Interview: Gwendolyn Edwards (part 1 of 3)
Up-and-coming actress Gwendolyn Edwards shares some thoughts on her first production The Last Confederate and what it’s like breaking into the business.
Part 1 (of 3)
The Film Chair: Your middle name, Leigh, came from the actress Vivien Leigh. This is a Civil War picture, a Civil War romance. It’s almost like you were destined for this.
Gwendolyn Edwards: It’s pretty weird. My mom was just a big fan of Vivien Leigh. She was a big fan of “Gone with the Wind.” That’s the reason I was named after Vivien Leigh. I never had aspirations of being an actor as a kid. I never even thought of it. I don’t know if it was destiny or not, but maybe it was a little sign that a change may be in the stars.
FC: Well, as far as old Hollywood actresses go, that’s pretty top of the line.
GE: It is pretty neat that my first film was a Civil War film.
FC: How did you decide to get into acting then? You said you didn’t plan on acting. How did it come about?
GE: I just tripped and fell into it, I guess. I went to school for engineering. I graduated and I practiced engineering, but I always did theatre on the side. I say I never thought of it as a kid, but I just never thought of it as a career. I always did theatre. Even when I was in engineering and on an in-town project, I was doing theatre or chorus or something, just as a creative outlet. That’s how it happened. I had done some theatre in North Carolina. I had won some awards for some theatre I had done there. The producers or some people involved with the producers saw one of those productions, and I was invited to audition. I got in my car, drove down, and it was the first time I was ever on camera in my life. The audition went very well. There was an instant chemistry. I auditioned with Julian Adams, and there was this chemistry that lifted right off the page. So, the audition went well. I seemed to have what they were looking for and I was really lucky.
FC: And the producers, they were invested in this project. This is about an ancestor of theirs, someone who has family ties. Were you pressured at all by that? Did you know that going into the audition?
GE: I didn’t. I knew a little bit about it, but I had no idea what it would become. That’s probably a good thing because, if I had gone into the audition with that in mind, it would have been a lot more pressure. It was definitely a lot of pressure once I did understand the passion behind this. Well, it was pressure, but it was also a big driver. I wound up adopting that same passion that they had. It felt like it was my own family after a while, once I learned about Eveline. I had the opportunity to do some research; at my finger tips, I had the actual artifacts from her life. I began to understand who this woman was and what she did, which the movie doesn’t even touch on. That was a lot of pressure. Suddenly, I really did feel a great responsibility to her, just to do what I could with very limited lines and small scenes to try and portray her in the best light that I could.
Get Email Updates
