Interview with Liisa Evastina

Liisa Evastina, thank you for the opportunity for an interview. Liisa, my reader or readers depending on the day will not know who you are. Can you tell them about yourself? Professional Actress, Producer, Writer, etc. And a bit about your life.

So I am an actress by trade and that profession is always going to be my first love and most definitely is the foundation of all my work in the TV and Film industry. I lived and worked in Los Angeles for many years and also my professional acting training there, at Theater of Arts and Playhouse West. The base was Meisner technique, for those who are interested in more specific detail. Nowadays I am also very much a screenwriter as well and have written half a dozen spec screenplays on my own and about dozen of them with writing partners. I mainly write comedies and action movies and TV pilots. And definitely the topics are to empower women and quite a few of them are LGBTQ+ themed as well.  I am optimistic you will get to see some of them in the coming years! And I also look forward to the opportunity of directing one of them at some point.

Liisa, stories make up people. The stories we tell about ourselves are personal. What story do you wish everyone knew about you?

Oh.. so many to tell! I’ve lived and worked in many countries and I am planning to do in many more, as I love collecting new stories. I might not always have time to tell them all, but I am confident that my experiences and collected knowledge color the stories I tell as an actress or as a writer.

    

Liisa, owner of your own studios, what films or genre of movies are you looking for or providing that you are willing to share about?

Scarlet Studios is more so a project slate at the moment than a fully functioning studio, though that is indeed the goal. We proceed step by step and expand accordingly. Scarlet Studios has about 15 TV pilots and films in development and financing stages. Mastering film financing is definitely an important skill to learn and just like any - the only way to get better at it is with trial and error. I have experienced ups and downs with the journey toward green light and through the process also become quite picky about who or which companies I am even considering collaborations any more. May sound rough, but there has been a lot I have learned on the journey. And again, I am very optimistic about the future of Scarlet Studios and truly looking forward to switching from the computer to the set and share the work and stories we have been working on for some time now.

Liisa. Can you provide details on what they were about and if any teaser or poster related to them?

Hopefully soon you will be able to see the trailers and posters for the various comedy films and TV series, as of now I am not really able to tell more. What I can say is that I consider my life purpose to be an inspiration. I seek to inspire folks all around the world, from any and all cultures and backgrounds to love themselves, to respect others, to laugh and to enjoy life at the fullest. I have always been an adventure and experience driven person and that is what I hope I inspire the viewers to do.

And this would be a good place to mention that my original inspiration to start screenwriting didn’t come from a purely happy place, but from absolutely getting frustrated of the quality of female roles in general, and even greater frustration and agony of all the cliche roles I got to read for.  You commit your life to your craft and in school you get to play these amazing and well written characters and then you hit the job market and it was horrendous! The competition for that one semi well written female role, oh wow! Needless to say at some point I started looking for other ways of expressing myself and first I started to write roles for myself and later on I also started to realize that the other women in the industry also were missing better roles. This was many years ago - in today’s industry I am super excited to see all the interesting and unique roles they have for women, and this is only the beginning. I truly look forward to seeing the wider representation of stories from different kinds of people’s perspectives. I am honored to be part of an industry that is (finally) starting to evolve to the industry it was always meant to be: stories to people. To all people. And about all types of people.  Very exciting times and I am so happy I stuck to my craft and didn’t quit during the quiet years.

Care to talk about yourself as a professional life. Which part was or is the funnest?

I have enjoyed working on TV and films and played cameos and supporting roles. Each experience has taught me something. Still to this date, the greatest experiences I have had as an actress have been on stage and that is my happy place - if I ever feel that I am lacking inspiration, I literally get my life force back by getting on stage to do some improvisations with fellow actors.

Liisa, the classic question: what charity do you work with and can you provide a link to it so others can see too please.

I tend to support smaller dog and cat rescues, usually in a place I am living or working for a while. Any animal shelter really. Time to time I give them a call and ask what they specifically need and go shopping for those needed items and drop them off. Or just make an anonymous donation on their account. So let’s just say “animal charities” and I got my lovely four-legged family members from Bichon and Buddies in Los Angeles and Grupo Animalista De Benalmadena in Spain.

Bichon and Buddies https://www.bichonsandbuddies.com/

GAB in Malaga https://www.facebook.com/groups/528097204043322


Dreams: what projects, movies, dancing, or other would be your dream role or movie production or project in the future with what actors or directors or what you dream about?

Comic book style movie or TV series with a character that is a hero with a dark side, or a villain with a light side.

During this time of lockdown, what are you reading, watching movie wise?  If you have links to the books or movies please provide.

I was painting. I found it to be hard to write any of my scripts as they are comedies and inspiring stories and when my own inner light was dimmer, instead of forcing myself to write when it didn’t feel right, I did a lot of studying about filmmaking in general, camera equipment, lenses, editing etc. And I painted: https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/liisaevastina 

So,the fun part of the film industry is working on a movie.  However, each movie is like a project.  What part of the movie or project are you great at and how do you do it? And what part of the movie or project do you feel you still are working on to improve and how are you doing that?

Coming up with characters is my strong suit as a writer and coming up with scenarios where the character grows - steps outside of their comfort zone, something about that is so exciting to me, you know them awkward moments. I love to celebrate those.  And back to “mastering the film financing” is what I am working on.

A final question. What question do you wish I had asked?  And what would the answer be?

Any advice I would have for people thinking about acting as a profession, perhaps?

Give it a try - go on a class, produce a show or a sketch group and see what comes of it. Perhaps it is not for you and if it truly is for you and you have the true authentic actor “bug”, you simply won’t be able to stop. And while exploring, you just might find what is for you. It’s a way of life and a very long, exciting and beautiful journey full of lessons to learn.

IMDb:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/liisaevastina/

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1436451/

https://www.instagram.com/liisaevastina

https://www.facebook.com/liisa.evastina/

https://www.twitter.com/liisaevastina


So huge favor photos, posters, and links- provide as many as you want.  ALSO for all your current work- this is promoting you. Where can my readers purchase your movies.Meaning having them search sometimes takes too long. Can get the exact links so people can click if they like what they read? Thank you

https://www.facebook.com/ScarletStudiosLondon