Glee star, Chris Colfer, is ready to premiere his new movie, Struck By Lightning, a high school coming-of-age dramedy that he wrote, produced and stars in, at the Tribeca Film Festival in April. But he’s already finished with another script, and he reveals the rather surprising details in a new interview with The Insider.
Chris’s next project is about as far away from the world of contemporary high school students as one could imagine. The script he wrote involves patients at an insane asylum in the 1930s. Chris has been hinting around lately about a new project that he had to do a lot of research for, and I would not have guessed that particular plot summary in a million years. He won’t be the lead this time. He’s written himself a supporting role. Maybe he’ll be the institution’s Nurse Ratchet? Hm.
Chris has already got a director and a producer attached to the project.
Read an excerpt from the Insider interview below. Chris also talks about working with his idol, Whoopie Goldberg and whether directing is in his future. (Insider.com)
Insider: Are you working on any other movie scripts right now? – Chris: Yes. This next one is definitely a genre change for me. It’s not set in the high school world. For the first time, it’s something I had to do a lot, a lot, a lot of research for before I started working. It’s a period piece that takes place at an asylum in the early 30s. It’s interesting because while I was doing my research I met with a UCLA professor to talk about different disorders and conditions of asylums back in the day and I got so many suggestive looks on the Glee set because I would have all my books with me. People kept asking, “Chris, why are you reading books on asylums and schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder?” I think everyone thought I finally lost it when I was reading the Coping With Mental Illness book [laughs].
Insider: Sounds scary — is it a horror movie? – Chris: It’s not horror. There’s no ghosts or monsters popping out at you. It’s almost like a movie about characters after they have an experience like characters do in a horror movie. Almost like the aftermath of what a traumatic experience, a la a horror movie, would do to someone.
Insider: What inspired you to write this movie? – Chris: Honestly, I just wanted to do something really fun and something I hadn’t done before — something kind of creepy. Instead of waiting to find a script, I just thought, “I’ll write it myself.” And we have a director and producer attached already.
