Monday, July 18, 2011

Meet "Melissa" of the Bryony Book Trailer, Part 1

Weeks before filming of the Bryony book trailer commenced, Bryony filmmaker Stephen Tuplin had an actress interested in portraying novel's main character, Melissa Marchellis.

But when a scheduling conflict arose, Stephen approached my seventeen-year-old daughter, Rebekah Baran, about the role. Rebekah, Stephen said, resembled the image he had of Melissa while reading the book.

Now Rebekah is very shy, so I had doubts she'd accept the part. To my surprise, she enthusiastically agreed.


1) Did you have any prior acting experience?

"A little. I had done some acting in plays through my church and homeschool coop."


2) Why did you want to portray Melissa?

"I thought it would be fun to play her because she's not perfect like characters in other books. She was naive and didn't give it much thought before making a deal with John. And the director and my sister said I looked like her."


3) Was it hard to learn your part?

"Not really. The only hard part was learning how to sway properly."


4) What helped you rehearse?

"Listening to slow Super Junior music."


5) Did your brothers really heckle you?

"Yes. They poked jokes at me during practice so I wouldn't be nervous."

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