Back in 2012, I got the idea that it would be fun to do an interview session with my new blogging friends so we got together for a number of weeks and I tried to ask compelling questions and these interviews were generally well received – you can see a list of those 2012 interviews HERE – they’re all pretty awesome! We carried those over into 2013 and then we started doing Shitfest and resumed for a bit and you can see all of those 2013 posts HERE. (There’s a movie actor in one of those links : ) ) Then I kind of got away from them and it’s not because I didn’t like doing them – I LOVED them – but more so because I’m so slow at doing anything –> like thinking up good question, that I just kind of stopped. But here we are today with a real doozie of an interview and I may be inspired to do more! If you would like to be subjected to a fit of questions under the hot lamp, email me at ei@theipc.me so we can keep today’s comments pertinent to today’s topic : ) : )
Last week, you may recall, I did a post about Season One of the series #ATown, that post was a lot of good fun and, hopefully, I got you turned onto it and you liked it and all of that good stuff. If, for some reason, you didn’t go check it out because you had to have an emergency appendicitis (that would be your ONLY excuse), you can go see the entire season, for free RIGHT HERE. The episodes aren’t very long and I think they are quite fun and funny! Do it! After you read this post.
The gang behind the series are:
-Elena Weinberg who plays Layla & is a creator and Executive Producer of the show
-Mallory Larson who plays Melanie & is a creator and Co-Producer of the show
-Ivy Koehler who plays Whitney and is a Co-Producer and writer on season 2
-Ash Nunley who plays Avery and is a Producer and writer on season 2
So, the story is this. A while back I was talking to Elena on Twitter and I had some beers in my belly and I got the balls to ask her if she’d like to do an interview with me. I told her the questions aren’t like normal people questions because I’m not like normal people and she agreed, because she rules, and I gave her the time and place and, one morning the security officer at the front desk called me and told me I had company. And what did I see when I got down there?? ALL FOUR OF THEM!!! WHAT??? And they all had coolers full of beer! So I signed them in and invited them up and we started drinking beer at 8:00 AM and we had a really good time that day! The following is a true transcript of what transpired that fateful morning.
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Hi ladies!!!! This is so fucking cool for you to do this!!! I LOVE IT!!! Let’s break the ice this morning with a couple of questions about you personally so our Most Beloved readers can get to know you a little better. OK? K.
I have never, ever in my life drank frozen margaritas all day and then went to my old place of employment and showered it with raw eggs. Have you ever defaced a public place??
Elena: Last summer I went to the graffiti park in Austin and spray painted “#ATown” on a random cement structure. Like, its a graffiti park, but you have to be commissioned to paint there or else it’s illegal, so I felt like a rebel. Also, I’m totally lying, and Duncan (our director) is actually the one who did the spray painting and I just watched. Proof:
Ivy: I’ve peed on the side of plenty of Texas roads. Is that illegal?
Mallory: I used to drive-by egg peoples houses in high school when I was perfectly sober.
Ash: Yes, but only with my vomit.
I also have never, ever in my life spent a night in jail. Have you??
Ivy: No. I wouldn’t last a night.
Mallory: No, but my fiance spent the night in jail for me when we both went through the same turnstile for Chicago public transportation.
Ash: No, did you get your picture taken?
Elena: Never ever. I wish I had a cool story about jail, so maybe I’ll get arrested so I can give you a better answer in a future interview.
I am deathly afraid of spiders. It has to do with a childhood encounter with a house full of tarantulas. Is there anything that gets you a zillion percent freaked out when you see one and why??
Mallory: Snakes and sticky food.
Ash: Large groups of people in small places. For instance, house parties, I kind of can’t handle it and I usually can’t hold a conversation for longer than 2 minutes unless I’m wasted so I go around starting conversations then ending them abruptly saying, “sorry, i have to pee”.
Elena: Snakes. Like a LOT. Like, I can’t even see a snake in a picture or on TV without freaking out. It’s kind of a problem. Once when I was really drunk I asked to hold my friend’s pet snake, though, and they were a good enough friend to tell me that I would not be happy with myself in the morning if I did that and wouldn’t let me. Maybe they were afraid I was gonna kill it, but I’m gonna call that being a good friend.
Ivy: A house full of tarantulas???? Please go on…
Raw poultry. I cannot work with raw meat. But I will eat the shit out of some delicious cooked meat.
You walk into someone’s office, cough and accidentally – but loudly – fart. Awkward!! What do you do??
Ash: Start making a fart song with my mouth loudly, so maybe they think it was just a rip off for the song I’m making, or a tuning if you will.
Ivy: Grab 2 pencils off their desk and start banging on various things around their office. Because hopefully it would be just strange enough to be a great distraction from the tooting incident that just occurred.
Mallory: I would pretend to get a really important call and walk out.
Elena: Start like drumming on surfaces and humming as if the fart was just a part of that. Like, I do that all the time and it’s so obvious.
Speaking of work, a week or so ago, I noticed a new guy putting something in the break room fridge. Being as socially awkward as I am, instead of asking “Hey man, you new here? What’s your name?” I blurted “What does it call it?” What do you think about that???
Elena: I think that’s nicer than pretending that you knew him already which is what I would have done. Pretending to already know someone is great because then you never have to have the “nice to meet you-where are you from-something interesting kind of related to that” conversation. Instead, you can just like smile and nod and walk away anytime you see them.
Ivy: I say words mixed up in sentences all the time. I also say things while the TV is on and magically the person on TV says the same thing or some word I just said out loud. What do you think about that?
Mallory: I teach fitness and always mix up my inspirational quotes with technique coaching, like I’ll say “you will never know what it feels like to be free unless you pull your hips back and keep your knees behind your brake”
Ash: If i were you in that situation I would forever talk to that person that way, then they will just think it’s your thing, that you only regard people, including yourself, with the word “it”.
Have you ever ignored a warning from a crazy old man who advised that you were going to die if you went down some road and then you ended up being butchered for dinner at the hands of some lunatic?????
Ivy: Not at the time of submission of your questions. But note taken.
Mallory: I repeatedly tell homeless people I don’t have anything to give them while I am shoving food into my mouth.
Ash: No but I’d probably have a few more questions for Ol’ Boy if he was just going around giving out psychic advice like that.
Elena: No, but I did have a crazy homeless guy come up to my car, wash my windows with dry newspaper and then demand money from me. He knocked on my windshield so hard I thought it was gonna break. Eventually I picked up my phone and pretended to call the police and he walked away.
Let’s say you’re at a warehouse party in Tyler, TX and, after the band’s second set, you step out to get some fresh air. Someone else is out there and he asks you if you’ve got a light for his smoke and you turn around and it’s Jesus Christ. How do you react???
Mallory: Relieved that he’s still alive after his yearly deaths and resurrections. Then I would proceed to find a lighter from a third party and act like I had just left it in my car.
Elena: First of all, I would never be in Tyler, TX. Second of all, if Jesus Christ was going to be at a warehouse party anywhere, it probably would the Tyler, TX, so if I WAS there for no good reason at all, I wouldn’t act surprised or anything, I’d just give him my lighter. I don’t smoke, but I always carry a lighter in my purse. I don’t have a reason.
Ivy: I bow, tell him I don’t have a light, and then tell him that the burning bush over there could probably do the trick.
Ash: For some reason, the song “This Little Light of Mine”, comes to mind and I really like singing. This seems appropriate.
Have you ever done cocaine out of a stripper’s belly button??
Ivy: No. But I would.
Ash: No, but maybe Jesus would be up for that. That would be special, ya know?
Elena: No, but I do have several friends who were strippers. I’m sure they’ve had people do cocaine out of their belly buttons. Let’s be honest, they aren’t my friends anymore. We lost touch after high school.
Mallory: No, strippers scare me.
If your best friend or loved one turned into a shit eating vampire, would you stake them in the heart?
Ash: Hell no. Wait, they eat shit? or is that just a figure of speech? If they were eating shit, I would definitely love them less, but I’d follow them and document their experiences because I mean, they live off eating shit? That’s really something! If you mean they feed off of others but they don’t actually eat shit, I’d ask them if I could join. I could really use some old fashioned drama in my life.
Ivy: No way! My dogs poop all over the yard and it’s a nightmare to clean so we’d both be doing each other a favor. Like they clearly won’t eat me, so why would I kill them? Isn’t that the reason people kill people? Because they’re afraid the victim will eat them.
Mallory: No way, I would ask to join the party.
Elena: What universe of vampire are we talking about here? Buffy Vampire? Yeah, I’d totally stake them. Vampire Diaries Vampire? No way, I’d ask to join the immortality party.
Could you saw your own arm off with a pocket knife if you had to?
Ash: No, I’d need both hands for that. and No.
Elena: Absolutely not. I’m so helpless.
Ivy: How blunt is the knife? This is important.
Mallory: Only if it was a samurai sword.
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO – now that we’ve broken the ice and we have a good, strong buzz, let’s see what we’ve got here. Do you live in Austin?? I’ve driven through there but never stopped. Also – if so, will you hate me when I tell you I live in Oklahoma??? Go Sooners!!
Ivy: First off, it’s 1:03PM and OU still sucks. Gig ‘em Ags. I love Oklahoma the state though. I do live in Austin and grew up about an hour away. It was always that “Emerald City kind of place” growing up.
Mallory: BOOMER I fucking love Oklahoma. I live in Austin, but it is not my forever home. I will always be Seattle at heart. GO SEAHAWKS!
Elena: I do live in Austin – I was born here. Apparently finding native Austinites is like finding a unicorn these days, so I feel pretty special. I don’t give a shit about football (I’m a basketball gal) so I don’t hate you for being an Okie. I do kinda feel sorry for you, though. Oklahoma sucks. It’s like.. really boring and brown. I have to go there next weekend. I’m not looking forward to it.
Ash: You seem cool, but don’t move here, it’s kind of a catch 22. The more people move here, because it’s cool, the less cool Austin gets. It’s getting significantly less cool every day. Oklahoma? I didn’t realize people who type lived there. That’s neat. What’s a Sooner?
#ATown is an unusual – well wait, not “unusual” so much as “not your usual” type of show – and I like it! Is this a normal type of day for you or was there some other inspiration?
Mallory: I don’t know what normal is, but I feel like I’ve seen this show before.
Ash: This isn’t a normal everyday thing, but #ATown depicts how a lot of people actually do live in Austin. If you are working hard, which we all do, you aren’t spending all your days drinking endless margaritas, but Austin kind of feels like a young place to retire.
Elena: A lot of the activities we partake in are pretty normal days for us – a lot of the scenes were actually lifted from Facebook Message conversations Mallory and I had archived and then kind of embellished. The inspiration of the show is Mal & I’s friendship, so, there’s a lot of truth behind the heightened reality.
Ivy: See Elena and Mal’s responses because I am nothing like Whitney who’s days are full of shopping. I hate shopping. I really really hate shopping.
Is your show scripted or unscripted? Seems like a little bit of both.
Ivy: Mainly scripted. We improve a little bit especially at the end of scenes, but for the most part we stick to script.
Ash: Scripted but with enough space for the actors to wiggle, it seems. Most of the Actors do mostly Improv, so it would be silly to not leave space for that.
Elena: It’s mostly scripted, but we do improv a little. Mostly at times when I’m like “fuck, I did all of my executive producer jobs and forgot to memorize my lines…”
Mallory: Loosely scripted.
I love all of the beer shotgunning – reminds me of my younger days… So, I’m curious, why no beer bong in that apartment??
Mallory: Post college no one has beer bongs and if you do you’re living in denial. Also shotgunning only requires one person.
Elena: Shotgunning skills are wayy more impressive than beer bonging skills. You can shotgun anywhere, at any time. All you need is a can of beer and a key. No extra equipment required.
Ivy: Because shotgunning requires no props. We’re on a budget. Until we can get Carrot Top to make a cameo, less props, more beer running down our chins.
Ash: In Austin, we are all a little lazy, selfish, and a bit arrogant about the whole thing. Beer bongs require preparation and an extra hand. Shotgunning is your own show.
I can’t tell you what I do for a living but I just had to do some long distance work for a town called Sandwich, IL (no lie). I see there are plans for #ATown Season 2 on your website. Will it end with a trip to #STown?
Ivy: Sandwich, IL sounds delicious and we love food, so you never know.
Mallory: No Stown on the charts yet. I think Atown will stay Atowning for a while.
Elena: Every time we’re high we’ll think of Sandwich. Does that count?
Ash: I bet we do have a town called Sandwich here in Texas. We DO have these town names; Bacon, Noodle, Salt, Kickapoo, Twitty, Telephone, Cut and Shoot, Hoop and Holler, Ding Dong, and Whiteface, just to name a few. I bet we do have a Sandwich, Texas. However, I’d be most interested in visiting Ding Dong. I bet Bacon sells only bacon and it might be made out of townspeople. Maybe Ding Dong was named after a man, but MAYBE it was named after the first Tranny in Texas. I bet we have a Tranny, Texas, or I hope so. That sounds nice.
Hey……. I’m starting to feel a little funny…. Did you put something in my beer??? What are your plans for me????
Elena: A lady never tells.
Mallory: It’s just ham, it enhances the flavor.
Ash: To take you to Tranny, Texas and promise you we’ll meet Jesus. Nah, probably not, but maybe I could persuade you into making me a sandwich.
Ivy: Are we back to the cocaine/stripper question?
What can we expect in Season 2? Any streaking down the streets???? If not – how about any mooning???
Ash: maybe : )
Mallory: You’ll have to wait and see!
Ivy: Definitely more skin. Definitely more dogs. Definitely more drugs. There will be a great shot of SOMETHING going down 6th Street in Ep3…
Elena: I’m planning to keep my clothes on this season so I don’t have to worry about how fat beer makes me.
When you told me that you would do this interview, I got really excited and told some of my friends about it and asked them if they wanted to ask you any questions. Please note that the caveat was that I didn’t tell them the name of the show or what it was about…
This double sided question comes from the delicious Anna at FILMGRIMOIRE: How do you feel about television reboots or reimaginings of film, e.g. Fargo and Hannibal? Also, what did you have for breakfast this morning?
Ivy: Fargo (the movie) is amazing. (Shout out to Austin filmmakers!) But I also think adding Technicolor to Disney films is a joke. YOU SHOULD’VE LEFT SNOWWHITE’S FACE AS PALE AS A CLOUDY SKY WALT.
Ash: I don’t have any particular feelings about it. Sorry about that. I ate a smoothie. I say “ate”, because my blender sucks.
Mallory: Remakes are a good idea and if done well can be very imaginative. But if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it (cough*** sound of music NBC). For breakfast, I had a kitchen sink smoothie.
Elena: I’m generally okay with TV or Movie reboots of things I’ve never seen the original of.
This one comes from the mysterious and deadly Brian from HARD TICKET TO HOME VIDEO: You show has been accused of ripping off entire scenes of dialogue from Sanford & Son. How do you respond to these charges?
Elena: I challenge you to a gentlemen’s duel! That is the only way to settle legal matters.
Ivy: Great question Deadly Brian. I plead the 5th.
Mallory: I’ve never heard of sanford & son, is that a law firm?
Ash: I don’t even know what Sanford & Son is. However, it’s possible. It’s nearly impossible to write anything that hasn’t been said before, and accusations like those, in my personal opinion, come from a mindset that creativity has limits and isn’t abundant and recyclable. Art comes from Art and that which already has been thought of. I have a real big problem with critics though. While having a critical eye is important, I know that if i wasted time being a critic, I’d certainly produce much less art. Maybe I’m a snob, but it’s how I feel.
Strangely, without knowing the name of the show or what it’s about, the best Zoe (JB) from THE SPORADIC CHRONICLES OF A BEGINNER BLOGGER asks: How do you separate your show and reality?
Mallory: In reality I wear only athletic clothes and non conventional bras.
Ash: With my character, there’s a ton of overlap. I would even say it’s an alter ego I have now. The characters I create give me more freedom in my real life, certainly.
Ivy: The real question is how sporadic are your chronicals Zoe? Also, it’s extremely hard due to the amount of Lonestar we drink in the middle of the day, but I wear contacts so whenever I don’t feel like being in the #ATown world I just put my glasses on and feel less like a superstar.
Elena: I check in to see what Ivy’s personality is like cuz I can tell the difference between Ivy and Whitney. I can’t tell the difference between Elena/Layla and Mallory/Melanie so it’s up to Ivy/Whitney to keep us grounded.
And lastly, for the big finale, Luke from ORACLE OF FILMS asks: Would you buy this cat? I need to get her out of the house before she eats my family.
Elena: Dude, I’ve already got 3 cats. But like… she can live in my yard if she wants..
Ivy: What color is said cat? If it’s a calico then no. Sorry. Can you craiglist animals these days?
Mallory: I grew up with one cat, who got diabetes, glaucoma, had to lose an eye, and died while my family was out of town. I’m off cats for the foreseeable future.
Ash: yes.
There we go!!! I’m hammered!!!! THANK YOU LADIES SO MUCH FOR DOING THIS!!!!!
XOXOXOX
