The Grief Tourist
Sylvia on the movie: Psychological Thriller. Very disturbed man who is obsessed with visiting places that have had some sort of murder or tragedy of some kind. Kinda creepy. Very dark. It’s not in your face BOO! Scary. It’s the thinking man’s horror film. Can actually be a real human story. Melanie Griffith is in it and she is very sweet and that voice is unmistakable. I always think of “Working Girl.” We started in early November and the movie is still in post production. Hopefully sometime this summer it will be released. I hope it has the same reaction as say “Silence of the Lambs”. That was one creepy dude! Good formula. . . we have one of those! Creepy dude I mean. Just reading the screenplay was freaky. Really dark. And again. . . this could be anyone! Could be you neighbor! My role went from a few lines to a whole monologue after my audition. Frank John Hughes (writer) just started brainstorming. What a great compliment for an actor! The role itself is very HEAVY. This woman has many troubles and life just keeps going wrong. By her own doing of course but heavy just the same.
Sylvia on her start in acting and the girls: I was about 15 when I started in community theater productions. I’d been taking ballet since age 9 and singing since birth. So my first production was West Side Story where I was cast as Maria. Even got to perform selections from the show with the El Paso Symphony. Pretty exciting stuff so. . .I’d been bit! The girls both started dancing at age 3 but even before then, our days always started with a song and little jig. Music always surrounded us whether from Disney or Broadway Musicals or just going to rehearsals with me for whatever show I happened to be working on (that is when Daddy wasn’t available to watch them). I never painted the profession rosy for them either. I have always tried to be very honest and truthful about the ups and the downs of the business. They still love it! Brings a tear to my eye. They are doing everything that I never had the opportunity to do at their age. Watching Samantha work with Melanie Griffith and Michael Cudlitz was a dream come true. Danielle is in the same scene so being a Mom. . . who do I watch! I do see them living the life I always wished I’d had at their age. I think they have re affirmed what I wanted to do with my life from a very early age but didn’t have the “means” of making happen at the time. I am blessed beyond comprehension that my husband knew that this acting thing was my passion and married me anyway.
Danielle on the movie: In The Grief Tourist i played a teenage girl in a diner. I actually resembled her a lot. i was just myself and had fun with it. It was pretty cool that i got to do that with both my sister and my mom. They had done plays together before, but i had always done behind the scenes kind of things.
Danielle on “Criminal Minds” guest spot: Criminal Minds was so much fun! It was so cold and wet but completely worth it. It was actually a really good learning experience. It was the first “major” project that i worked on so i just tried to soak everything in and enjoy every second of it.
Danielle on her start: Growing up i was always placed in dance class and music class and karate and basically anything else like that. I did always want to be a singer. I guess deep down inside i DID want to do something in the entertainment business, but I just didn’t want to admit it. Being the youngest i didn’t want people to think that i was only doing plays and things like that because my sister and mom did it. i guess i just wanted to try and be different but I just couldn’t stay away. I have always been really interested in music. I LOVE to sing and play the piano. I also play both electric and acoustic guitar. i even tried to play the bass guitar and the drums. I can’t wait till i can get back into the recording studio and make more music and hopefully touch people’s lives the way that other musicians have touched mine. My role model is my mother. There is nothing that she wouldn’t do for me. She gives and gives so much to me and Sam and she doesn’t ask for anything in return. She sacrifices so much so my sister and i could achieve our dreams. She is so loving and humble and completely selfless.
Samantha on the movie: Shedding my professional facade and acting like a dork in front of Melanie Griffith. She is such a cool and sweet lady, and at the end of the film I asked her to sign the pad she took an order on. She lovingly signed it and said I was a wonderful actress, and it was a pleasure working with me. I just about died. That order is now framed with some of our dialogue and greets me every time I sit down at my desk. I didn’t get to work directly with my mom on “The Grief Tourist”, but Dani and I had fun making faces at each other from across the diner between takes.
Samantha on her sister: My sister and I are always there for each other. We fight a lot but after a couple of minutes we’re friends again and don’t remember what we were arguing about in the first place. Living in Los Angeles, we have definitely become more dependent on one another.
Categorised in: Interviews
This post was written by Albert Saliba