She's played mean (as Georgina Sparks on Gossip Girl), but never this mean. Michelle Trachtenberg takes on a villainous new role in a sci-fi action thriller.The Scribbler is about a woman (Katie Cassidy) who suffers from multiple personality disorder and is committed to a mental institution. She's then given an experimental procedure called "The Siamese Burn" to help her keep only her main personality. After she moves into a halfway house to recover, residents start to die and it comes down to her solving the mystery or dying herself.
C: What intrigued you about the story and made you want to be a part of the film?
MT: "I've always thought that graphic novels are a great source material. You've seen the success with Sin City and how visually impressive those movies are and I thought it would be an interesting take on villains and I also like how both the lead characters were female. So you had a lot of girl power even though there's bad things that are going on."
C: What can you tell us about your character Alice?
MT: "She is the villain. She had a lot of aspect to her personalities that I felt were very complex and I wanted to make sure that in certain scenes her innocence was shown and her emotional damage - to show her journey from the beginning to the end. She obviously started at one point at one place being the victim and now she's chosen to victimize other people."
C: There's a pretty epic fight scene towards the end. How involved were you or was it all a stunt double?
MT: "Its funny, a friend of mine was like 'I saw the trailer' and I was like 'I'm not really in it.' You can tell, the stunt double had a different body shape than I do. We were definitely involved on the rooftop. But it was a very dangerous situation. We were on the rooftop in the freezing cold in downtown Los Angeles with fake pouring rain thrown at us. It was incredibly slippery and dangerous so the stunt doubles did most of the stuff."
C: The set looked pretty scary. Where was the location?
MT: "We filmed in an abandoned hospital that a lot of indie movies shoot in. It's super creepy and still had some of the stuff in the rooms. I know a lot of other films have also filmed down there, a lot of the horror movies. Even just walking down the hall - it's pretty creepy."
C: This movie falls on the darker side of films. Is that the direction you want to go in?
MT: "I've really changed my career around doing equally both. Every project I do is very different than the previous one. I never like to play the same character. Would I be interested in more movies based on graphic novels? Of course, depending on the material. I think an actress has longevity when she continuously brings something new to the audience."
The Scribbler is now out in theaters, VOD and iTunes.