Stephanie Owens is a country music artist based in Nashville, Tennessee. By Eleanor Klein.
How did you get into the music industry?
I grew up singing and performing as much as I possibly could. I moved to Nashville in 2013 right after I graduated from college to pursue a career as a country music artist. I released my debut project in 2018 and have been releasing music ever since.
Have you always wanted to be a singer?
Absolutely! I used to run around my house using a turkey baster as my microphone and would put couch cushions all over the floor to make my “stage’ haha. My parents both have music careers, so they have always been my biggest supporters and never made me feel like I needed a backup plan.
Tell us more about your latest single release.
I released “Work for Shoes” on June 26th and the music video on June 30th . It’s a celebratory anthem for shoe lovers everywhere! This is the most fun I’ve had with a song that I’ve released. Anyone who knows me well is very aware of my sassy side, so it was time to unleash spunky Stephanie haha.
Then I wanted to throw some humor into the mix with my music video. Growing up, I was very involved in musical theater, and I was always known for playing the spunky, eccentric roles. So, naturally, I fully embraced this ‘shoeaholic’ character. The video already has over 100,000 views on my YouTube channel, and CMT supported it on CMT.com as well!
What has been your greatest accomplishment in music to date?
After releasing my debut EP and music video, I was invited to perform and share my eating disorder recovery story on national television on the Huckabee Show. I have dreamed for years about making my tv debut, so that was such a surreal and awesome experience!
What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
Be yourself. While that may sound cliché, music and art is about expressing yourself in a unique way, and authenticity inspires and motivates people.
What advice would you give to someone looking to enter the music industry?
A career in the music industry takes a lot of hard work and thick skin, but, at the end of the day, it is about prioritizing relationships. It’s important to find your team, surround yourself with people who love and support you, and to build a true community of fans who relate to you and your music.
While watching his initial batch of movies, you see a specific pattern emerging. His neurotic quirks are pretty evident, but it is his trademark Woody Allen appearance that really takes off. Sure, it is not as distinct and defined as Charlie Chaplin’s bowler hat, cane, and moustache. But Woody Allen’s messy crusty hair and glasses have become as much part of his personality as has his ticks. And unlike Chaplin, Allen’s look was pretty much part of his actual persona.
It is pretty much in full display in all its glory in Play it Again Sam, a movie that he did not direct but wrote and was based on his hit Broadway show playing around the same his first movie Take the Money and Run released. The play also marked Diane Keaton’s first collaboration with Woody Allen and was the beginning of their long and illustrious association.
The film is about Allan Felix, who idolizes Humphrey Bogart and recently went through a messy divorce. His feelings of inadequacy also come from his sexual relationship with his ex-wife or lack of it. Also complicating things is his self-pity at how he thinks he will never be able to match up to the suave coolness of Rick, Bogart’s character from Casablanca, a movie he also idolizes.
His best friend Tony and his wife, Dick, and Linda (Tony Roberts and Diane Keaton, reprising their roles from the Broadway play), tries to set him up with multiple other ladies. Eventually, he realizes he has fallen in love with Linda and decides to pursue her. All this complicates things for everyone involved as the movie bizarrely plays out like Casablanca, right down to the climax involving the three and Bogart thrown in for good measure at an airstrip.
The way it manages to draw parallels with Casablanca is pretty amusing. How slavishly it adapts Casablanca might be a hindrance for some, but you can’t help but smile how it manages to draw from the classic so well.
While watching the film, it also surprises you at how straight it plays out. After the relative kookiness of his first two movies, Take the money and run and Bananas, it nice to see a linear film from Allen like this one. It’s conventional structure and straightforward nature also probably came from the original Broadway play.
Though Allen didn’t direct the film, it has his stamp all over it. The dream sequence in Italian where he imagines his friend Tony coming to kill him in an Italian bakery seems so much his own creation and could have come from any of his movies. Also, his constant flights of fancy when he gets nervous wand he gets relationship advice from Humprhey Bogart is textbook Allen.
But calling it a Woody Allen movie is unfair to the movie’s director Herbert Ross. He is a guy who went on to direct many classics and also had a very long and fruitful collaboration with Neil Simon, another legendary writer known more for his comic creations.
My favorite scene in the movie is when the lady Dick and Linda managed to set up for him on a date, comes to his house with them. His attempts at carefully curating books, music, and other props and littering them across his place to make him look suave are hilarious. lt would hit the nerve of anyone who has ever tried to impress someone by pretending to be more appealing and interesting than they are.
To sum up, Play it Again, Sam, is Woody Allen’s beatify ode to Casablanca. In the climax, when Allen repeats Bogart’s famous, “getting on the plane” speech verbatim, Linda gets impressed and says its beautiful, oblivious to the fact that it was a line from a movie. Prompting Allen to admit, “It’s from Casablanca. … I’ve waited my whole life to say it!” It was an actor playing dress up and playing out parallels to his favorite movie. Isn’t that what we all secretly want to do?
While watching his initial batch of movies, you see a specific pattern emerging. His neurotic quirks are pretty evident, but it is his trademark Woody Allen appearance that really takes off. Sure, it is not as distinct and defined as Charlie Chaplin’s bowler hat, cane, and mustache. But Woody Allen’s messy crusty hair and glasses have become as much part of his personality as has his ticks. And unlike Chaplin, Allen’s look was pretty much part of his actual persona.
It is pretty much in full display in all its glory in Play it Again Sam, a movie that he did not direct but wrote and was based on his hit Broadway show playing around the same his first movie Take the Money and Run released. The play also marked Diane Keaton’s first collaboration with Woody Allen and was the beginning of their long and illustrious association.
The film is about Allan Felix, who idolizes Humphrey Bogart and recently went through a messy divorce. His feelings of inadequacy also come from his sexual relationship with his ex-wife or lack of it. Also complicating things is his self-pity at how he thinks he will never be able to match up to the suave coolness of Rick, Bogart’s character from Casablanca, a movie he also idolizes.
His best friend Tony and his wife, Dick, and Linda (Tony Roberts and Diane Keaton, reprising their roles from the Broadway play), tries to set him up with multiple other ladies. Eventually, he realizes he has fallen in love with Linda and decides to pursue her. All this complicates things for everyone involved as the movie bizarrely plays out like Casablanca, right down to the climax involving the three and Bogart thrown in for good measure at an airstrip.
The way it manages to draw parallels with Casablanca is pretty amusing. How slavishly it adapts Casablanca might be a hindrance for some, but you can’t help but smile how it manages to draw from the classic so well.
While watching the film, it also surprises you at how straight it plays out. After the relative kookiness of his first two movies, Take the money and run and Bananas, it nice to see a linear film from Allen like this one. It’s conventional structure and straightforward nature also probably came from the original Broadway play.
Though Allen didn’t direct the film, it has his stamp all over it. The dream sequence in Italian where he imagines his friend Tony coming to kill him in an Italian bakery seems so much his own creation and could have come from any of his movies. Also, his constant flights of fancy when he gets nervous wand he gets relationship advice from HumphreyBogart is textbook Allen.
But calling it a Woody Allen movie is unfair to the movie’s director Herbert Ross. He is a guy who went on to direct many classics and also had a very long and fruitful collaboration with Neil Simon, another legendary writer known more for his comic creations.
My favorite scene in the movie is when the lady Dick and Linda managed to set up for him on a date, comes to his house with them. His attempts at carefully curating books, music, and other props and littering them across his place to make him look suave are hilarious. lt would hit the nerve of anyone who has ever tried to impress someone by pretending to be more appealing and interesting than they are.
To sum up, Play it Again, Sam, is Woody Allen’s beatify ode to Casablanca. In the climax, when Allen repeats Bogart’s famous, “getting on the plane” speech verbatim, Linda gets impressed and says its beautiful, oblivious to the fact that it was a line from a movie. Prompting Allen to admit, “It’s from Casablanca. … I’ve waited my whole life to say it!” It was an actor playing dress up and playing out parallels to his favorite movie. Isn’t that what we all secretly want to do?
A much-needed film for our time, For Your Consideration builds a wonderfully pithy satirical narrative about the problems with the 21st century film industry.
Poppy Gordon’s debut short follows a series of young, privileged women meeting up to discuss the development of a film that will surely get them into the Sundance Film Festival. In just thirteen short minutes, they jump between ill-conceived ideas, claiming they are trying to give a voice to the voiceless when really, they are just vying to out-woke each other and find a narrative that focuses on the most on-trend minority.
Clearly inspired by frustration, For Your Consideration is as comical as it is blunt. These women have no idea what they’re talking about. Perhaps what is most frightening about this film is that despite its humor, it is a very accurate portrayal of people’s attitudes today, and how those with privilege get to define popular culture.
You know exactly which direction this film is headed from the moment we meet Heather (Samantha Robinson), the ringleader. These rich LA women, who have everything but are still bored, decide to make a film just because they can, just because they have nothing better to do. So, they have bad intentions, but perhaps they will use their privilege for good? Unfortunately not, they sway between being genuinely socially aware and incredibly ignorant, and as their ideas develop, they only grow more offensive. Every time you think they’re going to hit the mark, they glance off at the last second and miss by a mile.
The film manages to criticize these unfortunately ubiquitous voices who are filmmaking for all the wrong reasons without attacking the movements that inspired them. What Gordon does so well is that the villains in this film are not the ill-reputed rich, white men we are used to. It goes deeper than gender and age. It’s about privilege. These are young women exploiting important movements for their own gain, profiting from cultural appropriation and tokenism. For Your Consideration is even bold enough to reference films that have done just that, such as Green Book, the 2019 Oscar winner highly criticized for being just another white savior movie disguised as progress.
I am 23 years old and deeply entrenched in most social media platforms, so this film resonated with me. The commercialization and co-opting of social justice movements is unfortunately commonplace, and you have to wade through a torrent of influencers riding on the coattails of any social change to find the real activists, who, unfortunately, usually get swallowed up in the cacophony.
Gordon’s film is pleasingly to-the-point and holds no punches. Even the title grabs you by the collar. It doesn’t just refer to the golden words of award season, For Your Consideration asks you to think, to reflect, and start your own conversations about these topics. An interesting piece that entertains as much as it educates, For Your Consideration is a film we sorely need.
Body Transformations in Film: Amazing and Inspiring or Dangerous? By Frankie Wallace.
Whether it’s Tom Hanks for Castaway, Zac Efron for Baywatch, or Anne Hathway for Les Miserables, the actors and actresses in Hollywood seem all-willing to go all-out to gain or lose weight and muscle for a role. After all, they want to fit the role perfectly, and their bodies are not exactly right.
As we look at these transformations, however, we have to ask ourselves: are these transformations amazing and inspiring to the audience, or can they be downright dangerous? We will examine a few of Hollywood’s amazing body transformations in a little more detail and the story behind the scenes, and then ask ourselves again: Is this a good thing?
Actors and Their Stunning Transformations
Although in our increasingly high tech world, it is possible to digitally transform an actor’s body, as was done to Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, more and more actors are willing to go all-out to fit into their roles, losing or gaining tremendous amounts of weight and making other bodily changes in the process. Let’s look at three cases in more detail.
Matt Damon
In Courage Under Fire, Matt Damon played the role of Specialist Ilairo, a soldier who is emotionally distraught from his experiences on the battlefield who is now facing another battle: heroin addiction. To show the dramatic effects that heroin can have on the body, Damon lost 40 pounds. Even though he thought that his transformation demonstrated how committed he was to acting, and it led him to being offered his breakout role as the lead in the late 1990s film, The Rainmaker, the weight loss harmed his body. It put extreme stress on his adrenal gland, and he had to take medicine for over a year to treat the condition.
Natalie Portman
For her role as Nina, a ballerina in Black Swan who becomes completely obsessed with dance, Natalie Portman, who was already slender, shed 20 pounds. To lose that amount of weight, Portman primarily ate almonds and carrots and very little else. Additionally, she rehearsed for the role eight hours a day. Portman stated, “There were some nights that I thought I literally was going to die,” and that, for the first time in her life, she understood how a performer could get so caught up in a role that it could harm them.
Christian Bale
To play the role of the severe insomniac machinist Trevor Reznik in the 2004 psychological thriller, The Machinist, actor Christian Bale lost over 60 pounds. In the film, he is downright skeletal in appearance. Then, in 2005, Bale played Batman in the Christopher Nolan remake of the franchise. For the role of Batman, he gained both weight and muscle. Over six months, Bale gained 100 pounds. When asked about his bodily transformations by E! News, he said that he just can’t transform himself anymore. “I feel like if I keep doing what I’ve done in the past I’m going to die. So, I’d prefer not to die,” Bale said. He also told The Sunday Times Culture magazine, “I can’t keep doing it. I really can’t. My mortality is staring at me in the face.”
The Good Side of Transformation
So, how can these actors and many others totally transform their bodies for a role? For some people, it all comes down to the 3 Big Rocks of Health. These rocks are consistency, effort, and adaptability. Entertainers who can make such transformations for a role show a great amount of all three, and by doing so, inspire others to do the same.
Some of the diets that stars use to make their transformations are even published online for others to follow. For example, Pop Workouts has published the Black Swan Workout, with the claim that anyone who follows the workout can transform their bodies to be long and lean, just like Natalie Portman in Black Swan. While that may sound inspiring, and indeed it is, the workout itself is not for the faint of heart. It involves working out “5 hours a day, 6 days a week” and involves everything from cardio to ab work to swimming.
The Bad Side
Where there is good, there is also bad, and in the case of these transformations, the bad seems to outweigh the good. Andrea N. Giancoli, a certified dietitian and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, says that celebrities, with their constant increases and decreases in weight, are superb examples of exactly what not to do when dieting. In particular, she says that the human body doesn’t like to lose weight quickly. When dieting in such a fashion, a person loses muscle, but when they gain it back, it returns as fat.
Also, when entertainers lose a lot of weight, they are prone to want to tell the world about it, and for the wrong reasons. They are not telling people because they want to help, but because they are hoping to increase their chances for recognition. Whenever an entertainer talks about their weight loss, it becomes a trending subject on social media. What they do not realize is that eating disorders, while in some cases are influenced by biology and genetics, also have a strong social component that celebrities tend to increase. The stereotype of the perfect body as lean and strong is still very much a part of our society, and entertainers, with their stories, only propagate that image.
Actors and actresses will undoubtedly continue their extreme body transformations as they practice their art and attempt to be the best characters that they can be, and the debate will continue as to whether these transformations are amazing or dangerous. Leave it to say that, while we may continue to look at the extreme transformations of entertainers on film in awe, we should probably not try it ourselves.
Ahead of the FrightFest UK premiere of 12 HOUR SHIFT, director Brea Grant talks about her ‘Valentine to East Texas’, the heroism of nurses and being a child of the 90s.
You’ve said 12 HOUR SHIFT is a valentine to East Texas and the hospital staff who looked after your elderly father, could you elaborate?
Brea Grant – I grew up in East Texas and most people will say that in spite of not living there since I was 18, I have a lot of very small town Texan qualities. My hometown is full of no-nonsense, hard-working people, so I took these characters and combined them with something that was very much on my mind when I first started writing the film – nurses in hospitals. There has been this sudden worldwide awareness of the importance essential workers since the start of COVID-19 but anyone like me with an elderly parent, sick loved one or health issues of their own can attest to how much we rely on nurses and hospital staff.
These nurses are superheroes. My dad had had a fall when I started writing this and we went through hospital, rehabilitation, and extended care all while he is battling Alzheimer’s. The hospital workers take care of everybody through what is the most stressful time of all our lives. They have to deal with life or death situations. It’s just an incredible person who goes into that profession. 12 HOUR SHIFT is funny and silly but at its core, I wanted to show the stress of being in a line of work where there is no downtime and you have people’s lives on your hands.
Why the 1999 New Year Y2K setting?
I’m a child of the 90s so my brain still lives in the pre-Y2K era whether I like it or not. Y2K was what I now think of a global urban legend. We were all convinced the world was going to suddenly turn into an apocalyptic landscape at the stroke of midnight. I have always been fascinated by urban legends and 12 HOUR SHIFT’s jumping off point is the urban legend about the person waking up without a kidney in a bathtub full of ice.
Did you always have Angela Bettis, star of the extraordinary MAY, in mind for the lead role?
Brea Grant – I didn’t, but I have always loved Angela’s work. I keep a running list of actors I’d love to work with and she has always been at the top. I named the lead of Lucky, another film I wrote, May as a nod to that movie. When I brought the idea of her as Mandy up to my producers, they were also huge fans and thought she had the right gravitas for the role. I sat down with her and begged her to be in the film. It’s a tough role because it’s an underplayed lead surrounded by all of these heightened characters all while dealing with a very intense drug addiction and she pulls it off beautifully.
You filmed in a working hospital, how difficult was that to navigate?
I thank my producers for that over at HCT Media. Two of them are from Arkansas and my producer, Tara’s dad (shout out to John Perry who also has a cameo in the movie!) knew of a hospital in their town that had an empty floor that hadn’t been updated since the 90s. They were about to redo it and my producers asked them if we could shoot in it first. Occasionally, we would have patients stumble in looking for directions but overall, it was a dream for an indie because we had the entire floor to ourselves.
The movie is one of constantly shifting tones, from stark realism to horror, from comedy to anxiety, did that evolve organically while you filmed or was it always part of the plan?
Brea Grant – Most of that was in the script. I ended up hiring a lot of improvisors in the supporting roles so the movie ended up being more bizarre and funny that I imagined originally but I was happy with where it went. They took the characters I had written and ran with them in the best way. Overall, I gravitate towards projects that are tonally interesting. I like a comedy. I like movies that are fun and escapist. I wanted it to feel like a heightened world while still having this very dark center. I want to keep the audience constantly on the edge of their seats. They don’t know what’s going to happen next.
You have become such a fixture on the global fantasy festival circuit with your past genre work, how important is that in your estimation?
That’s really nice of you to say. I love the genre community. Early on in my career I was mostly working in television and got a little taste of what it was like to be in the indie genre world. The community was so nice and supportive and I realized it was something I wanted to pursue. We don’t make a lot of money making indie genre so it has to be something you are really passionate about. In my personal life, most of my friends don’t like horror, so having a festival community has been a really nice way to be able to talk about the things I love.
12 HOUR SHIFT
What did actress Brea bring to the director Brea table with respect to 12 HOUR SHIFT?
Brea Grant – I try to see what actors need from me and make a comfortable place for them to play. As an actor, I love constant feedback but some actors don’t want that. I check in early and often to see if they are getting what they need. On film sets (it’s not as possible when I’m directing TV) I also make sure we always do an “actor take.” That’s a take where they can throw away the script, throw away my notes, and do it how they see it. I end up using these takes so much. At the end of the day, as pretentious as this will sound, I’m a storyteller no matter what role I’m in. I want to do what serves the story best. I think about that before every scene no matter what my job is that day.
Will you continue to work in both fields or do you prefer directing over acting?
I still like acting. I just acted in a movie earlier this year for director Jill Sixx called THE STYLIST. But if you made me choose, I would choose writing and directing. My heart is in it no matter what I’m working on. Filmmaking as a profession fits my personality and personal goals much more.
12 HOUR SHIFT
You represent a double whammy this year what with 12 HOUR SHIFT and staring in LUCKY, which you wrote. Do you share the same creative values and work ethic?
Brea Grant – Definitely. Our work relationship came so easily it was almost scary. She is just as passionate about what she does as I am but I prefer to work with people who can balance passion with professionalism. Natasha always did that. She had faith in my script from the beginning and I had faith in her vision as a director. We had met before and had one call before I agreed she was right for it. I was a fan of IMITATION GIRL and knew she could elevate LUCKY in the same way. Once she was on board to direct, it was Natasha’s vision 100%. I wanted to do whatever I needed to do to help her achieve that as an actress and a writer. And I think we were able to come out with an incredible film.
Finally, what’s next?
Like I said, I did some acting this year in THE STYLIST across from Najarra Townsend, who is so amazing to work with. I believe it will hit fests next year. I have a graphic novel called MARY that is coming out in October. And I’m working a bit more in the television space. During quarantine, I got the opportunity to write on two different shows, one called UNCONVENTIONAL and the CW show, PANDORA. I am also headed out to direct more episodes of Pandora next month.
12 HOUR SHIFT is showing online on Friday 28 August, 8.45pm, in the Arrow Video Screen, as part of the Arrow Video FrightFest August Digital event.
