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Briana Evigan: Beyond dancing and horror
(AFP/Valerie Macon)Actress Briana Evigan has made transformations in her acting career and has no plans to stop
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(AFP/Valerie Macon) (AFP/Valerie Macon)
(AFP/Valerie Macon)
Actress Briana Evigan has made transformations in her acting career and has no plans to stop.
Briana, who has been dancing since she was 9 years old, unsurprisingly found her first major breakout role as the character of dancer Andie West in Step Up 2: The Streets back in 2008.
Step Up 2 did not receive positive responses from film critics, but commercially the film was a huge success ' grossing more than US$148 million in theatrical releases worldwide, with a production budget of only $17.5 million.
Despite the commercial success of Step Up 2, the 26-year-old did not star in the subsequent two editions of the Step Up franchise, although she returned to feature in the fifth installment, Step Up: All In, set to be released on July 25.
In the meantime, she was busy transitioning from a dance movie star into an icon of horror flicks by taking up numerous roles within the genre.
A year after Step Up 2, Briana starred in S. Darko, a sequel to the 2001 cult horror movie Donnie Darko. This film failed to live up to its predecessor, but Briana finally received recognition as an actress for the first when critics gave positive reviews for Briana's role in the remake of low-budget slasher Sorority Row.
Briana said that her shift from dance movies into horror was never planned.
'I actually had no desire to do horror films but it's kind of where the path took me. So, I've been riding on it,' Briana told The Jakarta Post during an interview in Jakarta recently.
After Sorority Row, Briana starred in a lot of slasher-horror films, making her one of the main faces of the genre. Despite this, she said that the slasher-horror genre was not to her personal taste.
Briana said that she preferred horror films that offered more drama, and psychological thrillers, to splatters of blood.
'For me, any movie that's good is based on good characters. I like to follow characters and really feel that I am a part of them. If there is more of a story, more character-driven plot, it will be a good horror film for me,' she said.
Briana's latest horror movie was The Evil Within, a thriller in which she played Lyla, a woman who nurtures her schizophrenic boyfriend Michael, played by Joseph Cross, as they both try to escape from an evil force that follows them into an old mysterious mine.
Briana said that she had no idea whether The Evil Within would be released in cinemas soon. She hinted that the film might be her last in the horror genre for the next couple of years as she wants to take on more challenges in acting as well as new challenges in the form of producing and other behind-the-scenes roles.
'I am in the development phase for two of my own different TV shows; two drama shows and an action western film,' she said.
'The project that I am producing and developing with writers is kind of a different way of doing what I am used to but it's keeping me really, really busy and it's kind of behind the scenes, although there are characters written for me in it. So it's a little bit more business than acting,' she added.
Although Briana is slowly moving into taking on production roles, she said that she would not leave acting just yet.
'Acting is my favorite thing in the world. I can't imagine doing anything else. They say it chooses you. When you love something that much, you just do it,' she said.
For the future, Briana said that she would love to take on more roles that would enable her to tell stories in genres other than horror.
'I would love to do more love stories. I love to tell stories,' Briana said.
