Special Report: Silver Star (2024)

Oh it's showtime. People say, good money to see this movie. When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in the protection booth. Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring. Don it off.

Visualize what happened the day you were arrested. The house is being auctioned off next week. Why didn't they tell me for. What you got fifty ground. The other way?

What sire? Hey? Through this is my plan. You are suspended, Franny? Why and the.

Unfortunately your salary is not at all close to what we request for a loan. Good d put your hand when I can see, hey, don't. Make what I care. Let's go. Oh my god, you're a girl.

Who give me five grand and I'll plan one. What's in the back? Yeah, my god. I am so sorry, officer. It's just it's our first dry safe in love to Betty so whooping my horse.

That horse is worth fifty grand. Now hiding the money in the saddle, Billy. I'm not leaving you until I get my five grand. I have a blam se a tiny, tiny detour fifty to fifty. After that we're strangers.

The one I want to see I got them magic. To It's the. I'm tired, broke, pregnant lady here. Hi, how are you today? My friend?

Who are you? God sent me? Wow? Really here? You need to give him a reason.

Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of the Projection Booth. I'm your host Mike White. On this episode, I am joined by Troy Leanne Johnson and Grace Van Deen all about their new film Silver Star. It is the story of a young African American woman who, after she gets out of prison, kidnaps a pregnant teenager during a failed bank robbery. So it's kind of a road movie, kind of a buddy movie at times.

Yeah, there's a lot of comedy in this a lot of serious stuff as well. Had a great time talking with Grace and Troy, and I hope you have a great time listening to it. Check your local listings. Silver Star should be playing right now. I want to know a little bit more about you guys now.

Grace, I understand you grew up in like an entertainment family. Yeah, I did, but like it made me not want to go down this path, So I guess it was meant to be. At the end of the day, what changed your mind. I really wanted to be a therapist, and then I kind of fell into acting, and then I found out I discovered that acting is a bit more therapeutic for me, and maybe that's what I was searching for all along in my path down psychology. So and Troy, how about yourself?

Look at you just said. I started doing theater as a kid, and I would just go to like theater camp. I've just found acting fun since I was little, and no one in my family has ever done it. So I think they were all like, what is this weird thing that you're sure? What kind of roles are you?

Guys typically attracted to when it comes to what you want to be doing and acting. I think I like getting to play people who, at least on the surface, feel very different from me. I think I like trying to figure out what I guess at our cores is like similar. I think that can be fun. I feel like the things I get cast in have never been like what I ultimately want to play, like.

I really want to play like a love interest like the Notebook or Boo Valentine, And but people don't see me that way. They often see me either very pregnant, or very dead. I don't know what that sounds about me. I think I need to do some internal work to get people to look at me differently. Any times you played pregnant, I think I can say that I'm pregnant on this movie as well.

This is like my sixth time do. You just wear a belly? Well? Do you think? I guess so they like the extra weight on me to be fair.

Silver Star is like, even though I'm very pregnant, it is the most different I've ever been for a role. I talk a lot and I'm very I think Franny is very positive outlook on the world, which I usually don't get cast in that. So that was a nice shift. Well, Grace, how did you get cast in Silver Star? It was originally another actress and actor cast in the roles of Billy and Franny, and then schedule conflicts happened, and I think Troy and I just kind of it.

We fell into its lap. But it was amazing, it was perfect. I remember our first chemistry read. I was like, Oh, this is gonna be good. And the same question to you, Troy, what was your experience coming into this.

I just got sent an audition for it and I read the script and I was like, I love this so much, and I just thought it was so sweet and vulnerable their relationship and then saying we did our chemistry read and I was like, wait, this is so wonderful. I remember reading the script and being like, this is so good, so good, No way in hell they cast me. Pray when you read the script, was Billy still a boy? No? I don't think I actually knew that Billy was supposed to be a boy at first until we started filming, or like after we had filmed it, and then they were like, oh, yeah, originally this was a man, and I was like, oh, I had no idea.

I am so happy that it was like that. It ended up being us too, Like if it was anyone else I was playing opposite of it, it would have been a completely different movie. Like I think our relationship speaks so loud. Yeah, I think so too. It's just so sweet and it's so fun acting with you.

Yeah, let's do it again. Let's put again please. That was my question as far as like the chemistry that you two have together on screen. I mean, it's not an easy relationship that you have through most of this, So how do you you know become friends, but yet maintain that distance as those characters. We lived together when we filmed, and I had just gotten a new puppy.

So Troy like has the patience and the kindness of an angel, because that that dog was he was I mean, he's a baby Pluto, but he was so loud and so like he was a puppy, and she was just like, yeah, I don't mind living with a puppy. There's always that question that actors get asked, as far as I know, can you ride a horse? And any actor with their soult will say, yeah, yeah, of course I can ride a horse. But Troy, could you ride a horse? Before you got this role?

I couldn't ride a horse? And I was like, I'm not gonna lie. I'm not getting thrown off of a horse. I was like, no, I can't do this, you guys, and. Then really, really you didn't lie.

I did not lie. I was like, I can't ride a horse. I don't want to die. I can't do this. I lie about everything.

I love that it. Can you fly a plane? Yes? Why your plane is crazy? No?

Yes? Actually ten years expence No. I was so so scared, but they actually they got me like horseback writing lessons before we started, which was very fun, but I was very I was very scared, so I would be lying about flying a plane away. It's too anxious comparing how you've looked in other things versus how you look in Silver Star Troy, you have this dramatic shift. I mean, what all things did you have to go through other than the eyepatch to get to this role of Billy.

Yeah, it was definitely like a chain in hair. I don't think I've ever worn my hair like that before. It was really fun getting to try that style. The clothes were just a lot baggier. I think the way that Billy moves is just a lot different from me.

I think like where she leads in her body is very different. But I really enjoyed it. I think usually, and I don't know if you can relate to this grace, but I just feel like when you're a young woman, you're usually getting so like dulled up for roles, which can be very fun. But I think getting to play someone who like wasn't getting their makeup done, wasn't wearing tailored clothes like that was really cool to get to do. I feel like our characters are so opposite in my way, where yeah, you usually do get onto a project and they want to make you look like that'turally pretty, but for you they were like no makeup, and then for me they were like rainbows on her face.

Did you have to wear the pregnancy belly all the time or was it just a shots where you showed. It was all the time? I yeah, it was all the. Well in both of these roles are so physical, and I mean, you know, Troy, you get to engage in some stage combat and everything, and you guys are just running all the time. It feels like, I mean, it must have been an exhausting shoot for you.

Fun to get to do that. I think at first I was like, I don't even go to the gym, Like I can't. I don't think I can do this. But it was really enjoyable. And I think when you really get into the character and like the circumstances of the scene, it just I think adrenaline just kind of takes over.

I think because I knew it with like almost everything I film, I'm quite used to it. And then I couldn't really complain because our director, the female counterpart of the directing due we worked with. She was like eight months brightant, so if I complained, I'd feel like a dick because she wasn't gonna take her belly off at the end. Of the amount that you have to speak in the movie, Grace, I mean, it feels like there are times where I'm like, please take breath because you're just going at it all written down, or did you get to ad lib anything? Both?

There were moments where I ad libbed a lot of it was the script, Thille. It was just a really good script. I was scared because I couldn't stop thinking about how annoying people were going to find me. But I think that's another nod Detroit because you kind of take how you feel about Franny from Billy. You're like, Okay, well, how is she reacting to this?

And as Billy starts to warm up to Franny, I feel like I've seen the audience start to warm up in the same time code as her. So I'm like, oh, thank you, Troy, thank you. And you mentioned that there's a directing duo on this between Rubin and Lola, and I was curious how that was. I mean, they were writer and director duo, which is pretty great. How is it working with them just on set.

I mean do they kind of split up their duties or just how is that to work with a pair of directors. Yeah, they split it up pretty equally. Indie filmmaking is always going to be so special to me. Like big productions, there's definitely that thought behind everyone's mind of like, Okay, we really need this to succeed, and with indie filmmaking there's just such a different art form towards it where we're like that the main objective is I really want audience to feel something, and Lola and Rubin are really adamant about like that being their goal, which is beautiful. Yeah.

I think I felt really similarly to that. I think when you're doing an indie project, there's so much more room to, I think, just explore and find different ways to express yourself. And I think that Lola and Rubin were very open to that, which was really nice and refreshing. And I mean, just going back to Lola, like being pregnant during the entire thing, It's like she's like running right alongside us in the rain and in the freezing cold while pregnant. It's just like I was like, this woman is such a badass.

That's crazy. She cares so much. Cares, she cares. Yeah, it's really beautiful to see people care. Absolutely.

Yeah. Where did you guys actually shoot this at? We were in Kentucky for I think like or three or four days, and then New Jersey in the New Jersey. Yeah, those Civil. War reenactors were those mostly real people.

Yeah, they were all real reenactors. Like we went to an actual reenactment that was happening and they were like helping me ride the horse and like one of the women like gave me her uniform that she wears, Like that's a real reenactor's uniform, and it was really cool. I'd never been to anything like that before. It was different. It was very different.

This is crazy, And I think what we learned about it is like they pay to be included in that, Like it's like it's like a paid experience to go live in a tent and experience that time period authentically. I don't know that I would sign myself up for that personally, but it was interesting to observe for sure. Like the two days, I think I was like, that was cool to get to experience. But I think, really, like if these are just people who are so interested in history, and I think, like living out there like that is wild. I was like I couldn't do it, but.

They killed it. They were so into it. I was like, this feels very realistic. It did feel very realistic. This came out originally was it twenty twenty four?

So it went to a festival in twenty twenty four, and then it came out in France in November last year, twenty twenty five, and now it's coming to theaters in the US March thirteenth. Have you guys seen it with an audience? I have? I saw in France at that festival with like hundreds of people in the audience, and Troy, I wish you were there so badly. I know, I wish I could have been there.

Because but like the moments were like you're funnier or Franny has her moments. Like the audience was like laughing. It was like hundreds of people laughing or clapping. It was. It was the most surreal feeling.

Which festival was that, do you remember? Uh? Doauville? And then Troy, I think you saw it in a theater in La right, And then I was out of town for that one. I did.

Yeah, there was there was like a small screening, so I did get to see it on like a bigger screen, but it was a very small group of people and it was like some of the other actors, some managers. So I haven't seen it with like just like a normal audience of people who hadn't seen it before. But I would like to are you gonna go on the thirteenth? I think I am. I'm kind of like nervous, like I feel very shy about it, but I do kind of want to experience that.

It's gonna be kind of surreal to see yourself projected so big on the screen, Like how has that been? And have you gotten used to that feeling? I've not gotten used to it. No, It's it's so strange because it's like I'll be watching like this film, for example, and I'm seeing like Grace act and I'm like, oh my gosh, she's so talented. I'm so into this.

I'm like suspending disbelief, and then suddenly I see my face and I'm like, oh my god, what is going on? I get that that's relatable, you know, especially with how the world is right now. Seeing my face that big and how expressive I was as Franny, I'm like, oh my god, do I need to make a botox apployment? Torey, what do you have coming up? What are you working on these days?

I actually got to be in this other indie film a bit ago, and that's supposed to be coming out soon too, so that's like doing the fact I know. I'm excited that I'm it's doing like the festival circuit right now too, So it's been cool to have these two very different projects kind of coming out at the same time. So I'm just excited for that. What's it called, Troy, It's called Sugar Beach, and it's it's kind of similar in that it's like a coming of age story, but I think the experiences of those characters are just very different. Like they're growing up in California, their families have like a little more money where I think with Billy and Franny, it's very much like they're on their own.

And Grace, I know you're over in India shooting something. What else do you have coming up? I keep getting thrown into horror movies, so I've got a lot of the scary genre stuff coming out. I told you they want me dead. I definitely remember Troy, you were in what Totally Killer?

I wasn't Totally Killer? Yeah, that was it was super fun. Love. I love horror movies, so I'm very excited to watch everything that Grace is making right now and acting in them is just the craziest, most fun experience. Definitely feels like we're in a really golden time for horror films.

I mean, seeing trailers just this weekend for they Will Kill You or Ready or not too. I mean, nice, strong female protagonists leading these horror films is pretty great. I love it. And then having two strong leads and Silver Star is fantastic as well. So that was so nice to have both of you up there.

And yeah, that chemistry between you is so great and I just could really tell that behind the scenes. You definitely had a lot of good friendship going. On Silver Star. The sequel is just us running away from a serial killer. I'll do it, honestly, that's sounds great.

Who's going to be pregnant this time? We both are, right and Grace, thank you so much for your time. This was so great, and Grace, thank you so much for setting this up. No, thank you so. Much, and thank you for the pop up questions, thank you.

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