d3rang3d Interviews : Gregory Lee Kenyon

Today we have an interview with Gregory Lee Kenyon, star of Live Evil and many other modern day horror/sci-fi movies.

Gregory plays Baxter in Live Evil, one of the vampire bad guys. We wanted to find out more about Live Evil from his first hand experience, and thankfully he was good enough to give us some of his precious time.

d3rang3d : What can you tell us about your character in Live Evil?

Greg Kenyon : Baxter rocks! What a great character I got to play. He's an early 20th century Irish immigrant actor who starts to get famous during the silent film era. He makes the choice to become a vampire in order to maintain his youthful appearance -- which, of course is completely understandable to anyone in Hollywood. Ironically soon thereafter the "talkies" come into existence and he can't find work due to his accent.

d3rang3d : How cool is it playing a vampire, do you enjoy being the bad guy?

Greg Kenyon : Human - boring. Vampire - very cool. It's a law of nature or something. Do I enjoy being the bad guy? For sure. Don't forget - the bad boys get the chicks.

d3rang3d : How did you prepare for your part in Live Evil?

Greg Kenyon : I learned the lines. I'm kidding. I didn't learn the lines - as my now frequent co-star Osa will be happy to tell you. Actually I've been fortunate enough to work with Jay on a number of projects and he was cool enough to send me a script and answer questions in advance of my audition -- which is a courtesy that's VERY hard to come by in this town! So I went into the audition with two different versions of the character. The best part -- at the end of the audition Jay says, "Wow. That's great. I don't know which character I like more." Those are the words an actor lives for, believe me. In the end we were able to figure out a way in which the "real" Baxter could "put on" the other version for a small scene. If your readers care to look for it the only hint I'll give is that it has something to do with me trying to score with a cutie.

d3rang3d : We've heard that you came into the movie 3 months into shooting, what kind of difficulties, if any, did you encounter there?

Greg Kenyon : None at all. Like I mentioned, I've worked with Jay many times and I feel that we have a great, caring and professional working relationship. I'm hoping to direct a little bit in the future and he's been a great mentor to me in that capacity as well -- always patient in answering questions and willing to listen to my oftentimes ridiculous ideas. Also, Osa and I had been working on another project together so she had already learned to put up with me.

d3rang3d : Do you have any action sequences in the movie, if so how physically demanding was the part?

Greg Kenyon : I had some minor action scenes in the film. They weren't that demanding. The only real challenge was making sure my newly mended knee didn't give me any problems. I had strained it trying to race against a 19 year old Olympic Silver Medalist -- yeah, he won. Everything turned out roses. Well, maybe the black kind that vampires would dig.

d3rang3d : What aspects of Live Evils story interest you the most?

Greg Kenyon : Probably the usual selfish actor part - myself. Okay, my character. I mean - how cool to get to play a guy who's made this Faustian deal, is Irish - plays Scot, and hooks up with a pretty naked hottie. Tell me that isn't good story telling.

d3rang3d : You've been in quite a few movies now in your career, any interesting stories to tell?

Greg Kenyon : What happens on location, stays on location. Okay, just a quick shout out to Jay who brought me to upstate New York to shoot GHOST LAKE. We were cold. We were tired. We were hungry. But it was my first long haul/long term location shoot and what a great life experience. Also, since I have some family somewhat close by it was great to have them able to come to a set and get a sense of the "magic" that they hear so many stories about. Of course within ten minutes they were bored and headed back to their cabin on the lake to actually enjoy themselves. So much for magic.

d3rang3d : Which actors do you admire the most and why?

Greg Kenyon : I'm a huge Gary Oldman fan and a huge Harrison Ford fan for completely opposite reasons. Make no mistake -- they're both great actors. Gary is amazing for becoming vastly different people or creatures from film to film. Harrison is amazing for being able to generate a charisma that might overshadow the characters he plays, but makes him absolutely watchable and an old school icon.

d3rang3d : What's in store for Gregory Lee in the future?

Greg Kenyon : Although I'll always consider myself an actor first and last, I've written some screenplays and am developing some web series concepts which I'm hoping to pitch to the networks. Also, I've been directing, shooting and editing some small indie projects of late. I believe it absolutely helps a film actor to view the process from behind the camera.

d3rang3d : Finally, here is your spot to say anything to the world you like, the mic is yours.....

Greg Kenyon : Thanks for the support from your site and, of course, all of your fans/viewers. Hopefully LIVE EVIL will turn out to be a project that some of you dig. That's why we do it.

And with that we at d3rang3d would like to say thank you to Gregory from ourselves and all of our readers. Stay tuned for more Live Evil and, meantime, you can check out the official site at http://www.liveevilthemovie.com