the

Volume 23 Issue 19

 

Interview with a Featherstone

Jen Swanston

It is New Year's Eve 1981 and Caitlyn
(Angela Featherstone), is on the prowl
for a man so that she will not have to
go home alone that night. She is one
of the many interesting characters
trying to get to a New Year's party
before the stroke of twelve. As the
night wears on and turns into the
New Year Caitlyn’s life touches and
intertwines with all the other charac-
ters in the new movie 200 Cigarettes.

Angela Featherstone, during a
telephone interview with the Other
Press, said that as the characters learn
about each other's true selves, grow
closer and become real friends, not
just acquaintances, so did many
members of the cast. Well as close as
an ensemble of thirteen main charac-
ters can’ get. The big stars got high
praise from Featherstone, “Ben Affleck
was great.....I really liked Courtney
Love.” Unfortunately, with a cast as
large as this, with so many main
characters, the shooting schedule was
a bit hectic, with many people just
flying in to shoot their scenes every
few days. Featherstone spent a month
and a half in New York while filming ©
200 Cigarettes. During that time she,
Casey Affleck (Tom), Kate Hundson
(Cindy), Brian McCardie (Eric) and
Dave Chappelle (Cab Driver) formed a
regular group that hung out after
shoots.

Featherstone knew Dave
Chappelle long before shooting on 200

 

Cigarettes began. They knew each
other from the comedic scene and
more recently they appeared together
in Con Air. Besides Con Air,
Featherstone has been in Army of
Darkness, The Wedding Singer and The
Zero Effect. In upcoming months look
for her in Jake Down with Skeet Ulrich
and Guilty, which is currently shoot-
ing in Vancouver, starring Bill
Pulman.

Multi-talented Featherstone will
also be making her print journalist
debut in JANE Magazine. The Septem-
ber issue will be JANE’s one year
anniversary and will be a “celebrity
issue.” Featherstone’s article is the

. cover feature and deals with health

issues in Canada. She will also have

an article appearing in Azuremag on

her favourite New York fashion
designer.

In addition to the movies that
she is either acting in or producing,
Featherstone is in the midst of
developing a comedic series for NBC
called Ginger. She says that it is
similar to Home Improvement or
Roseanne. Featherstone likens the
main character, Ginger, to “...poor
white trash meets Martha Stewart. It’s
a show aimed at-middle class America
and Canada.”

In the past Featherstone has
appeared on several sit-coms, includ-
ing Seinfeld and Friends. She says the
difference between live sit-coms and
theatre is the laughs. “When you're

doing a sit-com you have to get the
laughs. If the audience doesn’t laugh,
then you go back and do it again
until you get the laugh....With stage
[acting] if no one laughs, oh well you
go on.” That’s a pretty laid back
comment coming from someone who,
until a few years ago, had such severe
stage fright she couldn't even step
onto a stage.

As a child Featherstone always
loved to be on stage. “You couldn't
get me off [the stage],” she recalls.
“In elementary school and junior high
I was always on stage, either singing
or in competitions. Then one day I
walked off stage and I felt sick to my
stomach.” It would be several years
before she would consider appearing
in theatre again. When I asked her
how she overcame her stage fright her
immediate answer was, “I was
tricked.” A friend called her while she
was in London and asked her to do a
table reading in New York. After she
stepped off her plane in New York she
went right to the theatre to do the
reading. Instead of sitting at a table
to do the read through, her friend
brought her up on stage and told her
that they were actually blocking
scenes. Once Featherstone got on
stage she was told that she was
actually at the first dress rehearsal of
a play opening in a few weeks. It has
been a few years since that baptism
by fire, and her paralizing stage fright
has become just the normal mix of

excitement and terror. Featherstone
now constantly asks her agent to get
her auditions for plays and musicals.
When asked what she would really
like to do, Featherstone quickly
answers with Caberet.

Even though Featherstone now
lives in Los Angeles with request trips
to New York, she is still a Canadian at
heart and returns home frequently to
her roots in Hamilton, Ontario. There
were several Canadians on the set of
200 Cigarettes, including Risa Bramon
Garcia. While Garcia has been a
casting director for many years, she
made her feature film directorial
debut with 200 Cigarettes. They both
joked a lot on set, proving neither of
them has lost the uniquely “Cana-
dian” sense of humour. Comedic
timing was important in 200 Ciga- -
rettes, especially as the frantic pace
increases the closer the clock gets to
midnight.

When asked if she thought 200
Cigarettes portrayed a realistic view of
New Year's Eve in New York city in the
early eighties, Featherstone said that
although she was in grade school at
the time, “I imagine that’s what New
York was like back then. Very excit-
ing.” Realistic or not, Featherstone
gives an entertaining performance of
a woman desperate not to go home
alone on New Year's Eve.