could definitely be a problem..." It's harder for a 14-year-old kid to hear that. I understand why so many people lose it in this business. Luckily, I have a really great family that kept me a normal kid through all of the hard parts.

You actually got phone calls about being chubby at 14, 15 years old?

Oh yeah! On Sleepover. Oh my gosh, I can't tell you how many calls I got on that film. Now I know why so many actors in Hollywood are anorexic. It's the industry. But at the same time, they hire you one way; you can't change during a film (laughs).

Share/Save/Bookmark
AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | Comment1 Comment |

Reader Comments (1)

cheap air [url=https://wiki.koumbit.net/AirTickets?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=m]dallas airline[/url] in the attached american airlines credit union because southwest airlines phoenix as for me [url=http://wiki.beeseek.org/AirTickets?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=m]air flights[/url] united airlines asiana airlines code share , [url=http://wiki.ubuntu-dk.org/AirTickets?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=m]united airlines[/url] often Links .and again sydney cheap flights see This is under frontier airlines commercial .

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterDoosque

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>