By Andrew Miller, Thisweek Newspapers
Original article: http://www.thisweeklive.com/2011/11/23/for-first-film-role-lakeville-actor-summons-spirits/
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In his first film role, the 27-year-old Lakeville actor is cast as a spirit-medium in the 1950s-style horror film "House of Ghosts."
"I get to be kind of creepy," he said. "I'm a really animated guy (in real life), so to take that and play sort of this creepy, dispassionate character is really challenging. I tried to channel a little bit of Rod Serling."
The four-hour shoot inside a Minneapolis home last weekend had Wilkins leading a seance-like scene, gazing into a crystal ball and summoning the film's titular specters.
It's a choice role for Wilkins, a horror film fan—and a gore/zombie makeup hobbyist—who's a regular performer and director with the Lakeville-based community theater group Expressions.
Through one of the actors in an Expressions play he directed earlier this year, Wilkins was introduced to Christopher Mihm, the Arden Hills-based schlock-horror auteur directing "House of Ghosts."
Mihm, who works on a shoestring budget and doesn't pay his actors, aims to achieve the feel—and campiness—of classic black-and-white horror films.
For example, to complete the seance scene in "House of Ghosts," after the camera work wrapped up Wilkins headed to the home's basement to re-record his dialogue, as Mihm prefers to dub in actors' lines to give his films that vintage eldritch aura.
Wilkins, a 2003 Lakeville High School graduate who works as a voiceover artist and copy writer for a Bloomington ad agency, said his first foray into film has been a positive one.
"I'd love to do more film roles," he said. "I'm having a blast with this production."
"House of Ghosts" is scheduled to premiere in the Twin Cities in May, and information about the film can be found on the director's website, www.sainteuphoria.com.
Andrew Miller is at andrew.miller@ecm-inc.com.