At the end of last week Scream Queen extraordinaire Tiffany Shepis found Horror Yearbook’s Tyler Shainline hiding in the bushes by her house. He had just gotten done digging through her garbage can looking for tossed out memorabilia from “Tromeo & Juliet,” “The Hazing,” “Delta Delta Die!” or any of the fifty plus projects she’s worked on since entering the horror world over ten years ago. Rather than call the police she agreed to answer some questions about the After Dark Horrorfest film “Nightmare Man,” her upcoming projects, other freaky fans she’s found in her driveway, the uncomfortable nature of low budget films and just why her Fridays are so “Fabulous!”
Tyler Shainline: Hello Tiffany and Happy Gay Friday!
Tiffany Shepis: Thanks, Gay Friday has become a worldwide phenomenon, I just did an interview with some radio station in Pittsburgh and that’s all they wanted to talk about.
Tyler: Just what is “Gay Friday” and where did it come from?
Tiffany: I was bored on a Friday and I was just like, “Today’s a day to dance!” and I put on some George Micheal and then it was a “Gay Friday.” From then on it was like people would just email me every week about Gay Friday, emailing me song requests and stuff. And then I was on a job for 3 months and when I got back there was four hundred and something emails. People were saying they didn’t know what to do on Friday, that they woke up and they couldn’t go to work and they were so miserable. It doesn’t really have anything to do with being gay, just gay eighties and seventies music. Now it’s become this ridiculous thing.
Tyler: So “Nightmare Man” is about to be relased onto DVD, it’s one of the first of your films to get a major release, is it a major departure from your previous films?
Tiffany: Well, what it has in common is a lot of T n’ A, lots of blood and guts and all that good stuff. This was one of my few that got to go to theaters, which is pretty awesome. I think the thing that will make my fans happy with “Nightmare Man” is that it’s a chick movie, the girls have big crossbows and they fight off demons in their bras and panties, how could you go wrong.
Tyler: Without giving too much away, towards the final moments of “Nightmare Man” you end up getting internally raped while wearing only your panties as a fan blows on you full blast. How much fun was that?
Tiffany: It was hard, it was cold. All these low budget horror movies tend to not shoot in the most desirable places. It’s not like we were shooting in Hawaii with perfect weather. We were in Big Bear California in the middle of winter. It’s cold, you’re on the ground and covered in dirt and dust with rocks in your back, but you do what you have to do for the art, right! (Laughs)
Tyler: Why don’t these low budget filmmakers ever set their films in a good vacation spot?
Tiffany: Because they are cheap low budget horror movies, we have to shoot off-season in undesirable places and make it a summer camp film so you’re half naked running around in shorts. I suppose it’s good for certain breast action shots. When all else fails you get people naked, right!
Tyler: Speaking of naked people, one of the multiple naked girls in “Nightmare Man” is your costar Blyth Mets. On the film’s DVD commentary you allude to a possible on set friction between the two of you.
Tiffany: (Laughs) No, No Blyth’s a great lady, there’s supposed to be friction between us in the film and they kind of set it up that way when we were shooting. We all stayed up in this big beautiful house on the mountain yet she was kind of isolated from us, no one really got to talk to her or hang out. She wasn’t part of the group so to say, and she’s a different kind of actor than I am. There was never really any friction, we never clashed heads by any means but she’s very different. She’s very method and very much the actor’s actor, which I am not. I kind of show up, say my lines and do my thing and joke a lot.
Tyler: Everyone knows got your start in the business with Troma, but how did you end up working for Lloyd Kaufman?
Tiffany: I was 15 years old and a big fan of crazy B movies, Troma especially and there was an add in the actor’s paper called “Backstage”. I read it and the name sounded familiar so I cut school, I went down to the audition and it happened to be for James Gunn’s “Tromeo and Juliet.” I was this starry eyed kid, and they gave me a small part and I went from there. If you know the genre at all, you know that the fans are really loyal and if they like you, they keep asking for you to come back and fortunately they liked me!
Tyler: You started appearing in those Troma films as a teenager and you spent the last twelve or so years growing up in the eyes of B-Movie fans. Any regrets for the way you decided to spend the latter part of your formative years?
Tiffany: Not even! Not even a little bit, there’s so few people that can say they love what they do for a living and I love being on the set, I love being covered in blood and screaming, being crazy, you know. Now I sit at conventions with people that I grew up wanting to get their autograph from. And to make a living doing it is pretty awesome. There are not a lot of actors I know in Hollywood that can say they do “acting” for a living. They’re all waiters and waitresses who do it on the side and I’ve been able to do this since I was seventeen or so. It’s pretty cool, no regrets.
Tyler: So what if your daughter told you that she wanted to grow up and become a Tromette like mommy?
Tiffany: NEVER. Never, ever. Unless she’s like 40 and wants to retire from being a doctor or a lawyer or whatever she wants to be. But no acting! My daughter’s 3 1/2 and she’s crazy beautiful and a ham and everyone’s always like “You should put her in commercials” And there is absolutely no way in hell, as much as the money kind of attracts me and as much as that’s really appealing, there’s no way. It’s too hard of a business, girls email me all the time and there’re sixteen years old and from Iowa and they’re asking me how to break into the business. I’m like, “Man, please try something else first”
It’s hard and there are so many shady people out there. it’s not even in the B horror movies like you think it would be; it’s the big Hollywood assholes that really still do have the casting couch. Or they call you over for some meeting where there’s supposed to be like twelve people but its just one weird guy in a mansion in the Hollywood hills and he’s all creepy and gross. I would never want to see that happen to some girl, especially not one that’s super head strong like me.
Tyler: You also spent a little time doing music video work, what was that like?
Tiffany: It was weird I used to get hired as the white chick with the ass in all the hip hop videos. Somebody, was like “You’re the same height and body type as Brittany Speers you should want to be her stand in and do her dance double stuff!” Dance double stuff for Brittany Speers really meant that if she didn’t want to use her hand to shift gears in the car in the video, that’s me. Or if she didn’t want to touch her belly button because that was just too much work for her, then that would be me. It was the greatest job on earth, but then I chopped all my hair off and I get to the set and looked at me and were like “Oh you cut your hair Tif, it looks really good” I was like “Oh awesome thanks, I love it” and they’re like “Yeah, you’re fired.” But that was back before she was crazy.
Tyler: You also did a Nintendo TV add that never made it to the airwaves?
Tiffany: It got pulled, they thought it was too raunchy for TV; it was for a game called “Conker’s Bad Fur Day.” I’m supposed to be hearing all these noises coming from the bathroom and I’m on the phone with my friend and I’m this kind of raunchy chick in a hotel room. I’m like “Yeah, he went all night and it’s so crazy” you hear all this belching and you think it’s a guy and all of a sudden out of the bathroom walks this tiny squirrel. It was this weird Nintendo game, and it was really, really cool and it was supposed to play during the Super Bowl and all this stuff and the networks thought it was too racy and it got pulled. Which was really sad because when I got that job everyone was telling me “Wow this is going to be a huge commercial, it’s going to be a national thing and you’re gonna make all thins money.” I was literally writing out my list going alright I’m gonna get a new Escalade, I’m gonna do this with that hundred grand and I think I ended up making like four thousand dollars off it.
Tyler: Are you a comic book fan?
Tiffany: I’m not as much a comic geek as I should be, but I do read “Hack/Slash”
Tyler: That’s the main reason why I asked, you would be great in a movie adaptation as the main character Cassie.
Tiffany: Thanks you, what’s really funny is that I’m friends with [“Hack/Slash” creator] Tim Seeley he had me write the intro for one of his books and my whole intro was how he stole my identity to create the Cassie character and he’s not Tim Seeley, he’s Tim Stealy and it’s a really funny intro. Now Rouge pictures has gotten the rights and they’re gonna make a live action movie and you know they’re gonna go for somebody really lame. Like some big movie star like Jessica somebody or one of those people from “One Tree Hill.” But I was promised a part in the film so we’ll see.
Tyler: You make a lot of convention appearances, any weird stories ever come out of one of those shows?
Tiffany: Conventions have been pretty good to me, I hear a lot of bad horror stories from the other girls though. Pretty much when I go to a show, I’m the one who does my job and then I go sit at the bar and I hang out with everybody. So I’m a bit more accessible than the other girls so I don’t really encounter the weirdos, because you if you buy me a drink I’ll hang out with you.
I have had people come to my house before though. It was a very weird experience. This really, really large man shows up at my house and says “Oh you know I just wanted to bring you some stuff and-and-and…” He’s talking like this and he’s stuttering and it was really awkward and I was just like “You know, look man, this is my house, this is kind of weird” and he goes “Well no, I just wanted to give you this information on all these festivals you really need to go to because you’re so great…can you come to the car and meet my friend?” I look around the corner and there’s a car, and there’s a man, but he’s dressed as a woman and it was really weird and he had big hairy legs and I was just like “No, I’m not going to your car.” It was very strange, I wrote this big thing about it on MySpace and all the fans were backing me up saying, “Wow that is creepy, as much as I am a fan I would never go to your house, that is strange.” And the guy ended up replying to it and saying all he was trying to do was lead me out of the evils of horror and he was some weird bible beater and it was the most bizarre thing. That’s my only real weird story. I’ve had people send me weird things in the mail but fortunately I’ve been pretty safe.
Tyler: You also have your own website at Tiffany-Shepis.com, convince our readers here at Horror Yearbook to pay the monthly fee to join your site.
Tiffany: Most of the website is free, only the private galleries is12.95 per month. The reason you should go there is that if you’re a fan of weird nudity and blood and stuff like that, you can screen capture it off you computer, or go to Mr.Skin.com and pay twenty stupid dollars a month. Or you could go to mine and you can get glossy pretty pics and if you buy them or if you join the site I’ll sign them, send them out to you for free and you can sell them on eBay for double the price.
Tyler: In closing, you have at least ten films coming out in the next year alone. Any in particular that you would like to pimp to our readers?
Tiffany: I’m really excited about Dark Reel, it stars me, Lance Henriksen, Ed Furlong and Tony Todd, it’s a real genre packed movie. It’s a lot of fun; it’s very different than a lot of stuff that I do. A lot of my stuff is slim to no budget; this one actually has a five million dollar budget. We’ve got a lot of beautiful stuff, we’ve got pirate ships!
I’m excited about Bonnie and Clyde vs. Dracula, that one’s fantastic, I play Bonnie with a full on accent, bleach blond hair, it’s pretty great. Yeah go to the website, there’s a million more coming out I don’t remember. But Nightmare Man is the one I’m most excited about because it’s this week and even if you weren’t a fan of the movie and you’re just a collector, the price of the film is well worth it for the DVD extras. I do a seventeen minute Tiffany cam, where I interview all the people and it’s a lot of fun.
