Interview With Lou Lou Safran!
Photo Credit: Igor Drozdowski
1. How did you get your start in acting?
My Mom and Dad are in the music and film business so I grew up on sets and with creative people all around me. Acting always fascinated me and when I was five I played a little part in my Mom’s music video and that was that.
2. Can you tell us about your role in the new horror film “Annabelle: Creation”?
I play Tierney who is an orphan and together with 5 other girls and the nun who takes care of us, we move to a creepy old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Our orphanage shuts down so we have no choice, but we quickly realize that there is something very wrong with our new home. We see and hear scary things and then we find an old closet with a strange doll locked inside. From then on things get gruesome pretty fast..
3. What was a typical day like on-set?
There is no such thing as a typical day on the set! Sometimes you have a super early morning call and sometimes there are night shoots that keep you up until morning. As soon as I’d arrive I’d check the trailers of the other girls to see who was already there and we would catch up for as long as they’d let us before wardrobe, hair and make-up.
Then we would be walked to the set to meet with our director David Sandberg and hear what we were doing in the next take. He is amazing and so good with scary scenes!
In between takes we got breaks, which could be short or long, depending if the set up was changing. This movie has such amazing cast and all the girls got really close, so we would spend as much time together as we could. We had a phenomenal set teacher – someone who watches over child actors and supervises homework – Lois Yaroshefsky. She brought the best games and crafts and we would play, laugh and come up with weird voices and characters.
Lunch is really just a name, because on the set you break for lunch 6 hours after the crew call and that can be any time depending on the day’s work. So sometimes you eat lunch in the evening. Whenever it would fall all the girls would meet up in my room and we’d eat together. Lots of giggling going on.
After lunch some more shooting and I’d either get wrapped before dinner or have dinner on the set if I had more scenes to film. Sometimes there would be other things to do in between takes, like the EPK (electronic press kit) or interviews with the press.
Some days could be really long, but I didn’t feel very tired. It was an amazing set so I never really wanted to be wrapped for the day. Sometimes I’d sneak into the make-up room and watch the amazing special FX artists turn actors into demons.
4. How is this project different from others that you’ve worked on in the past?
My first role was in a Nicholas Sparks romantic drama The Choice and we shot it on a beautiful set overlooking the North Carolina Intracoastal waterway. There were boats and deer swimming across, cranes flying over and the most amazing sunsets. Annabelle Creation happens on a spooky old property. The house is dark and mysterious and danger hides behind every doorway, so that is quite a different setup. We were working with a scary doll and had to film a lot of terrifying moments. But besides that I actually found Tierney to have a lot of similarities with Katie from The Choice. They both have to overcome misfortune in their childhood and deal with a super scary situation.
5. What can fans expect to see from the movie?
Prepare to be really truly genuinely petrified. Annabelle Creation is so scary and suspenseful it might actually curdle your blood. But it is also beautifully shot, the set is incredible and will transport you right to the 1950s. The wardrobe, the hairstyles, everything is so authentic and vintage that I think it’s impossible not to fall for this movie and care deeply about its characters.
6. Do you have any other upcoming projects?
It’s been such a busy year and I’m in Australia for a few months now that I really look forward to getting back home to Los Angeles in August and attending the Annabelle Creation premiere. Can’t wait to see my set family. I can’t speak of my next project yet, but I hope I’ll have time to work on my music in the next few months too. I play the piano and sing and I just picked up a ukulele. I am launching my youtube channel and will be posting all sorts of Arctic Monkeys covers and tunes I’m learning. It’s just for fun because I am a music fanatic! I find it relaxing and creative and I love it so much.
7. What are your social media accounts?
Loulousafran.com
youtube: http://tinyurl.com/y7dn2ahn