Sasha Jackson
Sasha Jackson has mixed and matched movies and TV roles in recent year in a career than has seen her work on One Tree Hill and Night Junkies.
She is back with her new movie Blue Crush 2 and I caught up with her to take about her new role as Dana, shooing in South Africa and what lies ahead.
- Blue Crush 2 is heading onto DVD here in the UK so can you tell me a little bit about the movie?
The movie is based around my character Dana and her mother died when she was younger and she has been left a journal, her mother was a surfer in South Africa, and she leaves her daughter a journal of all the surf spots that visited and surfed.
So Dana wants to get to know her mother through this journal so retraces her steps. She doesn't get a long with her father, who is a workaholic, they live in Beverly Hills but all Dana wants to be is a free spirit and surf.
So she jumps on a plane by herself to South Africa with her mum's surfboard her Polaroid and this journal - so the movie is about this young girl discovering her mother and discovering herself.
You have all of the friends, and the animals, and the incredible South Africa: which is really the lead role in the movie. You have all the trials and tribulations, the goof stuff and the bad stuff as well as the boys - it's an awesome movie.
- You take on the role of Dana in the movie so what was it about the character and the script that drew you to the project?
I absolutely loved the first Blue Crush because it was about female empowerment and it was really the first movie of our times where woman went 'we can do that to' and so I really wanted to be involved in the second one because the first was so poignant.
But I love my character because she has an incredible strength in her, which is something I wasn't aware of until I read the script that it takes just as much strength to ask for help than it does to deal with it alone.
And that is something that I love about her - she is not afraid to be vulnerable she has no fear in admitting that and that she needs people's advice and help. She is full of fear, in her life, but she is not too scared to ask someone for their opinion and their advice and I just think that that is an incredible quality in someone.
- The movie was filmed in South Africa so how did you find shooting out there? Did you do any exploring during time off?
No I didn't, it was cold (laughs). The main thing about South Africa is it was freezing whilst we were shooing so everyone was in cape storm wear and we were in bikinis - so we were hypothermic many times.
But I was so busy that I actually didn't get to explore - but the whole movie is about exploring South Africa and so I was the character who was lucky enough to get to go and see all the great sights of South Africa.
So the whole thing was like a vacation except for the fact that you were working 4am to 10pm. But I had been to South Africa before and loved it so I very happy to be going back, especially going back to work and be involved in such an incredible movie.
- What sort of training did you do before the movie - did you surf already?
I didn't surf already - I had never surfed. We went out there and had a three week boot camp; so we would be at 4am to do sunrise yoga - which I also had never done - then we would do six or seven hours of surfing depending on the sharks and weather.
We would then do then do deep sea diving as well as endurance swimming to build up stamina by going across the bottom of the pool with weights and dancing also.
We had a very intensive three week course to build out fitness level up.
- And how much of the surfing in the movie is you?
A fair amount, every time you see me stand up on the board and come down off the board that's me - which doesn't seem like a lot but when you see the movie you realise that it is.
We were taught very quickly, it can take years, it usually takes a month just to stand up properly and surf a wave - we only had three weeks. So we had to learn very very quickly.
But by the end of it I was surfing waves alone on a board with a huge camera at the end of it and actually surfing onto a wave - it's very difficult to pull yourself onto a wave and by the end of it that is what I was doing.
We only got about five weeks in total, being allowed to surf, three weeks at the beginning and two weeks of water work at the end - for insurance purposes we couldn't film for three months in between and do our own surfing; but I was more than happy to let my double go and do that.
- How much do you enjoy taking on those challenges of learning new skills for a movie role?
I love it! It's one of the main things that I love about my job. You are never playing yourself so I really love that I get to be someone else, play a different character and take on that persona but I also have to take on their qualifications.
We had to pinch ourselves so many times to sort of go 'this is our job' we were sitting out in the ocean with world class surfers. And there was this one scene with elephants where these elephants walk past us and put their trunks on our faces - these are wild elephants - so you sort of go 'right... that's my job'. I'm a very lucky girl.
- Mike Elliott helmed the movie so how did you find him as a director?
I love him. That man has become my family for the rest of my life. He is such a wonderful guy and he is s jokester - he was playing jokes on us for the entire movie and just made it so much fun.
He was really hard core because he would get the water with us, which is really unexpected because they can feed the stream and he could have watched from the beach, he chose to be hypothermic too.
He really was a great director.
- You are a British actress who is primarily based in LA so how have you found the move to the States?
I just feel incredibly blessed because it's a very very tough industry in general but going somewhere as a foreigner makes it a lot harder - you would think it would be easier because you stand out but you don't actually want to do that. Most of the roles that I go for are Americans so the first thing I had to do was pin down the American accent - which is obviously in Blue Crush 2.
I just love it. I live a fantastic life, I have fantastic friends - I stay out of the Hollywood stuff as much as I can because it's so much fun that you don't want to go down that path you just want to work.
But luckily my job gives me more of a rush than being a party girl - I love my job.
- You have also done plenty of work in TV in recent years with the likes of One Tree Hill so how do movies and television work compare - or differ?
The movies take stamina, more so than TV. TV is like high school because you go into these series and the people that work there have been doing it for seven years, like One Tree Hill, so you are going into what is already a family - if you are accepted by that family then it's fantastic fun.
On a movie you are making your own family - you are working with these people for three months in a row, in a foreign country with none of your people around.
TV is mainly based around where you are - I got to go to North Carolina, which is about four hours from LA, so you didn't feel that separate.
But when I went to South Africa for three months you sort of feel very lonely but then you realise than you are no where near alone you just have a new family around you.
So that's how they differ; TV is like high school movies is like family.
- Finally what's next for you?
I have a couple of movie deals in the pipeline which I'm not allowed to talk about, which really bothers me seeing as it is an interview. I get to get on plane tomorrow and head back to LA to get back to work.
I can't wait to get home and audition again - I have only been out of it for a week but my manger has been sending through my appointments and it's making me itch like a kid at Christmas.
Blue Crush 2 is released DVD & Blu-Ray 18th July.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Sasha Jackson has mixed and matched movies and TV roles in recent year in a career than has seen her work on One Tree Hill and Night Junkies.
She is back with her new movie Blue Crush 2 and I caught up with her to take about her new role as Dana, shooing in South Africa and what lies ahead.
- Blue Crush 2 is heading onto DVD here in the UK so can you tell me a little bit about the movie?
The movie is based around my character Dana and her mother died when she was younger and she has been left a journal, her mother was a surfer in South Africa, and she leaves her daughter a journal of all the surf spots that visited and surfed.
So Dana wants to get to know her mother through this journal so retraces her steps. She doesn't get a long with her father, who is a workaholic, they live in Beverly Hills but all Dana wants to be is a free spirit and surf.
So she jumps on a plane by herself to South Africa with her mum's surfboard her Polaroid and this journal - so the movie is about this young girl discovering her mother and discovering herself.
You have all of the friends, and the animals, and the incredible South Africa: which is really the lead role in the movie. You have all the trials and tribulations, the goof stuff and the bad stuff as well as the boys - it's an awesome movie.
- You take on the role of Dana in the movie so what was it about the character and the script that drew you to the project?
I absolutely loved the first Blue Crush because it was about female empowerment and it was really the first movie of our times where woman went 'we can do that to' and so I really wanted to be involved in the second one because the first was so poignant.
But I love my character because she has an incredible strength in her, which is something I wasn't aware of until I read the script that it takes just as much strength to ask for help than it does to deal with it alone.
And that is something that I love about her - she is not afraid to be vulnerable she has no fear in admitting that and that she needs people's advice and help. She is full of fear, in her life, but she is not too scared to ask someone for their opinion and their advice and I just think that that is an incredible quality in someone.
- The movie was filmed in South Africa so how did you find shooting out there? Did you do any exploring during time off?
No I didn't, it was cold (laughs). The main thing about South Africa is it was freezing whilst we were shooing so everyone was in cape storm wear and we were in bikinis - so we were hypothermic many times.
But I was so busy that I actually didn't get to explore - but the whole movie is about exploring South Africa and so I was the character who was lucky enough to get to go and see all the great sights of South Africa.
So the whole thing was like a vacation except for the fact that you were working 4am to 10pm. But I had been to South Africa before and loved it so I very happy to be going back, especially going back to work and be involved in such an incredible movie.
- What sort of training did you do before the movie - did you surf already?
I didn't surf already - I had never surfed. We went out there and had a three week boot camp; so we would be at 4am to do sunrise yoga - which I also had never done - then we would do six or seven hours of surfing depending on the sharks and weather.
We would then do then do deep sea diving as well as endurance swimming to build up stamina by going across the bottom of the pool with weights and dancing also.
We had a very intensive three week course to build out fitness level up.
- And how much of the surfing in the movie is you?
A fair amount, every time you see me stand up on the board and come down off the board that's me - which doesn't seem like a lot but when you see the movie you realise that it is.
We were taught very quickly, it can take years, it usually takes a month just to stand up properly and surf a wave - we only had three weeks. So we had to learn very very quickly.
But by the end of it I was surfing waves alone on a board with a huge camera at the end of it and actually surfing onto a wave - it's very difficult to pull yourself onto a wave and by the end of it that is what I was doing.