Cute Little Buggers Interview: Lee Ravitz

Q. Cute Little Buggers has been selected to play at Horror-on-Sea Film Festival, what can people expect from the film?

It’s good, solid B-movie fun. The gore quotient is large, the story is fast paced, and it’s meant to be a horror comedy so there are lots of laugh out loud moments among the bloodletting. It’s not giving anything away to reveal that it’s about an alien invasion launched on an unsuspecting rural community through the medium of possessed rabbits – it’s a movie in the vein of Critters (1986) that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Q. You play Barry Sweetcroft in the film. Can you tell us a little bit about you character?

Barry is a greedy plumber who thinks he can make a mint out of the coming of the aliens. Suffice to say, he underestimates what he’s getting into, and is proved wrong quite messily.

Q. What sort of preparation did you do for the role?

In fact, Barry was a role offered to me by our director, Tony Jopia, so it just sort of cast itself: he knew I’d do a good job with the fact that Barry’s funny and a strong character role, as he’s seen me do plenty such roles in the past. If you actually watched him do any plumbing, then I’d probably have to have taken a few tips on that, but you don’t – the details in the background.

Q. Did you make any changes to the character from how it was written in the original script?

A boring answer, but no, not that I can recall. Although there is sometimes  flexibility intended to make the character come across as believably and as well as suits the actor as possible, it’s also part of the craft to find ways of making what’s written come alive – and Garry Charles and Andy Davie did a nice job with the original script.

Q. Did you experience any issues whilst filming Cute Little Buggers?

Nothing major, and I did only film briefly (it was about two days out of, I think, a month long shoot), but I do remember that we did it in a heatwave, and we were shooting mainly in open fields in Oxfordshire, so there wasn’t much respite from the sun. When I actually got to shoot in the woods, with a lot of my stuff either crouching down or on the ground, it was so much cooler – it’s true what they say about hot air rising.

Without giving away too many spoilers, my final moments did involve being directed while covered in fake blood,(which spent a lot of time in my eyes) so that I had to respond to direction vocally, and which wasn’t massively pleasant in that heat. But it’s all part of the job, makes for what I hope is a nice scene, and did create some ace looking photos.

Q. What was one of your favourite moments during filming?

One of the highlights of filming was, of course, getting to shoot a whole scene with Caroline Munro, which was just brilliant.

Q. What do you think makes Cute Little Buggers stand out in the horror genre?

I like the fact that Tony and his team are interested in keeping on using practical effects for the most part. Although there’s a fair amount of CGI in the finished film, most of the ‘splatter’ was all generated on site. It’s effective, and intended, because Cute Little Buggers is a homage to the kind of 80s films that weren’t dominated *solely* by computer generated effects. And it’s nice to find a horror that *can* be shocking or gross-out, but is also a laugh.

Q. Do you have any other projects which you are currently working on?

It’s always a question in an actor’s life (alright, *this* actor’s life – I can’t speak for others, really) that what gets offered gets offered, and I tend to judge on a project by project basis. At this very moment, though, I’m doing a panto in Marylebone as a werewolf (you’ll understand the casting if you look at a picture of me!). There are suggestions that a sequel to Cute Little Buggers may also be filming next year, and Tony’s come up with an ingenious way to bring many characters back…but I assume that’s about all I’m allowed to say at this point.

Q. What advice would you give to someone who is looking to get into acting?

Definitely do your homework and research properly. It’s hard graft, which shouldn’t deter you, but you’ll need to put the work in to even be in with a chance of getting roles: those who imagine you can just ‘sign up’ and ‘become a star’ tend to get rude awakenings. Going to drama school is very useful in helping you to be taken seriously (it may only help hone an underlying talent for acting if you have one, but it’s quite important in teaching you some of the business ins and outs of the industry). I appreciate that people get priced out because drama school fees are so expensive (wrongly, in my view) but you need to be getting training, industry advice and feedback from somewhere, so even attending evening classes or workshops tends to serve well, and will teach you how to be a better actor.

Philip Rogers

Published in various websites, Philip is a reviewer who is best known for his interviews and media coverage of independent projects including; films, books, theatre and live events. Always on the lookout for something different to cover!