ED- We recently attended a party for Carlos Roman, of Roman Pictures, on the East Coast. There we met a very impressive actor that we would like to introduce to all our readers. Antonio Coleman is just that…impressive. Antonio, you have appeared on both stage and screen. What drew you in to the acting career?

AC- Thanks Joe for allowing me an opportunity to be included in the March 1^st edition of the Eerie Digest.  Growing up I’ve always been inspired by the great television and movie actors and actresses and have always dreamed of making an impact in the industry one day.  About 16 years ago I discovered that I not only possessed natural born talent as a sketch artist, but also had natural vocal skills as well.  I began developing these skills by performing as featured soloist in various evangelical musical theatre productions such the ‘The Passion Play’ and ‘The Living Christmas Tree’. In 2009, I began to utilize those experiences to reignite an almost lost passion and dream of becoming a Hollywood actor.  I used those theatrical experiences to propel me into pursuing acting courses and auditioning for more meaningful and impactful principal and extra roles. Since then I’ve been featured in several theatrical stage productions and have held a diversity of character roles in feature film productions ranging from extreme action SCI-FI thriller’s to romantic drama and horror films.

ED- You played roles in the stage play’s ‘Dry Sheet’ and ‘Secret Lives of Ministry Wives’. Tell us about these productions and the roles that you played.

AC- The Secret Lives of Ministry Wives (SLMW) is a theatrical stage production that seeks to expose some lesser known (hidden) truths behind the lives of people in ministry. It seeks to demystify the lifestyle and address social issues that affect people on both sides of the pulpit. SLMW follows the lives of five couples as they face obstacles that lead them down the road to finding the real meaning of friendship, forgiveness and faith. One of the principal character roles is that of an abusive husband who serves as the minister of music, an overbearing and verbally abusive wife which ultimately reaches a climate for a deadly physical domestic violence altercation involving the abusive husband shooting his wife and my supporting role as ‘Officer Richard’ police responding to the incident, exchanging several verbal dialog with the husband and eventually shooting the abusive husband.  The ‘Dry Sheet’ musical theatrical stage production focusing on the struggles within a verbally abusive family with an artistic handicapped son has struggles with bed wetting and trying to maintain his religious belief while dealing with abusive parents and nearby relatives. In this production, I was featured as a celebrity supporting actor and vocalist playing the character role of ‘Rodney’.  Rodney was a man caught up in a world of financial and emotional struggles to stay employed and turn from the life a crime he once knew while at the same time discovering the powerful spiritual influence of forgiveness and restoration.  Rodney eventually finds internal peace and performs a contemporary musical selection “Never Could Have Made It’ by Gospel recording artist Marvin Sapp.

ED- You also played one of our favorite characters, a zombie, in the commercial ‘Run For Your Life’. Please tell us about this venue.

AC- I’ve always been a horror film buff growing up and have been totally fascinated from a graphical artistic standpoint as to how zombie make-up and prosthetic props designed and utilized in film. ‘Run For Your Lives” is commercial / Short film by director Brian Chilcoat. This was a promotional film for an athletic event occurring fall 2011.  It was filmed on location at a camp site in Darlington, MD. The theme of the film involves a guy running for his life from these gruesome looking zombies.  Once the principal character thinks he’s reached a safe distance from the few zombies that have been chasing him at this point, he finds himself surrounded by a mass of blood thirsty zombies that begins to devour him. My character role as an extra was one of the more aggressive mass zombies.

ED- How did this differ for you as opposed to performing on stage?

AC- The stage is more friendly, the stage performance is more emotion driven which is the most difficult aspect of film acting to master: While acting in the theater can use exaggerated gestures and exclamations to express emotion, the film actor has to rely more on subtle facial gestures, quivers, and tiny lifts of the eyebrow to create a believable character while film. I’ve found that film captures even the smallest gesture and magnifies it 20 or 30 time’s, cinema demands a less flamboyant and stylized bodily performance from the actor than does the theater. However, stage performance has its more enjoyable moments with accidental live bloopers.  

ED- You also have appeared on HBO in the ‘Backline Project’. Please tell us about this and the theme behind it.

AC- BLACKLINE Project is an extended HBO trailer for the BLACKLINE End war Trilogy which concise of 9 episodes. It is about events taken place one year after WWIII. The first worldwide nanotech assemblers as deployed, a massive war begins between the corporations that control the planet with their own corporate weapon called X9. X9 is the most powerful of the corporations in the ongoing war.  The CEO of the X9 corporation enters into an agreement with an elusive criminal and betrays the trust of the X9 board of Executives.  The character I portray is that of the X9 Executives attending a heated board room meeting while protesting the CEO’s blatant betrayal and collaborative with elusive criminals.  

ED- ‘Nightfall New Moon 3’ saw you as one of our beloved characters, a zombie, once again. Please tell us about your role in this and the make-up preparations that you underwent.

AC- ‘Nightfall New Moon 3 is Supernatural action horror film produced by Black Snow Productions.  The movie is about a female squad of supernatural soldiers, a hidden religious sect compound and a forest full of possessed humans “zombies” all collide for a ride into mankind’s darkest hour.  This film depicts multiple unexpected encounters resulting in horrific gun fight showdowns between the female squad and the blood thirsty zombies.  My character as a zombie/demon was one of twenty background zombie/demons, which previously were captured and detained, but eventually over powered our restraints and charged to invade and mutilate the soldiers. Make-up and Wardrobe preparations consisted of dirty old striped oversized clothing and plastering our faces and arms with two layers of latex prosthetic skin which required 20 to 30 minutes to dry before applying the black painting and blood patches.  The zombified movements and monstrous sounds were continually choreographed and rehearsed several times before filming inside of a dark cold abandoned warehouse.  As a horror film buff, I was delighted to be apart of this production and cast.  The production team was very professional and well organized which made it an excellent shoot and experience.

ED- Aside from playing an extra in a Military Training film, you also played a role with the Roman Picture’s production of ‘Signals 2’. Please describe your role and how you interacted with the other actors in this project.

AC- Signals 2, this project was exceptionally enjoyable working with the principal and background actors. Filming days were very long, primarily because the producer Carlos always ensures that every scene is captured and portrayed as accurately as possible.  He’s an asset to the independent film industry.  In this film, I portray two diversely different background roles, one as armed stunt fighter ‘bad guy’ and the other as tactical law enforcement officer responding to a bloody crime scene with other emergency response units tactical swat team. We primarily provided armed cover and surveillance the area during the investigation.

ED-Tell us something about this production and the production team of Roman Pictures.

AC- Signals 2 is the Sci-Fi saga with the second installment of the tetralogy, Signals. This film portrays the lives of a variety of unrelated characters, CTU, FBI, White House, Secret Service, Police, Prosecutor’s Office, Government Medical Research, Organized Crime and plain everyday people, eventually intersect in one way or another.  Roman Pictures is directed and produced by Mr. Carlos E. Roman with assistance from Actress and Assistant Producer Sharon Carpenter-Rose and crew.  The immediate cast consisted of about 30 well established SAG and Non-Union actors and actresses and Extra local actors and actresses playing various background roles as bank robbers, emergency swat response tactical units and police homicide detectives.  In my opinion, the Roman Pictures production crew and cast are not only insightful, talented, but they genuinely embrace and support everyone as a family.   It was really refreshing to work with the Roman Pictures cast and Producer Carlos Roman and under his leadership and support as the director of the film ‘Signals 2’.

ED- Your latest career move was a role in the film ‘Crazy in Love’ for Mekdoss Productions. Please describe the film and the cast in it.

AC- The premier of the film, ‘Crazy In Love’, stars Nollywood Nigerian veteran actors and actresses such as Jim Iyke, Danieline Moore, Altorro Black, and Crystal Milian and American Hollywood actors and actresses. ‘Crazy In Love’ is the story of a woman who falls in love and learns that love can be a blurry mess of confusion, illusion, and loss.  The lead character, Lillian is blissfully in love when something goes wrong and she has a nervous breakdown.  She is committed to a mental institution and has to rediscover herself. As she takes her journey back to sanity, she finds strength within herself and begins to appreciate and love the person she is.  My character is the School Superintendant, Mr. Lawson, a very well educated, professionally dressed school administrator who has several intense interactions with Lillian, as her superior, interviewing and contemplating whether or not to reinstate her back into the public school institution as a teacher. After, Lillian’s plea and verbal assurance that she stable and competent, Mr. Lawson finally agrees to show mercy and reinstate her.

ED- Antonio, it was a pleasure to meet you and to also have this interview as well. We look forward to hearing more good things about you in the near future. Please keep in touch with The Eerie Digest so that we can keep all our readers updated with your career.

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