The Devil's Daughters

There are many reasons why I chose to make my pandemic baby THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTERS. But two events in particular changed my life, and I think are necessary to include in the bigger picture of the short film you are about to see. Okay here goes...

In 2014, I was attacked, beaten and nearly kidnapped by 3 strangers in West Hollywood. I know, I know, this is a lot to digest here. Believe me, I’m still grappling with it all these years later, and I certainly can’t believe I just wrote it on film freeway. But as I come to terms with what happened to me, I can’t help but let it bleed into my work. There’s so much to question in this life - why people do what they do, if good and evil really do exist, are there circumstances in which revenge becomes acceptable, can violence be warranted in our sophisticated society, and if so, are we doomed to a world of chaos? These themes are what I'm attempting to explore with this short, and I'm sure what I'll be chasing in some way or another for the rest of my life. Although I will say, I’m oddly grateful for this experience - it brought me martial arts after all. Once my body healed, I started training in Krav Maga and Capoeira and it’s an absolute understatement to say I haven’t been the same since. And neither has my art.

THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTERS started as a labor of love birthed in the hell of the pandemic. I was fresh off of performing in the musical ROCK OF AGES in Hollywood when the world shut down and we all lost our livelihoods. That same week, one of our lead cast members, Nick Cordero, caught COVID-19. A perfectly healthy 40 year old with a one year old baby. It’s just not fair. He battled the unthinkable for 90 days in a coma before we lost him. I think a lot of DD’s comes from him. He was the coolest fucking dude, and when I was nervous going on for a new part with just three hours of prep time, he said “Kid, anyone can be a rock star if you believe it enough.” And I think I just wasn’t ready to stop being a rock star yet, for Nick. I knew I could shoot in our theatre, I knew I had incredibly talented actors and musicians around me that I now considered family. So I sat down and wrote exactly what my friends and I needed at that moment. An escape where we could all be rock stars, our strongest selves, our silliest selves, our sexiest selves. An escape from the saddest of moments, where we could shut out the world and just have fun again. And little by little, I watched as THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTERS brought my friends and I back to life.

With THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTERS, I wanted to make something that combined all of the things that I loved — performing, music, martial arts, feminism and of course, leather outfits! It’s so important to me to keep putting female characters into the world that are such a gamut of things you couldn’t possibly put them in just one box. Because that’s whats real. The women in my life are so complex, so perfectly imperfect, so smart!! Always changing and adapting and growing, making fucked up choices and fighting for what they believe in in the way they know how. We’re so much more than what we’ve gotten to play, and as an actor I feel like it is my duty now to create and write and direct and keep pushing the boundaries of the creative constraints I put on my own self, that I learned from the world I grew up in. We all know the statistics of the gender disparity in Hollywood and it’s BAD. Still. So bad. THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTERS might be my first attempt but it sure as hell won’t be my last. I’ve never been more excited to share my first wacky creation and keep growing and learning as a filmmaker. And I hope you love all the weirdos in DD’s as much as I do.

Thanks to Seed & Spark, I was able to bring this idea trapped inside my brain to life. We were able to raise $25,000 and make something that’s really strange and special. It was a group effort!! I never could have done this without my amazingly generous donors. Because of them I got a chance to seriously up my craft, practice and get comfortable directing an entire set, fine tune my songwriting muscle, and beat the shit out of some humans! What a time.

All of this to say, how many badass, female driven, action-horror-comedies are even out there in the world yet? Gimme all the campiness, we need the fun! Film doesn’t always have to change the world, but what I do know is that we all certainly need a good god damn laugh! And I want to keep making em on bigger and bigger scales, for my ladies, for Nick and to show the other little actresses like me that we can be more than just one thing - especially when we work together. I’m an actor-singer-dancer-director-writer-producer-lyriscist-martial artist-editor and I’m not picking one and I don’t care who knows it!! Ok, rant over, phew. Haha. From the bottom of my dark devil heart, I really hope you guys enjoy THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTERS <3