Paula Garces, "Red Princess Blues" and "Harold & Kumar: Escape From Guantanamo Bay" actress: Mr. Media Interview, Part 1

Paula Garces’ lovely features may be familiar to you if you saw such movies as Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Clockstoppers, or Man of the House with Tommy Lee Jones. She also flirted with Meadow’s boyfriend on “The Sopranos” and has guest-starred on “CSI:Miami.” She was also promoted to series regular for the upcoming fifth and final season of “The Shield.”

In April, she’ll be in a Harold and Kumar sequel, Escape from Guantanamo Bay. I’m laughing just thinking about that.

Today I’ve invited Paula on the show to talk about her current project in which she voices the lead character in Red Princess Blues: Animated. We’ll also be joined momentarily by the film’s producer, Alex Ferrari of Numb Robot Studios.

Click the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player below to LISTEN to this interview!

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BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: Paula, what is a beautiful young woman like yourself doing out of sight in an animated film? I can already hear a thousand fan boys crying.

PAULA GARCES: I appreciate that “lovely” comment. I was just really drawn in and really attracted to the character of “Red Princess,” and I just wanted an opportunity to sort of work on the voice-over side of production.




ANDELMAN: Have you done any of that before?

GARCES: I’ve never done any voiceover and always talked to other friends, actors and actresses, that have done it before, and they’ve always had great experiences and have always told me about it and how relieving it is not to think about the way you look or any of those things that you have to think about when you’re doing a live-action piece. When you’re doing voiceovers, it’s all just creativity, and it all has to do with your voice, so it’s great. It’s a relief, actually. It’s really nice.

ANDELMAN: I think I read recently where Mike Myers was talking about doing all these Shrek movies, and someone said to him, “Do you really show up in pajamas without a shave and having not showered?”

GARCES: I could totally see him doing that although I didn’t show up in my pajamas for Red Princess. I didn’t think about it. That would’ve been more comfortable.

ANDELMAN: How did you get involved with my friend Alex?

GARCES: Alex and I met at a workshop called NALIP. It’s a workshop that’s held in Tucson, Arizona, for writers, directors, and producers who sort of want to work out their coming projects and have an opportunity to work with working actors and sort of actually film one or two scenes of their script. And we worked together about a year and a half ago. He invited me to be his lead actress in one of his other projects, and we loved working together. I guess he got enough nerve to show me Red Princess Blues, the short story. I read it, I loved it, got back to him, and then he presented me with some lovely artwork done by Dan that was just really inspiring and creative artwork that had to do with the live-action film that we’re planning to do. And I just loved it. Then I guess they got together and wanted to do an animated prequel to the live-action film, and I just thought “How creative! And what a great tool to sort of try and market and get this film up and going.” The animated short film just came out so beautiful that I’m really inspired and have a lot to work with as a producer as well.

ANDELMAN: I want to tell folks who are listening. You can check out the prequel. It’s just a short bit of animation at redprincessblues.com. Were you much of an anime fan or even an animation fan before you got into this?

GARCES: I love animation. I love cartoons and animated films. I’ve always liked them, films like Shrek and Finding Nemo and things of that sort. And I just got turned on to Adult Swim at Cartoon Network. I have been a fan of “South Park” for a long time so I’ve always liked that sort of thing, but I was not very educated on anime and how hard it was and how protected the art form really was. When I saw Dan’s work, I was really inspired and really saw how talented he was so I immediately wanted to do something like it.






ANDELMAN: You referred to Dan. That would be Dan Cregan, the director, I’m assuming.

GARCES: Yes.

ANDELMAN: Why don’t we bring in the film’s producer, Alex Ferrari? Alex is no stranger to Mr. Media regulars. I did a program with Alex about his last demonstration film, Broken, which I still think is an amazing piece of work for such a short film. Alex, welcome back to Mr. Media.

ALEX FERRARI: Thank you for having me back, sir.

ANDELMAN: Glad to have you here today. Obviously, you know Paula.

FERRARI: Yes, we’re familiar with each other. Hi, Paula.

ANDELMAN: Alex, what can you tell folks about doing an animated prequel -- or introduction -- to what is intended to be a live-action film? This is a little different process, I think, both, well, not so much for you but probably for Paula and other people. Tell us a little bit about how this came about.

FERRARI: Well, basically, I had written a feature film called Red Princess Blues a while back, and my creative director, Dan, for my company came to me and asked me he’s like look, I really wouldn’t mind your help doing an animated movie over the summer cause he had some time off, and he wanted to kind of spread his wings a little bit and do an anime. At that point, a little light bulb came up, and I said, “Would you like to do a prequel to Red Princess Blues?” And he’s like, “Why not? That’d be great.” And it was born from there about six months ago. We started in June, and we finished the first week of December. And Dan worked his little butt off. He came to me with 35 shots, and then I told him no, we need more shots, and it ended up being about 85 shots because I didn’t only produce it, but I wrote it and edited it as well as kind of guided the process in regards to the vision of the film cause it is based on my feature film that we’re gonna be doing, hopefully, in the coming months.

Dan was wonderful. He’s such a talented artist, and I wanted to spotlight him as much as we can, and he’s been very instrumental in helping this movie get made and helping also getting Paula’s attention with his artwork as well as the story and the script. That’s the process we went down in. We were just kind of using the template that the Matrix boys used with Animatrix a few years back when they released I think it was nine Japanese anime shorts as a prequel to their second part, A Matrix Reloaded. And I thought that would be a good idea, and no one really in the indie world has done that before so it’s kind of a unique thing cause it’s very difficult to do. It’s not a 3D movie. It’s a hand-drawn, old school, 2D Japanese anime with some visual effects, wizardry here and there, but for the most part, it was Dan sitting down drawing hundreds and hundreds of images and animating them. I think that’s why a lot of people have been so receptive and been kind about the film.

ANDELMAN: How do you convince someone like Paula, who’s got some substantial credits, to do something like this? I’ll ask Alex, and then Paula, you can refute whatever he says.

GARCES: Okay.

FERRARI: First of all, you slip a Mickey in their drink. Secondly…No, you know what, when I was given the opportunity to work at the Latinos Producers Academy for NALIP, and they asked me, “Who do you want to work with on your scene?” I’d already thought of Paula and was writing the part for Paula for Red Princess Blues so I took the opportunity to cast her in the scene that I was doing and also wanted her to see how she would do in that scene, but my intentions were really…It was a set-up. I ambushed her. I was able to work with her on this project, and I literally had a movie poster drawn up. Dan drew up a wonderfully beautiful movie poster with her as the lead character in it. We used her face. In rehearsal one day, I just said “Hey, I wrote something for you with you in mind,” and that always gets an actress’ attention. I think so. Paula might refute that. I’m not sure, but I think it’s flattering when you say, “I wrote something for you.” And then if that wasn’t enough, then I slammed oh, and here’s your movie poster.

GARCES: Actresses don’t like any pictures of themselves at all (laughs) because, really, most actresses hate seeing themselves on posters.

FERRARI: Right. With their names in big, bold letters, and then on top of that, it was a hand-drawn poster as well. So I think, at the end of the day, all the smoke and mirrors that I kind of pulled out with the poster and stuff, it wouldn’t have worked unless she really was drawn to the material. So, at the end of the day, it is the material, but sometimes when you’re someone like me coming out of Florida and not living in L.A. or New York, you gotta kind of razzle and dazzle a little bit. And apparently, she’s fallen for it so far.

GARCES: The bottom line is Alex is a very talented director. I got to see him how he would work on a set firsthand cause we did do two scenes together, and he was very talented, had a lot of cool things to say that inspired me in both those scenes and for this project. And then Dan’s artwork was extremely beautiful -- not cause I was in the poster (laughs), but it was just very well-done, and he had shown me some other artwork that would inspire the film and sort of give me an idea of what the film’s mood would be. At the end of the day, the short story was really well-written and very beautiful, and the character of Red Princess … I just was drawn to her and knew that it was gonna be a challenge for me, but it would be a challenge that I would love to take on. And that’s why I’m passionate about this piece.

ANDELMAN: Paula, why don’t you tell folks a little bit about the short anime that they can see at redprincessblues.com?

GARCES: I’m sorry. Can you repeat that?

ANDELMAN: Yeah, I’m sorry. Can you describe a little bit about the prequel, the animated section, that people can see online, what this little bit of story is about?

GARCES: It’s basically about a young girl who finds herself in a situation where she has to rise up from it. I don’t want to give the story away, but she’s basically sort of an orphan and is being taken by this caretaker who’s not very friendly, and they’ll know what I’m talking about when they see the short story. And it’s basically her discovering some talents that she has and discovering that she has to go on this path whether or not she wants to or not. She doesn’t know yet, but she knows that she definitely has to take control and go on this path to find out more about her past so that she can have a future. It’s just really well done. It’s very beautiful. There’s a lot of mood to it. It just creates a very whimsical sort of Wizard of Oz but in a sort of new way type of feel to it. I just love it. I like that you can sort of sense the action that’s going to come from that, and you can sense that the story is going to be a very true story, a very realistic character with some very extraordinary powers. It’s just done in a really creative, very beautiful way, and hopefully, people will enjoy it.

ANDELMAN: Alex, I want to make sure that I explain it well, or if I don’t, you do. You have this short animation that’s sort of the prequel, the introduction, to Red Princess Blues, but the movie itself that you’re planning to make is not animated.

GARCES: No.

ANDELMAN: It’s live-action, right?

FERRARI: Correct. Correct. I found that’s confused a few people cause it is a new concept of introducing a live-action movie with anime. Batman is going to be doing it this summer. They’re going to be releasing six animated shorts as a prequel to the feature, and The Matrix kind of really was the first one to do that with the Animatrix. And then a few other major studios or major projects have followed that suit, but yeah, that’s basically it.

And by the way, to see it right now at redprincessblues.com, you can find out information about the short, but to actually watch the short, the full seven minute short, it’s exclusively available for the next thirty days only on latinoreview.com, which is a huge film website that is spotlighting us, and it’s only there for the next thirty days.






ANDELMAN: And so what’s the deal with a couple Latinos working in a Japanese format?

FERRARI: (Laughs) Well, Dan is not Latino. He’s not Japanese, either. That’s the other thing I think a lot of fan boys and people in the industry have really taken notice is because it’s a Japanese anime made by Americans but definitely has a Latino flavor to it. So it’s a Japanese anime with an American flavor that’s Latino dabbled on top of it. There’s never been a Latino-based Japanese anime so it’s a very new and unique take on a very old craft. And obviously, Dan’s American, and he’s just a big fan of Japanese anime, and we’ve been compared to a lot of the American animes like the “Spawn” series and “The Maxx” that was on MTV and even “Aeon Flux,” the original “Aeon Flux” cartoon, as well, which are all wonderful, and we’re very grateful for those comparisons. But, yeah, it’s kind of a unique thing having a few Latinos doing Japanese anime.

GARCES: What I like about it is that I think it’s very representative of what young people in this country are like today. No one that I know of, that I hang out with and friends of friends and friends and kids who I know, no one really sticks to just their own kind of their own thing. Everyone’s listening to each other’s cultures and influences and sort of making up new ideas and creative things. And that’s what I like about this that yeah, we are a couple of Latinos and a white boy who’s drawing Japanese anime, but it’s sort of what we’re not afraid to express what we are influenced by even if it’s not by our own certain culture at that given moment. I think the risk that we took is a good one. I think it’s a good one, and it sort of represents what young people are doing today, creative young people, which is not necessarily sticking to their own backgrounds but sort of taking things from their own backgrounds and other cultures and sort of mixing it up to do new things, new and creative things. That’s what I liked about it.

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© 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.