I got the chance to interview Julie Strain this week, as she was driving around in her black Dodge Ram 4x4 Sport, with its tinted windows and FAKK2 license plate, to some signing or meeting or some other promotional event. She's keeping very busy promoting the Heavy Metal movie, or the game based on it, or one of her many projects.
What did you think of the GoD lot at E3?
It's definately where the party was, and people were breaking their necks to get across the street to come over and hang with us, and to my surprise, they supplied me with a "mini-me," so I had to put the red costume on one more time and come down with little Casey, but she was amazing and beautiful. I saw the trailer for the game for the first time - the demo - and I had all my makeup on, and I hadn't signed and taken pictures yet, and I had to hold back the tears from streaming down my face, so I didn't ruin my makeup, I was so overwhelmed.
The joy of how I looked, and how the game looked, and the weaponry, and -- the nice liposuctioned ass I got *chuckle* ... It was the perfect event. When people start drinking, they do get a little crazy, there was free booze there, so I think the 1-3 [pm] signings were a more tame than when I signed from 3-5 [pm], people were like "woo hoo! Can I have a hug?"
Yeah, how did you feel when you saw yourself for the first time in the game? What did you think? Do you think it looks like you?
I think it's pretty, I think it looks like me, and I was grateful that it looked tall. 'Cause I get annoyed when people make me look great, but, you can tell how tall a character is; it's like 5'8", or 5'6", or something, it's like, I look 6'1", and that's really the great thing, and my face looks pretty, and I don't look fat anywhere, so that's all I cared about. And then I did the voices like the day before E3 started, and I was very confident on how those came out, and I think I blew everybody away, so it's gonna be the ultimate game!
So are you going to be doing any kind of game promotion, like the movie soundtrack?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure we're gonna have some big events lined up in, July / August. I think the game is coming out early, from what I hear. ... But, I do radio shows every day, I do interviews every day, I do ET, Hard Copy, Entertainment Tonight, I'm really bustin' my ass. And I return every email, and I sent pictures out...so I'm really into it. Well, the great thing about it is that I am happy being this underground cult icon, and I am not looking for a trip to the "A" genre, to leave behind what I've done, I'm actually trying to hide from those people. So they don't come take me away from my playground, and I just wanna play in the playground that I've made, and enjoy the game, and go today and take pictures of my billboards up at Virgin records, and just swim in it for a while. I don't want to jump in the next swimming pool, it might be cold.
You've seen the movie in production, how do you think it turned out?
You know, with how fickle the moviegoers are today, I wouldn't want to have to sit in a theater myself, and watch how many people came in, and have a studio suit in the back with a little checklist, going "ohhh, bad decision," you know, the sick feeling that you get. I'd rather have it be a number one video sales movie, and just blow everybody away, and make them wish they'd done it, than have any fear that *gasp* "we weren't making the studio happy, 'cause it's really all about the studio." And they're the ones that would have had to come up with $25 million to make an advertising campaign, as they do with their other movies, to get it in the theaters, so that's a lot of recoup money, right off the top.
So it was easier for them just to put it straight to video. But just for an example of how my movies do, I'm the judge on Sex Court on Playboy TV, and my home video just went out like five weeks ago, and right now, on the Billboard movie sales chart, it's number eight. And the first movie is Star Wars, the second is the Matrix, and the one after mine is Entrapment. So my name is listed inbetween all those stars on that page, so that's kinda what my power can do from an underground kinda way. I just like to run up and kick people and run away.
Did you know when the movie got re-released, it was re-released after 15 years of nobody seeing it or being available on video, it became the tenth best-selling movie of that whole year. That's a huge thing, that shows you that people wanna see the Heavy Metal animated come to life. That's all I can tell you. And other movies will do good, and do great, but they won't have the old-fashioned, heavy duty rock-n-roll, and crazy shit that we do.
Do you see yourself as the "new Lara Croft"?
I've always admired the Lara Croft entity, and I feel very confident that my game and what I have to represent is a real warrior that walks the face of this planet. She was created and it's great that Academy Award winner Angelina Jolie will play her in the movie, but I AM it, I was the character before it became a comic, so I come from a different background on it, and I feel like I really own it, and it's mine, and when I go out and shake those people's hands, it's a million percent that I believe in what they're believing in too, I'm not just standing there in a costume, you know, blowing smoke up people's ass.
It's a joy for me to give people that, because some of the emails I receive from people, it's like, I am what they wanted a woman to be on this planet their whole life. And they're grateful to have found someone to believe in like that. And all that does is make me feel stronger, I mean I have goosebumps right now telling you that, but I get so many of those emails, that it's really overwhelming.
May 25 2000 LeftE for Ritualistic.com
I love actors/actresses that love their movie video game