Gary: So how's California treating you?

Tiffany: Good.

Gary: How's the weather?

Tiffany: It's fucking hot. I think I'm the youngest person in history to feel like I'm going through metaphase because I keep getting these hot flashes all day long. I keep my house at like sixty-four degrees, which nobody can stand so I hardly ever have company because everyone is always freezing. And I know I sound like a complete jackass talking about how hot California is because we have like no humidity so maybe I have a bug or something.

Gary: Well, all right Tiffany Shepis (Gary pronounces her last name Sheepis) you're starting to become...

(Tiffany interrupts)

Tiffany: Well first off you mispronounced my last name it's "Shepis" not "Sheepis".

Gary: Did I screw up your last name?

Tiffany: Yep. You already fucked up.

Gary: Great, one minute into the interview and I have already pissed you off. I'm sorry. I'm a loser and a lousy interviewer.

Tiffany: It's okay.

Gary: I'll try to gather myself here...Tiffany Shepis (pronounced correctly) you are becoming the new scream queen of horror. You have been in a string of low budget films and some Troma Productions. How did you get started acting?

Tiffany: Well I got started with Troma. I was in New York and I was doing a bunch of ultra low budget films and comedies you get through the local actors paper and I was a kid, I was like fourteen. And I think I was at school one day reading the paper during social studies and I saw an ad saying, "Do you want to be a Tromette?" And I was like, what the fuck is that? And I kept reading the little breakdown about Troma Films and I was thinking how do I know that name? And then it dawned on me, that's what me and my brother watched when my mom goes out of town and we have people over. That's what we watched was these crappy Troma movies. So I'm like, oh my God I have to go down there. So I cut class, ran down to the audition and they happened to be casting for Tromeo and Juliet and they were pretty much at the end of casting and Lloyd met with me and he liked me and it came around to you, "We want to offer you a part. Do you have an ID?" And I'm going; shit do I tell them that I'm actually fourteen years old? So I ended up lying, saying I was eighteen. It was a really small part for a bodyguard named Peter. They were looking for a big guy, but I guess they thought it would be funny to put in this scrawny little white girl who took Kung Fu for a year.

Gary: Sounds like Lloyd Kaufman.

Tiffany: Yeah, so I got home and I was freaking out because I lied about my age and thought I was going to get black listed if they found out. I kept thinking about all this crazy stuff. So I called them back and I lied again and told them I was sixteen which is like the stupidest thing ever but they ended up working with me anyway and it kind of escalated from there.

Gary: Do you have a formal training or just life experience?

Tiffany: A little bit of both. I did some formal training when I was really young and really hated all of it. It was like school to me. I was like, how can someone teach you how to act? I mean unless you're doing a period piece or trying to learn a dialect. And I never really got it. So really most of what I learned just came from experience from working on these projects for so many years.

Gary: What is it about the horror genre that attracts you to it?

Tiffany: It's fun. Wouldn't you rather be doused in blood cutting people up than acting in some lame romantic comedy?

Gary: You're preaching to the wrong person on this one. I'm all about the horror.

Tiffany: I grew up watching horror films and grew up making horror films. That's what my brother and me used to do. Remember the super big VHS camcorders that weighed like seventy-five pounds?

Gary: Oh yeah.

Tiffany: We had one and I would jump off my roof and pour ketchup all over myself and try to kill off all the neighborhood kids. That was the fun thing to do on a Friday night.

Gary: What do you look for in a character?

Tiffany: I really don't. I just ''t done before which is hard because you get kind of pigeon holed, especially if you are predominantly working in one genre. People see you as they same thing, you know the tough girl who might get naked and she's really great at dying. So you kind of get stuck playing the same things.

Gary: I interviewed Bruce Campbell once and he said he never played that game. Meaning he never looks for the part it finds him. So this is kind of the same thing. Actually I usually ask random people if they know who Bruce Campbell is. The horror people always of course know. So I'll assume that you know.

Tiffany: What if I said, who's Bruce Campbell?

Gary: What? I would say you have to be lying.

Tiffany: (laughs) Yeah.

Gary: Is Lloyd Kaufman as whacky in real life as he seems hamming it up on camera?

Tiffany: Lloyd is definitely insane. There really is something wrong with him. And I mean that with the most respect. He's totally crazy. He's exactly as we see him in all the trailers. He's walking self-promotion. But then there's another side of him with his wife who's the New York State film commissioner. And she's the straightest most proper woman. She'll take him to functions and he has to put on a completely different hat. He's kind of the jack-of-all-trades that way.

Gary: Most recently I saw you in the MTI releases Detour and The Hazing. By the way you looked really hot in the silver jumpsuit.

Tiffany: That's been quite the topic this week. That costume was hot and literally hot. We were shooting The Hazing in downtown LA in the middle of summer and it was super hot in that jump suit. It was quite the experience in that jump suit but apparently it worked.

Gary: What is The Hazing about?

Tiffany: The Hazing is about a bunch of kids trying to get into a fraternity and sorority and they get sent on this scavenger hunt as part of their hazing, their initiation. And one of the things on the scavenger hunt is to get an evil book from Professor Kapps who is played by Brad Dourif so they can steal it. Everyone is afraid but this one rebel asshole guy and me. So we break into the house. But the professor is home, he's insane, we kill him, but somehow his spirit possesses everybody who's forced to stay the night in this hazing house. And it's kind of like this crazy haunted house roller coaster ride. Some cool characters and you get to see a side of me you haven't really seen before.

Gary: Yes, like when you get possessed.

Tiffany: Yeah I get possessed and turn into a cross from myself and Brad's character.

Gary: And then you kick some ass.

Tiffany: Yeah, then I get to kick some ass. That was pretty fun. What was pretty cool was I did have to turn into Brad. And it wasn't like they wanted his spirit to just possess me they wanted me to turn into Brad, take on his features and his English accent. And I was like are you kidding me? I make bad B movies. You really want me to this? And they were like you can totally do it and so Brad and me actually worked together for a while getting my accent right. From what I understand it came out pretty cool. I know a lot of people in the screenings didn't think the voice was me, but it was. That made me kind of happy. I guess I sort of pulled it off.

Gary: What's the craziest thing that ever happened to you on set?

Tiffany: The craziest thing?

Gary: Yeah, people always like to hear about when things go wrong.

Tiffany: Shit, everything always goes wrong. This wasn't on a movie set but I was shooting a music video for a rapper called Lil Zane and my wig caught on fire. On the set of The Hazing I had this live rat that I'm supposed to be, I guess I kill or something. The rats in my lap and he's kind of my pet at first and the rat really didn't want to sit in my lap, he just wanted to burrow himself into strange places. I think it's in the outtakes you can hear me screaming that the rat's trying to get into places. Use your imagination.

Gary: That's pretty horrible.

Tiffany: Yeah, you name it between the micro-budget and low budget films I have done anything that can possible go wrong does.

Gary: You have a movie coming out with Jeff Fahey called Corpses. Jeff is a legend for being in an awful movie called Temptation that became an editing assignment at Columbia College where I attended film school. We would all try to make him act well and it became an experience for many of us. What was it like to work with the Lawnmower Man?

Tiffany: You know, when Rolfe Kanefsky the director told me Jeff Fahey was going to play my dad I was like, who? And he was like you know the Lawnmower Man. I have only seen the Lawnmower Man once when I was a kid and don't really remember it. So I'm like great Rolfe, what ever, And then I got on set and I was like, oh that guy. He was in a bunch of stuff like Body Parts and stuff. And he played my dad, which is sad because in real life the guy looks really young. It was cool working with him. That shoot was pretty tough though. We had like twelve days to shoot in and everything went wrong. I had a fractured wrist from the first day. Actually the first day on set we are shooting in the middle of the desert. They told us it was a forty-five minute drive and it turned out to be a three hour and forty-five minute drive. Everyone was late and pissed off. Then they realized there wasn't even film there because the guys with the film got lost too.

Gary: That's good times.

Tiffany: That was a tough shoot. They are calling it a zomiedy. It's not a horror film but a comedy with zombies in it.

Gary: Homesick, with Bill Moseley. What was it like to work with Chop Top?

Tiffany: Yeah, it was really weird. I got this call and I probably get like five of these a month. Some young kid fresh out of film school. Whose like you're so hot and I really love you shit and we want you in our movie and I'm like cool, alright and they send a script and I say yeah sounds cool, a lot of fun. And they are like can you tell us your rates. And I give them my rates and of course it never happens. So I got this call and these guys in Alabama and they are like, we love you and we want to put you in a movie with Bill Moseley and Tom Towles. And I'm like yeah sure. I give them my rates and like a week later they send me a plane ticket and hotel and I was like wow. They are like eighteen years old. We went out to Alabama and we shot these crazy scenes. Not much of a story line but a big shit pile of gore and I got to work with Bill.

Gary: A shit pile of gore huh? That's what we should title this interview?

Tiffany: (laughs) Yeah.

Gary: Which performance are you the most proud of?

Tiffany: I'm really proud of my performance in The Hazing. Just because I think there was a few different layers to my character as opposed to a lot of my roles where you just end up being the tough tomboy chick that has sex with somebody before she dies. I liked my stuff in Homesick as well, even though it was a big gore fest. In Homesick I find my mom dead in the film and my character is a crazed meth head so instead of calling the cops I start cleaning her up and I'm rolling around in her blood with my shirt off for like a good fifteen-minute scene. But I was quite impressed with the way it turned out.

Gary: What's next for Tiffany Shepis?

Tiffany: I've got a lot of stuff coming out. The Hazing is coming out. Corpses is coming out. I did a movie called Abominable. I have another project that I co-produced and starred in which is a documentary about the whole horror movie convention circuit but we kind of put our attention on The Chiller Theatre Convention, which is one of the largest in the US. It follows the lives of myself, Gunner Hansen who played Leatherface...

Gary: (interrupts) Well yeah. You got Clint Howard and Sig Haig in it too.

Tiffany: Yeah I think it actually premieres this year at The Chiller Convention. There's a ton of people in it. You get to see Gunner in the morning and see what he does. All my segments are pretty much me drinking. This project gives you a whole insight to our world.

Gary:  What are you up to next?

Tiffany: Well we have a project called Dead Girls with the same people I'm doing Unconventional with. We are doing are horror film about dead girls and actually the full title is Dead Girls Don't Say No.

Gary: That's an excellent title.

Tiffany: We start shooting in December. I also have another movie that starts shooting at the end of this month with Matthew Bright who directed Ted Bundy and Freeway. It's kind of a Charlie Manson comedy. It's the story of Charlie Manson mixed with beach bunnies and surfer babes. I play a character named Snake Venom or some crazy shit.

Gary: Cool. Well it's been a pleasure talking with you Tiffany.

Tiffany: Thanks.

Tiffany Shepis Official Site.

The Hazing Official Site.

Gary Schultz is an independent filmmaker in Chicago.