SamSam Whirlwind
It’s been such a rush to hit the new year running, shooting the dark comedy/horror feature film, SamSam, in January 2017. LITERALLY starting the New Year the moment I got back to LA – landing in LAX January 10, 11:30am, having just finished a ten-hour flight from London. I left the airport at 12:30pm, squeezed in a modeling job in Downtown LA from 1:30-3:30pm, and then arrived on set to shoot my first scenes of SamSam at 5pm, diving headfirst into a night shoot and also (surprisingly) the best cure for jet-lag! Welcome home Cat!
SamSam, written and directed by Dallas Lee Blanton is a film compiled from the solicitation of real-life Bad Roommate stories. The essence of the worst of the worst stories, boiled down to create: SamSam – The Worst Roommate Ever.
I was so psyched to be working on this project, not only because the sense of humour in the script matches perfectly with my own, but that this character was not the typical sex bomb, mistress, Bond girl, evil villain, which I’ve previously been typecast to play. I got to portray the “sane voice among the crazies,” which is where my sarcastic, sardonic, “tell it how it is” sense of humour lies. Wearing little-to-no make-up, I was dressed down in most of my scenes wearing workout clothes and sweat pants, playing a sleep deprived, touring nurse (I totally nailed the sleep deprived part!). How freeing to no longer have to give a shit about what I looked like and just … do my job … act! I got to be sarcastically mean to the most annoying valley girl (the eponymous SamSam), eat SO much pizza (!) and drag a large, bloodied tree branch through the LA Abandoned Zoo, culminating with a girl-on-girl, blood-splattered showdown battle!
Yes! Life…Is…Good!
A Character’s Born
Taking on characters against my stereotype seems to be the theme this year, as it was during this shoot in the Abandoned Zoo, where I received a text from a dear old friend, Len Smith, who I hadn’t seen in four years. We had been in the theatre show, Clue together, he playing Colonel Mustard and I playing Miss Scarlet (of course – sex bomb, mistress, evil villain … ahem) and we hadn’t seen each other since.
Len, previously a cartoonist for Disney, had been following a character I’d created on Facebook, “Vixen Duckville” and sent me some artwork relating to the character saying, “Do you want to make her into a TV Show?” My response: “Absolutely, I do!”
We didn’t!
But we will… we got sidetracked!
As most people will, during development, Len asked the famous words, “What other ideas do you have?” Now, (in the words of Shakespeare), “by accident most strange, bountiful fortune,” found me shooting the shit a few days previous with the most amazing human being in this world, Keith Thompson, where when discussing an episode of Black Mirror (go watch this series NOW) and the unfortunate University escapades of David Cameron (please educate yourself on who this is), put the words “Dick” and “Pig” in the same sentence … and of course, Keith and I proceeded to joke about the connotations of this combination.
Hence, all in all, Dick Pig was born: “Bitter, cynical, and nonchalantly nihilistic, Dick Pig devotes his life to doing other’s dirty work for them. Should you find your day being disrespectfully disrupted, it may be that someone out there felt the burning desire to send you a Dick Pig!” Totally not a character in my wheelhouse – but someone who’s words I can still write. An actor is a storyteller, but can only go so far in his or her carnal vehicle. Yes, I can dress down and wear less make-up, but I will never be a male, late 40’s, cartoon pig with a chip on his shoulder about how the world around him is changing and won’t let him be. Dick Pig is the vehicle for me to access a whole other world of storytelling, and his Send A Dick Pig website will, in turn, give YOU the freedom and indeed, the permission, to live vicariously through Dick Pig, saying and doing all the mean, socially unacceptable, politically incorrect things, that, honestly … you really wish you could!
Dick Pig Wants You
“We’re allowing people the guilty pleasure of unabashedly behaving badly.”
Send A Dick Pig will allow users to select specific characters, decide their fate from numerous animated “Dick Pig” escapades, and send to friends and foes via text, email, and social media. A tongue-in-cheek and deliciously devilish alternative to the current array of sickly sweet E-Cards and, hopefully, picking up where Bitstrips left off.
Dick Pig: The Retaliative Telegram, delivering justice one DICK MOVE at a time.
We are currently running an Indiegogo Campaign to help us bring Dick Pig’s website to life, and you can check out the link here: https://igg.me/at/DickPig.
Even if you can’t contribute but love this concept, you can do the following things:
1) Start sending a Dick Pig … NOW!!! We have images on our Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram that you are more than welcome to forward to anyone you think would appreciate the concept. (If you tag us and share us of course – don’t be a Dick Pig!). The more people who know about Dick Pig, the more people will use the website once it’s up and running, and the thing we want most of all is an adoring audience.
2) Share the Dick Pig Indiegogo campaign!!!
Tweet us at Twitter
Follow us on Facebook
Gramster-gram us on Instagram
Subscribe to our mailing list for updates and Send a Dick Pig!
(Dick Pig art by Len Smith.)
Crash Palace Support Team
The multi-talented Cat LaCohie is not only an actress, producer, costume designer, and creative spirit, but a burlesque star known as Vixen DeVille. She also hosts her amazing Burlesque, Body Confidence, and Self-Imagery Discovery Experience and its value cannot be measured. And don’t miss her horror work, and much more, at her IMDb page.