Perkins’ 14’s Josh Davidson Interview

November 7, 2008 · 3 comments 

This past year, Massify.com launched a project with After Dark Films to develop a feature length horror film entirely online with a competition which would let users piece the film together through voting, known as “Ghosts in the Machine”. The resulting film became “Perkins’ 14″ (Winning Pitch, Wiki), which will be a part of After Dark Films’ Horrorfest III, aka 8 Films to Die For this coming January along with The Broken, Slaughter, Butterfly Effect 3, From Within, Dying Breed, Autopsy, and an as yet unannounced 8th film. Not only does the plot sound extremely interesting but the hype has already begun as well. The trailer is on it’s way, but until then, B-D has a few stills in their gallery, or check out the making-of series Webisode 1 and Webisode 2.

As part of the competition, users voted for the lead role, which was won by Josh Davidson (Massify, Josh-Davidson.com, Blog, Myspace.) HFM got the chance to catch up with Josh to talk about the film after seeing his chilling performance as The Joker in a series by his production company that he co-founded.

How big is your role in Perkins’ 14 in terms of screen time? Have you seen a cut of the film yet? If so, what did you think of it? If not, how do you think it will turn out?

Well, while I won the “lead” role in Perkin’s… it’s more of a featured role. So, you can expect to see me on screen 5-10 minutes. It really all depends on how the editor cuts it together. As with most movies, as an actor, I haven’t seen a cut and won’t see it until the premiere. I’ve seen a few of the Horrorfest movies from the past 2 years, particularly Craig Singer’s (Dir of P14) 2006 Dark Ride and Tiffany Shepis’ 2007 Nightmare Man (I co-star with her in a film soon to be released called Zombthology). I think P14 will be one of the best Horrorfest movies of the 3 years. The scariest movies, in my opinion, are based on reality, and I think they stuck with Jeremy Donaldson’s original concept that these “bad guys” don’t do anything outside of the realm of possibility. Perkins’ 14, conceivably, could happen and that’s what will make this movie hit home.

It sucks that the politics involved prevented you from getting a bigger role, but it’s cool that the concept of the project panned all the way out for you. What was it like working with a professional film crew (in Romania no less)? Why were they filming in Romania?

Any movie set can be described as controlled chaos (or at least you hope it’s controlled!). The P14 set in Romania was a little more chaotic than usual due to the dual languages, but at the same time it was very well controlled. Craig would yell out his direction, then the AD, who was Romanian, would yell out the same direction in Romanian. Aside from the big hitters on the crew (director, director of photography, producers, etc.) most of the positions were filled with Romanians. Some could speak English pretty well, some could barely say much. It made for an interesting situation. But other than being on the huge studio lot, the set wasn’t much different at all from some of the indie films I’ve worked on. The best set I’ve been on is my soon to be released thriller, Good People. I felt like a king on that set, they treated me very well and it was well organized. The cast and crew were all amazing and I’m sure that will be reflected in the end product.

I think P14 was filmed in Romania to save money, however by flying everyone to Romania and putting them up in hotels… I just don’t see how it could have been cost effective. A lot of times the governments give a huge amount of the production budget back to the filmmakers for employing many of the crew from the country, so that could be a motivating factor as well, but I just don’t know.

Any production that lenses somewhere offshore seems like it would be a more interesting venture for everyone involved. Now that you have a role on your resume that will be seen by so many people around the world, are you going to pursue a career in acting for film? Do you plan to move to Los Angeles or New York? Do you have an agent or plan on getting one?

I am thankful for my opportunity to be in P14 and I hope people enjoy my character. Sometimes it’s better to have a few good moments on screen than to wear out your welcome across an entire 90 minutes. Hopefully that will be the case here. I am pursuing a career in acting, and I do not feel I need to move to NYC or LA to do so. I fell into acting 2.5 years ago when I was an extra in “The Invasion” and on my first day on a movie set EVER, I was chosen out of a crowd to pick up and carry Nicole Kidman, had lunch alone with Daniel Craig (within days of his crowning as the next James Bond), sat next to Keith Urban and watched his wife act in a little monitor he was holding, and was allowed to give my thoughts on a scene to Oscar-nominated director Oliver Hirschbiegel. Surprisingly he actually listened and used what I said! That’s a good start to anyone’s acting career!

Even with all of this, what really got me going was just being on set and getting high off of the energy and that controlled chaos. I KNEW right then this was what I had been searching for my whole life. 6 months later I signed up for a movie making competition without knowing what the hell I was doing and I made a movie… a pretty decent short called Run Down for the 2006 Baltimore 48 Hour Film Project. Thus, Be More Films was born. I didn’t do anything with film for 6 months while I dealt with other issues, then finally ramped back up in 2007. Since May 2007 I’ve been in 10 shorts and 9 feature length films (lead role in 6 of them). This month I’m working on 2 features and 2 shorts where I’m the lead and I’m filming 2 more scenes in my latest Joker fan film, which I’m also producing. I’m also doing the voice work for a published horror novella, The Watching, written by the very talented CS Johnson. We are putting it out as podcasts and eventually an audio book on CD. On the web production side I have to create 6 different websites in the next few weeks for actors or companies. A website is a very important tool in today’s world and most actors, especially at my level, just can’t afford one. I’m dedicated to creating quality websites for actors at affordable prices.

I’m tired just talking about it! So after all that, you see that yes it is possible to make a career in the film industry and not live in NYC or LA. I don’t have an agent, not that I’m opposed to having one. I’ve just stayed so busy since deciding to go after this career that I haven’t really had time to seek one. I’m not putting all my eggs in one basket. I know that I will make a career in the film industry, I just am not sure which area I’m going to do it in. I like acting probably the most, but I am very good at producing, and really good with directing actors. I also like holding a camera in my hand. I’ve had a hand in producing or directing 2 features and 6 short films and I’m planning on directing (possibly co-directing with my very talented Joker films director/editor Joseph Nasto) my first feature this coming summer.

It sounds like you’ve definitely found your calling, especially with such an exciting introduction to the industry. How did you get involved with “Good People”? How did that experience compare to working on Perkins’ 14?

I was called by the producer of Good People and she asked me
to audition for the lead role of Deven. I can’t say much about the role or I’d be giving away major plot points in the movie, but I will say this is a role of a lifetime and I’m SO grateful to have been given the opportunity to bring Deven to life. I wanted this part and I put everything I had into the audition and I think it showed. A few days later the producer, Stacie Gentzler, called me up and asked, “Is Deven there?” I knew then I had the part. It was a great feeling. The premiere is this coming Sunday, Nov 9th and I’m very excited to see the movie. The director, Lewis Long III, is a huge Hitchcock fan and that is reflected in his style. So you won’t see a lot of blood or brutality on screen and I think that’s refreshing in this age of Hostel and Saw type horror films. If it’s half as good as the amount of fun I had playing this character it should be a hit!

Comparing Good People and P14 is just too tough. They were two very different experiences. I got to travel through Eastern Europe and see some parts of the world (Transylvania!) I probably would have never gotten to see, so that was a huge positive for P14. Good People’s Deven is by far my favorite role and what I believe is probably my best work… but I guess we’ll see this weekend for sure.

It’s funny you should mention Hostel and Saw, as they have been mentioned on this site recently in relation to the death of horror, lol. Anyway… Perkins’ 14 is playing alongside 7 other horror films during the horrorfest in January. If our readers only have time to see one at the theater, why should they choose Perkins’ 14?

Why go see Perkins’ 14… like I said before, there’s nothing supernatural about it. This is something that could happen and that makes for the scariest of scary movies. And Katherine Pawlak is in it… she’s damn hot, and talented. Go see her now before she’s HUGE! She’s working on her music career right now and as you can see from the massify webisode 2 she can sing. Don’t worry, she’s still acting, but the girl has some serious pipes… and legs!

I did spot Pawlak while prepping for this interview, she does seem like one to watch for.

You also co-founded a film production company called Be More Films. What plans lie ahead for the future of the company?

Haha, I keep answering questions before you ask them. As I said, once we wrap filming on Vengeance With A Smile, I am going to film a 10 minute short about a serial killer that may or may not turn into a feature later on down the road. Then I’m going to put these two films and a business plan in front of investors. I’ll be seeking funding for a serial killer horror/thriller in the same vein of Silence Of The Lambs, only smaller scale. I plan to start filming that in Tennessee in the summer of 2009 provided I have enough funding in place. This movie will be based off of a coming book from CS Johnson. I’m very excited about this one as the story and characters are fresh and just chilling!

That sounds great. It seems like you have alot of work ahead of you, which is always promising. Is there anything else that I didn’t cover that you would like to mention to our readers?

I went to High School with DJ Qualls in Manchester, TN. He was 1 year ahead of me.

My daughter, Alexa, is probably the best actor in the family. She is the lead alongside me in a film I did called Kaytee Never Cries and blew me away. She also co-stars alongside me in Gary Ugarek’s new Zombie feature film Deadlands 2: Trapped. And while it’s called Deadlands 2, it is not a sequel and it is light years ahead of Deadlands: The Rising. DL2: Trapped is going to make some studio quite a lot of money on DVD and hopefully will rise to cult status in the world of indie zombie films. My daughter has some great moments in this movie and I can’t wait for people to see it. It also stars Jim Krut who is of course the Helicopter Zombie from the original Dawn of the Dead. It was so cute to see her signing posters alongside Jim at a special Halloween theater showing of the movie last weekend!

You can watch and read about my experiences in Romania via Massify’s blog. My first entry was put up a couple of days ago and there will be 4 or 5 to follow which will include some behind the scenes footage of filming of the actual movie.

Thanks for your time Josh, all great responses! I look forward to seeing you in Perkins’14 and wish you the best of luck with your career in the industry.

Josh is doing a great job at marketing himself across the web. If you missed any of the links in the interview or would like to know more about Josh and everything he is involved with, check out all of the links below:

Josh-Davidson.com
Josh-Davidson.info
Josh Davidson on IMDB
Josh Davidson on Massify
Josh Davidson’s Myspace
Follow Josh Davidson on Twitter

Be More Films
Be More Marketing

Good People’s Official Site
Good People on Myspace
Good People (Trailer) – Youtube

Be More Films & Clearvision Production’s Youtube Channel
Be More Film’s Youtube Channel
The Hostage – Youtube
Kaytee Never Cries – Youtube
Zombthology (Trailer) – Youtube
Deadlands 2: Trapped (Teaser) – Youtube

Perkins’ 14 on Wikipedia
B-D’s gallery of stills for Perkins’ 14
Horrorfest Online
The Massify Contest
Massify Webisode 1 / Massify Webisode 2

3 Responses to “Perkins’ 14’s Josh Davidson Interview”

1. Chris Alcott Says:
   November 7th, 2008 at 11:45 pm

   Looks like your keeping busy, glad to see it Josh. Looking forward to the new films for sure.

2. Martino Catalano Says:
   January 12th, 2009 at 11:58 am

   Hello,

   I am a freelance sculptor seeking work within Russian and Eastern European horror film production companies, specifically effects companies. Can you please give me some pointers as to where I can get a list of relevant contacts and studios?
   I would much appreciate any advice.

   Thankyou,

   M.Catalano

3. Martino Catalano Says:
   January 12th, 2009 at 12:01 pm

   Hello every body. Congratulations on this site it is a superb info source for horror fans. Can anybody here advise me on the above question?

   Thanks,

   Martino