DARREN LYNN BOUSMAN
on SHAWNEE SMITH and 'SAW IV'
Interview by Michael J. Lee, Executive Editor for Radio Free Entertainment
June 12, 2007
As fans of actress Shawnee Smith, we've always said that the best thing about the first two Saw sequels was the expansion of her role. Her character of Amanda went from being in a fleeting but signature scene in the first installment to being the full-on instigator and protege of Jigsaw in the third. But did the closing events of Saw III allow for any possibility of a return in Saw IV?
While director Darren Lynn Bousman stated that Shawnee is "really not in" Saw IV, conspiracy theorists will point out that the filmmakers made similar denials before Saw III hit theaters. Some may believe his comment to us doesn't seem to necessarily rule out something like an extremely brief flashback or stock footage, but we're going to take the frankness of his reply to heart, and accept the fact that Shawnee (and her alter-ego Amanda) will not be the piece of the Saw puzzle that she was in the past two films.
In this exclusive, Darren graciously took a minute to update us on Shawnee's involvement in his projects, including Repo! The Genetic Opera. Darren shot a short film version of the rock opera with Shawnee as a pitch for a feature length adaptation.
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The Interview
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RadioFree.com: Shawnee is in the short film version of Repo! The Genetic Opera, but will we see her in the feature length version?
DARREN: Right now, we don't know. We're casting this week. It's another reason I'm in town: we're casting this week. You know, there are 77 songs in it...It's singing from the second it starts to the second it ends. So we're auditioning a lot. I mean, [the cast] has to be able to really sing. Shawnee's amazing. Have you seen the short yet?
Not yet. Where can we, and other fans, currently see it?
Well, it's going to be going to film festivals right now. There's going to be a big release of it. I love the short. It's Shawnee Smith and Michael Rooker, and they did great in it. I mean, they're amazing. So hopefully it'll be online within the next month...The main website is RepoOpera.com. And you can hear the songs on it. You can hear Shawnee singing. And there's pictures of her, and there's all kinds of sh*t up there. So go to RepoOpera.com. It's got tons and tons of stuff up there on it...It's crazy. You'll flip out when you actually hear the music.
There have been a lot of rumors circulating about Shawnee's involvement in Saw IV. Is she really in it?
She's not in it. I'm going to be honest with you: she's really not in it. I know that we said that last year, but she's really not in it. [laughs]
Thanks for your time.
Thank you, man.
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Darren Lynn Bousman and Shawnee Smith on the set of SAW II.
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