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Tanna Frederick

Actress Tanna Frederick is busy as hell! Just listen to what the LA native has been up to:

  • She’s currently starring in the title role in, “Sylvia” at the Edgemar Center.
  • She just signed on to star in the romantic comedy “The ‘M’ Word” with director Henry Jaglom (the man she previously collaborated with on “Hollywood Dreams” and “Just 45 Minutes from Broadway”).
  • She works non-stop in ocean conservation, starting a non-profit organization called “Project Save our Surf” (learn more at www.projectsaveoursurf.org).
In addition, Frederick was just awarded The Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Iowa, beating out fellow alumnus Ashton Kutcher!
 
Tanna apparently doesn’t sleep. She’s also working in her home state of Iowa to invigorate the film scene there with a project titled “Project Cornlight”. Check it out. There’s a ton more to get into, so keep reading for all the answers to the XXQ’s below.
XXQs: Tanna Frederick


PensEyeView.com (PEV): Currently starring as a dog in the title role in, “Sylvia” at the Edgemar Center, how do you feel performing comedy is a different challenge from other genres in the theater?

Tanna Frederick (TF): Well it’s a heck of a lot more fun than doing a drama, especially the play Sylvia. Comedy can also provide a segway to a powerful dramatic message, which I believe Sylvia does, people laugh the entire time in a TV sitcom style way and then end up crying in the end. I’ve run Sylvia now for almost a year and it’s a physically exhausting show, but it’s extremely emotionally gratifying. The only difficult thing about doing comedies is you can’t really get your frustrations out on stage, which is a great place to put them. The nice thing about theatre is either way you are connecting with the audience, you are sharing emotions with them, and you are receiving energy from them.

PEV: What was it like for you in the beginning stages of your acting career and trying to make a name for yourself? Any “war stories” from those early years?

TF: It sucked. I was valedictorian of my graduating class in Iowa, and then I couldn't get a job waiting tables. I remember this one time when this old guy got so mad at me because his .50 coffee was lukewarm at Marie Calendars. I had been training for two weeks at that point for $7/hr and begging them to go out on non-union auditions that paid nothing, and that I didn't get anyway. This man was so angry about his coffee that my manager got called over and I was fired. Those were the days I wish I could smoke pot.

PEV: Do you remember the first time you thought to yourself  “I am really onto something?”
 
TF: Yes! When Henry Jaglom invited me to the screening of Festival in Cannes, I had found my fit. I immediately knew as the credits rolled I would be working with Henry. I could understand the movie, the style, him and his filmmaking and right now we are actually filming our fifth film together and I'm working with Corey Feldman, Michael Imperiolli and Frances Fisher. 
 
PEV: With that, what can fans expect from a Tanna Frederick performance?


TF: Everything and nothing. I come to each character as a blank slate. No two characters are alike but I will say that I try to remove any sheen of space between the reality of the audience and the reality of myself, meaning I'm talking to them in my performances as much as I'm talking to the other characters. I try to be as naked and truthful so that they feel something whether they like my performance or not they feel something when they walk away.
PEV: What is the first thing that comes to mind when you step on stage to perform?


TF: It's always different. The first moment is the most important moment because your head is right there leading the way starting out the arc of the story and you have to hold that in your mind and body and lead that energy line through to the end. It's your responsibility. So to have some sense of that arc carry in the fibers of your body and to have your skin and your smells and what your characters sees though their eyeballs locked. It is exceptionally exciting and a super high feeling.
 
PEV: Calling Los Angeles home, what kind of music where you into growing up? Was anyone your main influence?


TF: I really got into a lot of the grunge scene – when I was 15 I was dating a twenty one year old drummer, and his band would play and my friends and I would dress in second hand sweaters, army jackets, Doc Martins, and sit around and listen to his jam sessions in Iowa…That hardcore scene was all over Iowa, and I loved it, felt at home there. But my influence before that was classical piano. I played and competed in competitions with an amazing and strict teacher around the state for eleven years and also in show choir, madrigal choir, chamber choir, summer musicals, follies, all that good stuff.   
 
PEV: Do you ever find yourself getting nervous, even now and if so, how do you get over that?


TF: If I don’t find myself getting nervous I get nervous because I ought to be nervous so I think. I got the nervous thing under control.
 
PEV: What¹s one thing we¹d be surprised to hear about Tanna Frederick?


TF: I was Valedictorian of my graduating class at University of Iowa majoring with honors in Poly-Sci International Relations and honors in Theatre; I was also president of Phi Beta Kappa and Pi Sigma Alpha the Poly Sci Honors Society…so there’s my big bad dark secret.

PEV: Is there one area you wish you could travel to that you have not been to yet?

TF: All over the world. I haven’t traveled much, and I want to go everywhere, specifically areas where there is good surf; Israel, Tahiti, Costa Rica, Japan, Australia- I’ve been working so much in Cali, traveling has been out of the question. And I haven’t gotten as much surf time in as I’ve wanted either. I’ve logged a lot of running miles and my second degree black belt in tae kwon do, but that’s all what I can fit in locally.

PEV: How have all your friends and family reacted to your career?

TF: Unbelievably supportive, delightful, and excited. Especially my Iowans. The brightest people on the planet, in other words.
 
PEV: What can we find you doing in your spare time, aside from stage and film acting?
 
TF: I do a lot of work for ocean conservation. I started a non-profit organization, Project Save our Surf, five years ago. We have raised over 250,000 for nine different non-profits, are currently building a well in South Africa for an orphanage housing HIV positive children with no fresh water available. 
 
PEV: If you weren¹t acting now what do you think you would be doing as your career?
 
TF: Waiting tables and trying to get a job.
 
PEV: You have recently signed on to star in the romantic comedy “The ‘M’ Word.” What is it like working with director Henry Jaglom, having previously collaborated with him on “Hollywood Dreams” and his hit play “Just 45 Minutes from Broadway” among others?

TF:  Henry is an actor's director.  He gives over to the actor and their intuition, inspiration, and ideas.  He protects the actors on set, and even though we shoot in three weeks, I’ve seen him, on the last five films, get the best performances out of all his actors out of any other work they've done.  Anouk Aimee, for example, who has done brilliant work with Fellini, and in one of my favorite films, La Femme et Un Homme, gives a breathtaking performance in Jaglom's Festival in Cannes.  As does Gretta Scacci and Ron Silver.  There are a ton of actors who Henry manages to extract the three dimensional personas out of, because of his freedom and intensity on set, his sort of yin and yang work of directing, whereas a lot of there other work I've seen grant a one dimensional or limited look of a character because of the writing, the medium be it television or what have you, or the directing.  

PEV: As a graduate from the University of Iowa, what was is like when you found out they had chosen you, over the likes of Ashton Kutcher, to be honored with The Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award? 

TF:  I was pretty stoked.  Mostly because I love any chance to be able to go back there!  And see my peeps and talk to students!  It's a beautiful, invigorating campus, and I'm so lucky I happened to go there!

PEV: Tell me about the Project Save Our Surf you founded At what point did you come up with the plan to start this project? 

TF: Project Save Our Surf is now in it's fifth year of operation.  It began when a friend of mine and I were surfing and a condom floated past us.  A Cheetos bag is one thing, but that day we saw the condom, it was the straw the broke our backs.  We decided we had to do something.  I feel when I recognize a problem, I have to do something about it, big or small, ignoring it is not an option.  Ignoring a problem and indifference to a problem is allowing the problem to exist, which is pro-problem, in a way.  Okay, enough preaching.  So we started a 24-hour Surfathon, bringing in local surfers, celebs, pro-surfers, to surf the gnarly waters of Santa Monica Bay for 24 hours straight.  It was very, very cool and very enlightening.  Giving people a forum to take a stand for pollution, and raising money for local and global non-profits from our Surfathon was a great way to get started on helping our bay.  It was small the first year, maybe 100 people in attendance, and Surf 24 (our brand name for the Surfathon) grew to over 4,000 people in attendance with Shaun Tomson, PT Townend, Jesse Spencer co-hosting it, bands, and our own hands on projects such as local monthly trash pick ups led by teenage pro surfer Trae Candy and building a well in Johannesburg for HIV positive and disabled children being originated and operated by Project Save Our Surf. PSOS has raised over 250,000 dollars for over 11 different non-profits in the last four years, and gained wonderful friends and relationships and partnerships with other non-profits all over the world, locally and globally. 

 

PEV: How can people get involved in Project Save Our Surf?

TF:  Very simply.  Just click on www.projectsaveoursurf.org and click on the 'get involved' button, check out the activities we have going on, sign up to do a trash pick up, to surf, to create a team for Surf 24 2012, to take water filters to areas with no clean water, or to simply sign a petition online that helps to create movement in ocean advocacy oriented legislation.

PEV: What other charities and community projects are you currently involved in?

TF:  Tumelo Home, the orphanage I spoke about in Africa, where we are building a fresh water borehole for the HIV positive orphans.  Also the North Iowa Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the North Iowa Area Transition Home, which helps the mentally ill of North Iowa to work and find housing and monitor their success.  Also, the Iowa Indie Film Festival, in it's seventh year!  

PEV: What does involving yourself in charities and giving back to the community mean to you? 

TF: It's what keeps me going in life.  It's what inspires me, gives me hope.  That's what I life for, that's what I do my art for.  Hope.  The exchange of inspiration and hope.  When I get on stage night after night during a long run, I want to give a feeling of hope to the audience, a feeling that they're not alone in life, I want them to walk out of the theatre feeling that I opened myself up to them so they could laugh, cry, feel the release of fear and the safety of love...maybe it sounds like a tall order, it is, but I will never stop striving to do that not only in my work in films, on stage, but through working with others to keep life thriving and safe in our oceans and for our children.  I believe we must steer clear of mediocrity at all costs and society tends to sit in it, with television, with iPods, iPads, iPhones, but if I can help light little fires in people's hearts, every once in a while, in that primal place that knows life and death and survival and the preciousness of it all, then I am working out my life's purpose.

PEV: So, what is next for Tanna Frederick?

TF: I’m working on trying to reinvigorate the film industry in Iowa with a program I’ve founded called “Project Cornlight”. We are filming our first movie in May called, ‘The Farm’. It is written by a local Iowan, Richard Schinnow, shot in Northern Iowa, and shot by local Iowans. The idea is to jump start the filming and art in Iowa as sometimes the middle of the country seems to feel ‘left out’ of the creative process – especially the movie business. So I am also integrating people from Hollywood into ‘The Farm’. Corey Feldman is slated to direct ‘The Farm’, one of the Producers is coming in from Los Angeles but John and Kim Busbee in DesMoines are the other Producers of the project. 

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