Catching Up With Sarah Brown
Soap Opera Digest: How have you been?
Sarah Brown: I’ve been inundated with a construction project that I started nine months ago that was supposed to be two weeks. I ended up in a huge pickle where the contractor wiped out all the support in 550 feet of my house, but didn’t reinforce it. It started to cave in and I had to have new engineers come out and put support in it. So, unfortunately I embarked on a journey that has completely sidetracked my entire life. It’s been probably the most stressful time that I can remember in recent years, but it’s clearing up.
Digest: And now Heart of the Beholder is making its way around film festivals.
Brown: It’s been touring for about a year. The story is based on the director’s life story. Ken Tipton was the first person to open a video store in St. Louis and I play his wife. I think it’s an interesting film.
Digest: This group, Citizens for Decency, went after him for renting out movies that most of us consider pretty innocuous.
Brown: Ridiculous videos like Splash and other ones, as well, but the movie is about freedom of speech, freedom of choice and freedom of religious beliefs and protection under the constitution. Heart of the Beholder essentially says that: You may say it’s decent or indecent, but who’s really to say or that I live in a society that you get to choose for me? It’s one struggle in many that I think people may relate to.
Digest: And this group kind of destroyed his business, didn’t they?
Brown: Yes. He was an entrepreneur who lived the American dream for a minute until the religious fanatics in his town went after him. He had a chain of five or six video stores in St. Louis. Not only was he sabotaged from the inside by his very dearest friends, but the political structure of the city was also involved because of a blackmail situation. The Citizens for Decency had some dirt on a councilman, so he pushed to have the stores shut down under the R.I.C.O. [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations] Act long enough for him to lose his leases and completely bankrupt him. On the verge of suicide, he pulled it back together and got revenge. And that’s what the movie’s about, so it’s fun. My co-star, Matt Letscher, is so good in this movie. He gives a really strong performance. We shot it on a shoestring budget with first-time filmmakers, so we got one shot at everything.
Digest: It’s an especially relevant subject right now.
Brown: Especially when we made it, Howard Stern had just gotten fined by the FCC and the Janet Jackson thing at the Super Bowl had just happened, so it was a really good time.
Digest: You mentioned the low budget, yet this was set in 1981. What was that like?
Brown: It was hard to get it together, but fun rummaging through thrift stores. I actually brought some of my old stuff that could pass for acid-washed jeans. I love that environment of independent film. I really thrive on everybody pulling together, trying to get it made. It’s taxing, but fun.
Digest: How is your filmmaking going?
Brown: Part of the construction I’ve done here is that I built myself an editing studio, which has been a dream of mine. The real bummer is that I have yet to use it because of the rest of the stuff going on. Now I’ll have a space to do it. As soon as it stops, all I want to do is go back to work. I only just started going back to auditions two weeks ago because these house problems have completely been my life. I really wasn’t in a mindset to perform well. I did have some really great things happen. Quentin Tarantino had seen me on KAREN SISCO and remembered that I had read for him for the C.S.I. season finale last year, so he called and asked me to come up to his house and meet him personally and read for two roles in his movie. It was out of nowhere. In the middle of my construction nightmare, it was a little, beautiful thing. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter whether I got it or not. All that mattered was that I got to meet one of my heroes and favorite directors. He is so brilliant. To be on his radar was just like, “Wow!” It was such a blessing because I was really inundated with stuff I didn’t want to be doing.
Digest: And of course, I have to ask — would you consider going back to soaps?
Brown: Of course! I have to pursue my dreams, but it’s also nice to have a steady job, so I’m not ruling it out.
You can purchase the DVD of Heart Of the Beholder at www.amazon.com or www.beholder.com.
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