SXSW Interview: ‘A Bag of Hammers’ actor and co-writer, Jake Sandvig

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:48 — 8.1MB)

I love an actor like Jake Sandvig. He’s a working actor (Easy A, series regular in Twenty Good Years and Cracking Up) but instead of sitting around and waiting for an audition, he chose to do something about it.

He and his friend, Brian Crano, made a film.

Directed by Crano and co-written by both he and Sandvig, the film is a comedy about two immature friends whose lives are completely changed when an abandoned child enters their lives. Starring Sandvig, Jason Ritter, Rebecca Hall and Carrie Preston, it’s a great indie comedy that you should definitely check out when you get a chance.

I talked to Jake at SXSW about writing his first script, casting the movie and nightmare audition stories.

You’re wrote this movie?

Jake Sandvig: Yeah, I co-wrote with the director Brian Crano, good buddy of mine.

How did that happen?  Have you ever written a script before?

Jake Sandvig: I’ve never written a script before.  I’ve not written one since.  I have lot of ideas and things written down but nothing. He was playwright and that’s how we met.  We did a play together in 2005 called 12^th Premise, that he wrote and also starred in and we were played opposite of each other.  And we just became best friends doing that. And in early 2006, he had mentioned wanting to write a script play and I asked him if I could help (chuckles) and he said sure.

And, it’s sort of inspired by my living situation at the time and our fascination with con artist and scams and frauds.  There was a lot of documentaries on the subject, on A&E at the time. And so, we just sat down on my couch with his laptop and just sort of talk of each other.  I was Allan and then he was Ben, the 2 main characters in ‘Bag of Hammers’ as we just talked back and forth and then put it down.
Read more

True Blood’s Carrie Preston on Broadway, her career and how she got the role of “Arlene”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:52 — 13.8MB)

Even if you haven’t watched True Blood, you’ve seen Carrie Preston before.

Carrie has the remarkable ability to transform herself – her looks and mannerisms – in each role she does. She’s been in Duplicity and My Best Friends Wedding with Julia Roberts. Doubt, Vicky Christina Barcelona and even an episode of Sex and the City that I totally remem

ber her in. She even played Ben Linus’ (her husband, the great Michael Emerson) mother on an episode of Lost! I could go on but my fingers will get tired from all the typing.

She’s currently filming season 3 of True Blood and she took some time out to talk to me about Broadway, how she prepares for a role and yes, True Blood.

So, you’re from Georgia and you got started doing plays as a kid?
Yeah, I’m one of those, like I like to say I’m a “lifer.”  I’m in it for life.  My brothers also an actor, and we started doing plays in Macon, Georgia community theater when we were pretty young.  My brother, John, his name’s John Preston, he got the first play.  He’s older than me by two years, so I watched him, and I was like, “I want to do what John’s doing.”  And then before we knew it, we were completely ensconced in doing plays growing up.

And then I even started my own street theater company when I was in the 7^th grade with all the neighborhood kids, and I would charge 25 cents.  We would make up skits and sing songs and do it in the front yard.  I mean, that was pretty much… it was very clear that that was what I wanted to do with my life.  I just didn’t know that you could make a living at it.

Was there any one show or one specific moment that you were like, this is it?
I definitely got bitten by the bug, immediately, you know, when I was in the 4^th grade. Just doing the school, the community theater production of some play, it was called, The Lion Who Wouldn’t.  You know how they write those plays for kids and stuff?

The director who was running the community theater, he pulled my mom aside and he said, “Your child’s an actor”, and my mom said, “Oh thank you, she’s having a good time.”  And he said, “No, no, no, no. You’re not hearing me.  Your children are actors.  That’s what they are.”  So he encouraged us at a young age and sort of brought it up to my parents in a way that they had to kind of sit up and listen.  And thankfully my parents were very supportive and never tried to talk us into becoming accountants or anything like that.

Yeah, my mom said that to me more than once.  And I said, mom I can’t even count.
Exactly!  There’s no back up here.  This is it.  This is what we’re doing.

Read more