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Your new movie Blood
Pageant - in a few words, what is it about, and what can you tell us
about your character in it?
Blood
Pageant
is a very unique approach to the horror genre, in the actual story
we are filming/making a reality TV show competition, so a lot of the movie
is the behind the scenes of us making the TV show. In the script, my
character, Barry, is this uber-rich dude, who’s created this whole beauty
pageant concept where the girls compete to win a million dollars. The
competition takes place at my character's mansion, and over the course of
one day/night, an evil has been introduced into the house, and this evil
is scary and is slowly picking off the contestants one by one.
What did you draw upon to bring your character to life, and how
much David Chokachi can we find in Barry? This was a fun character to play because he’s so
disconnected from reality, that I was allowed to go in any direction with
this guy. The fact that we were shooting the making of a reality TV show
allowed for lots of situational comedy. The cast was really great, I had a
lot of scenes with my buddy Steve Spiro, and he and I would just be
riffing, and we would get some gold. Gold baby. Working with Snoop Dogg
was such a cool experience, and all of the cast were just amazing, Stephen
Baldwin, Steve Spiro, Beverley Mitchell, Ted Lange, Juliana DeStefano. How did you
get involved with the project in the first place? My manger Sean
Fay saw the project and he reached out to Chris Gilmore and Tony Sands,
the writers of
Blood
Pageant, and after a bunch of back and forths, they
responded by offering me the role of Barry. I loved the concept of
shooting a film that is actually shooting the behind the scenes of this so
called reality TV show. I have always loved films that are about the
making of a film, like the incredibly funny movie Living in Oblivion with
Steve Buscemi.
Since
the movie revolves around reality TV, your personal thoughts on the
subject? I do enjoy some reality TV shows, however, I am a
fan of scripted TV/film. That being said, I did a show called Confessions
of a Teen Idol that Scott Baio and Jason Hervey produced for VH1. It was a
fun experience for the most part, and I got to know and spend a lot of
time with some fellow teen idols. Jeremy Jackson, Christopher Atkins,
Billy Hufsey, Eric Nies, Jamie Walters, and Adrian Zmed. We bonded over
the process and had a good time doing the show. I personally like the
realty TV shows like Survivor or American Ninja Warrior which challenge
your mental and physical endurance. I know I would kick ass on Survivor,
and I almost did one of the seasons a while back. It’s never too late,
maybe you will see me on the show sometime in the future hacking a coconut
out of a tree. Do talk about Blood
Pageant's director Harvey Lowry, and what was your collaboration
like? My experience was really great working
with Harvey. He had a lot on his plate going into this shoot because
there were so many actors on set each day because the movie has a large
ensemble cast, which is difficult for many reasons, but Harvey managed the
set really well. It was still a tough shoot, and we were lucky enough to
have the co-writer Chris Gilmore and her son Leo step in and direct a
bunch of the movie. Chris and Leo did an amazing job, really helped finish
the film, and turned it into this awesome movie that is now dropping.
Harvey, Chris, and Leo left me alone for the most part, allowing to make
my own choices, and stepped in to offer feedback and/or direction when
needed. I also brought many years of working as an actor to the table, and
I would constantly have ideas, that could potentially help the scene or
the movie, and Harvey, Chris and Leo were so great, we all collaborated on
the project, myself, and all of the other amazing talents in this movie,
and that led to a more fun experience on set. Chris Gilmore’s company,
Red Velvet Entertainment, is starting to take off, and I hope to work on
another show she has in development. What can you tell us about the shoot as such, and
the on-set atmosphere? The atmosphere on set was mostly really
fun and loose. The difficulty came when we had 10 or more actors in a
scene. Not just the blocking, but to get that many people through hair and
make-up, and also this is a horror movie, so it takes time to apply the
gore to each respective actor. However, we made it work, we all found our
own rhythm. And I know the final product, which I have not seen yet, is
going to deliver, and the audience will LOVE this film. Any future projects you'd like to
share?
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Yes, well, I have a handful of movies, that
are in various stages of being released. Right now, Baywatch is streaming
on Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and even has its own 24/7 station on
Pluto TV. A film I did with my colleague, and fellow producing
partner Bruce
Reisman called As Long As I’m Famous is also on Amazon Prime. Bruce and
I have another incredible movie called Last Call in the Dog House, which
is also being released in the next few weeks. Emerald
Run, which Anthony
Caruso was the investor on and much more, I was the lead actor on, was
just released on Amazon. This film is so solid and has an amazing cast,
Chris Mulkey, Michael Pare, Yancy Butler, John Schneider, Steven
Williams,
Vernon Wells, with my buddy Eric Etabari, who stepped up and helped
direct the second half of the film. We are in pre-production on the Last
Call in the Dog House, 2nd Installation, which I am super excited about,
because it’s the best writing my friend Bruce Reisman has done. I also
have a beautiful film called Adeline, which is now in the hands of a great
distribution company. Adeline is about a medicine horse that arrives in a
small town in Ohio and helps to heal my autistic son. I play Reverend
John, who’s completely against any kind of therapy at this point, when
the movie starts, because my wife in the film and I have tried everything
to help our son and none of it has worked. It sets up this beautiful
arc/journey that my character goes on. This film is so powerful, it will
leave you crying tears of joy, and give you true chills throughout. I
just was sent the trailer for Adeline, and man, I was so touched and blown
away. The power of storytelling, when all off the creative elements align,
is an extremely powerful vehicle. What got you into acting in the first place, and
did you receive any formal training on the subject? During
college, I went on a program called Semester at Sea, and this experience
changed my life, like nothing else. We traveled on a converted cruise ship that was turned into shipboard education, we traveled from the
Bahamas to Spain, the former Yugoslavia, Russia, Egypt, India, Malaysia,
China, Japan, and Taiwan. This experience opened my eyes to how much the
world has to offer, and how big and diverse it is, and I knew after this
journey I could never do a 9-5 job, or any kind of a desk job. I
graduated from Bates College in Maine, where I played football and
lacrosse. After graduation, myself and 6 other buddies from Bates rented
an RV and traveled all throughout the United States. Again, my spirit was
awakened to all the beauty that exists in our own country. I worked for a
congressman in DC after this, and was in the process of applying to get my
master’s in environmental studies when I landed my first national beer
commercial. I had a fascination with movies, and my brother and I and our
friends used to shoot these Miami Vice type shows on our dad’s old-school camera. I am from Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the idea of making
it in Hollywood seemed so foreign to me, I had a better chance of winning
the lottery. However, I followed my heart, my dreams and I started
studying acting at this well-known Cambridge, Mass acting studio called
Collinge Pickman Casting. I did this for a while, studying and working in
between Boston and NYC as a model (fitness and outdoor primarily), and at
the same time I was working construction, something I did for many years
to support my dream. I eventually got up the courage to pack up my things
and drive out to LA. Once I got to LA, my only connection was a family
friend who taught acting in the valley. So, I started my journey, working
construction during the day and studying acting at night. I arrived in LA
two days before the 1994 Northridge earthquake. This was tough because I
was all amped and ready to start when Mother Nature had other ideas in
mind. Eventually I found this wonderful acting teacher, Leslie Khan, and
she was my guru. I worked with her for years, and then my manager hooked
me up with Taylor Sheridan, the actor/director/writer, and I would work
with him privately, either for auditions or for a role I booked. I worked
with Taylor well before he wrote Sicario and all of the other amazing
movies he has written. He had this incredible skill at reading something
once, and then instantly turning the material into gold.
with Pamela Anderson in Baywatch |
You
might have grown tired of the subject, but I'd probably get tarred and
feathered by my readers if I didn't ask about Baywatch - so how did
you get onto the show, and what was it like working on the series? Before I arrived in LA,
I had set myself up with a good modeling agency that also had a small
theatrical division. At the time I was studying acting at night and
working as a carpenter during the day. This small agency, out of the blue,
lets me know I have an audition for the TV show Baywatch, and that it was
a series regular role. I initially didn’t think much of it, I worked
on the material with my acting coach at the time, his name was Vincent
Chase, a legendary acting teacher. So, I prepped the material and went
into my first audition which was with casting. The craziest thing happened:
I walk through the door, and the casting directors, Suzie Glicksman and I
forget the other woman’s name, both look up at the same time, and say
“Holy shit, you are the guy. You are the guy we have been looking for,
for months.” They explained how I looked exactly how the
creators/writers had imagined the character of Cody Madison to be. Then
it was up to me to not shoot myself in the foot. I had to screen test,
swim test, you name it and they put me through it. The swim test is where
I closed the deal, I feel, because Greg Bonnan, one of the creators, was a
phenomenal swimmer and he could tell who was going to sink or swim. I
swam!!! My character was an Olympic hopeful, so I had to be able to swim
as such. I grew up sailing since age 5, and learned to swim in the
freezing cold waters of Plymouth, Mass. I was also on the swim team at our
beach club, I was a certified scuba diver, and I went to the junior
Olympics in windsurfer racing. I raced these types of boats called 420’s
and went to the nationals 3 years in a row on those boats, I knew how to
drive boats of all sizes, so I had all of this ocean experience that I
brought to the table and it all paid off. After a month of auditions, I
got the call, I had landed the role of Cody Madison. Working on the series
was one of the best jobs I have ever had. The producers allowed me to do
all of my own stunts once they saw how athletic I was, and once they saw
my proficiency in the ocean. I had so much fun getting to work on the
beach and as part of this mega hit TV show, it was next level for me. They
hooked up my character with Pamela Anderson’s character CJ, which was
amazing. She and I had blast together, we both loved not taking ourselves
too seriously and we became really tight, and as a result when you watch
the show now, you can see the chemistry. After Pam left the show they
brought in Carmen Electra for a year, and she and I hit it off. Hasselhoff
and I also became great friends, he and I were adrenaline junkies, and
after shooting a 2-hour Baywatch special in and around Sydney, Australia,
David, his assistant, David's Aussie friend, and I went up to the Great
Barrier Reef and dove for a couple days, and then we traveled
up to Darwin, and from there took a plane into the outback, which is
loaded with bio diversity that will blow your mind. To this day, David and
I are still good friends and are in the process of planning a series of
dive trips around the world. Any
other past film or TV work you'd like to talk about? I went on to do a TV show called
Witchblade, and a few years
after that, I landed another series regular role on Beyond the
Break, a
teenage surf drama set in Hawaii. There are many films and TV shows I have
done over the years which I am super proud of. However, I feel like, at
this stage of my life, I am starting to do some of the best work of my
career. Right now, I have two films on Amazon Prime Video, Emerald
Run and
As Long As I’m Famous; two more are about to drop, Last Call in
the Dog House, which is one of my favorites, and our horror film
Blood
Pageant,
which will scare the shit out of you. In a good way. I also have done a
whole slew of hosting jobs, and those are fun, and different from acting.
Having
done both feature films and TV series - how do these sets compare, and
which do you prefer, and why? Honestly, I love both TV and
film a lot.
However, the goal for me now is to get back on a series and hope it runs
long. Being on a series there are all kinds of benefits, job security
being the big one, you get into a rhythm on a series because you're
spending around 6 months together, so inevitably the work by both actors
and crew is better. How would you describe
yourself as an actor?
For me,
my craft is constantly evolving. With different life experiences, it
shapes how I approach my work. I have a 9 year old daughter and she is the
most important thing in my life, and having her changed my perspective of
the business. I used to be consumed by wanting to work more, and work on
higher level projects. I still want these things, however, I don’t let
it run my emotions like it used to. Now, if I have to go into an audition,
I do my homework, prepare, and then I let it go. I’m not seeking
validation from anyone, and when I do this, which is all of the time now,
I have a swagger and a confidence that I bring into the room, or the
self-tape, or the meeting , and trust me, when I operate out of this head
space, the sky is the limit. I will always be a student, because as an
actor there’s no end point. I also have a huge life outside of acting, I
surf, we camp, ski, fly fish, snowboard, I'm a carpenter, a Dad, I work
with a couple really dear to my heart nonprofits, like The Surfrider
Foundation and Best Friends Animal Society, and the list goes on and on. I
realized early on, one of the best ways to become a really solid actor
that has depth, range, emotional vulnerability, etc., one has to have a
multitude of life experiences that they can then bring to the role. I’m
not speaking for anyone else, I'm just laying down what works for me.
Actors (and indeed actresses) who
inspire you?
There are so many actresses
and actors that inspire me. Viggo Mortensen, Patrick Swayze, Leonardo Di
Caprio, Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Melanie Laurent, the
list goes on and on. I know how difficult the world of being and actor is,
so I have a huge respect and admiration for anyone working actor. I
appreciate all who make films and TV shows, cast and crew alike, because
it's so difficult to let alone work, but then also to have a successful,
diverse career, well that takes skill and opportunity. I love reading
books, and equally so, I love watching my fellow actors kick ass and
succeed. I come from the mentality of abundance, not scarcity. I love the
process of making a film or a TV show, we bond together for that specific
time and we become family, a traveling circus, and it’s just the best
feeling for me. Warm and fuzzy.
Your favourite movies? Again, this is a
tough question for someone like me, because I love so many, here you go: Heat (Robert
De Niro, Val Kilmer, Al Pacino), Aliens (and every version
of that series), The Martian, The Revenant is one at the top of my list,
Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, The 300, Saving Private Ryan,
The Big Blue, Drive, Dunkirk, The Grey, the original
Point Break. ...
and of course, films you really deplore?
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Because I can appreciate the difficulty of how
hard it is actually getting a film made and then up onto a screen or a
digital platform, I don’t have any films that I deplore. Some have
better writing and more money than others, bigger names, etc... but each
film that is made was, or is, important to the people who made it at the
time, and I respect that. Your website,
social media, whatever else? My
website is www.davidchokachi.com
Instagram:
@therealdavidchokachi
Facebook: David Chokachi Twitter: @TheRealChokachi Thanks
for the interview!
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