Gabriel Sunday on Becoming Archie for 'Final Project'

Gabriel Sunday on Becoming Archie for 'Final Project' By Melinda Loewenstein November 28, 2011 Photo by Big Air Studios Gabriel Sunday in "Archie's Final Project" "Put in something really sexy about how I'm about to break in the United States cinema like a tsunami wave of talent and expressive excitement," jokes Gabriel Sunday, but his energy and enthusiasm for life and his craft speaks for itself. Sunday isn't afraid to throw himself completely into a character. Take "Archie's Final Project," in which Sunday, 26, plays the title character, a 17-year-old who plans to film his own suicide. Sunday got involved with the film early in the development stage. "I've been able to really live this character from the inside out and understand what he'd been going through and understand his struggle and the main theme of the film, which is connection," he says. "The film is about suicide in some ways, but it's mostly about connection and reaching outside of your own narcissistic self to try to connect with somebody else."Producer Eric J. Adams met Sunday while he was developing interactive material for a haunted house in Northern California. Adams was working with director David Lee Miller on developing the idea of a ranting kid making a movie about his own suicide. Sunday says, "They were looking for an actor who would really submerge himself deeply into the mindset and the living situation of this character Archie. They wanted an actor who could also hold a camera on himself, film himself, edit himself, and that was me." So Sunday packed up and moved to Los Angeles, where he lived on the set of the movie and "became" Archie: "I slept next to the computer. I had a little green screen that I would talk in front of and cameras all around, and that was my home. And when I'd get inspired to record some dialogue or do a little talking to the camera, or pickups or reshoots or whatever it was, I would just do it," Sunday notes. "David really wanted the youth voice to come through, and so he really engaged young people like me to really get that across." Says Sunday, "Young audiences just latch on to this movie like nothing else." Nearly every time he goes to a screening of the film, kids will approach him, "and they look at me and my character and they go, 'Well, that's me. I'm an Archie.' It doesn't necessarily have to be exactly like Archie, but they find some kind of connection with him. It's just great. I think it comes from the fact that I was really able to find an honest voice with him from the inside out through the whole process. And just be really honest." It was important to Sunday to give Archie an authentic voice, because he feels a lot of movies depict teenagers as robotic; he believes "kids today are more emotional than they've ever been. They've got a lot to scream about, and I really wanted that to be this character."Questioning Roles As a young actor, Sunday feels he's at a point in his life where he doesn't have a lot of answers, but he has a lot of questions. Archie "was really a way for me to follow some of the questions I have about life," he says. "There's a few roles that if you're lucky enough to play, they let you work out some of your inner demons or at least latch into something where you can come up with some answers yourself. I just did a play at the Geffen [Jane Anderson's "The Escort"], and the whole play was about shame and about what shame does to our society. I came out at the end of that play feeling a lot more confident about myself. A lot more at ease either with choices I had made or choices I want to make.""Archie's Final Project" taught Sunday about connection and stepping outside himself to help others. He says, "It completely changed my life. Suicide is one of the biggest killers of kids, and it's skewing younger and younger. It feels great to be able to make a statement that might help somebody." Sunday says suicide prevention groups were involved during the development process: "We really wanted to make sure we were saying the right things. This is not a suicide prevention film, but it definitely starts a dialogue." Sunday is continuing the dialogue with teens by acting as admin on the film's official Facebook page.Be Prepared Sunday recalls one memorable audition where the girl acting opposite him hit her nose on the back of his head. He says, "She just started bleeding everywhere, and she got really embarrassed and ran into the waiting room, where all these girls were waiting to audition, and see this bloody girl running through crying. Bad stories like that, those things happen, but I think the worst thing is just to not be prepared."Although he does his best to make sure he's always prepared, he says not knowing the dialogue or understanding the character's voice is the worst feeling. "It makes you feel like a bad actor. It makes you feel like a bad human." But for Sunday, auditioning is almost a holy experience, and he has come to enjoy it. One of his best auditioning experiences happened during his run in "The Escort." He went in for an audition for a Vietnam film, and "this big giant scary guy"one of the producers whom the story was based onwas sitting there. Sunday nailed his audition. The big scary man congratulated him and asked if he'd read the whole script. Sunday hadn't had time and told him so, and the man shook his hand and said, "Goddamn, I appreciate your honesty." Sunday says he walked out of the room floating. "I didn't end up getting the movie, but that was a damn good audition," he says. When approaching a role, whether for an audition or for a project he's been cast in, Sunday says his main objective is to get it as simple as possible. He recalls a quote from Einstein: "If you can't explain something simply, you don't understand it," and says, "That makes sense to me when taking on a role. It needs to be simple and clear, or else it's just going to get lost and jumbled." Whether it's acting, writing, shooting, producing, or even editing his own material, Sunday says, "I will never face the inability to be in front of people. There's never an excuse for anybody to not be in front of people and performing and making a movie or acting somehow. If the content's good and you're good, people will watch it. And 'Archie's Final Project' is really the perfect example of that. You couldn't stop us." Outtakes Sunday's first job was as a magician at a pizza shop.He is co-writing a biopic about Daniel Johnston in which he will play the musician-artist.> He says the "Harry Potter" novels were his inspiration to begin writing; he was about 13 when he decided he was going to write the American version. Gabriel Sunday on Becoming Archie for 'Final Project' By Melinda Loewenstein November 28, 2011 Gabriel Sunday in "Archie's Final Project" PHOTO CREDIT Big Air Studios "Put in something really sexy about how I'm about to break in the United States cinema like a tsunami wave of talent and expressive excitement," jokes Gabriel Sunday, but his energy and enthusiasm for life and his craft speaks for itself. Sunday isn't afraid to throw himself completely into a character. Take "Archie's Final Project," in which Sunday, 26, plays the title character, a 17-year-old who plans to film his own suicide. Sunday got involved with the film early in the development stage. "I've been able to really live this character from the inside out and understand what he'd been going through and understand his struggle and the main theme of the film, which is connection," he says. "The film is about suicide in some ways, but it's mostly about connection and reaching outside of your own narcissistic self to try to connect with somebody else."Producer Eric J. Adams met Sunday while he was developing interactive material for a haunted house in Northern California. Adams was working with director David Lee Miller on developing the idea of a ranting kid making a movie about his own suicide. Sunday says, "They were looking for an actor who would really submerge himself deeply into the mindset and the living situation of this character Archie. They wanted an actor who could also hold a camera on himself, film himself, edit himself, and that was me." So Sunday packed up and moved to Los Angeles, where he lived on the set of the movie and "became" Archie: "I slept next to the computer. I had a little green screen that I would talk in front of and cameras all around, and that was my home. And when I'd get inspired to record some dialogue or do a little talking to the camera, or pickups or reshoots or whatever it was, I would just do it," Sunday notes. "David really wanted the youth voice to come through, and so he really engaged young people like me to really get that across." Says Sunday, "Young audiences just latch on to this movie like nothing else." Nearly every time he goes to a screening of the film, kids will approach him, "and they look at me and my character and they go, 'Well, that's me. I'm an Archie.' It doesn't necessarily have to be exactly like Archie, but they find some kind of connection with him. It's just great. I think it comes from the fact that I was really able to find an honest voice with him from the inside out through the whole process. And just be really honest." It was important to Sunday to give Archie an authentic voice, because he feels a lot of movies depict teenagers as robotic; he believes "kids today are more emotional than they've ever been. They've got a lot to scream about, and I really wanted that to be this character."Questioning Roles As a young actor, Sunday feels he's at a point in his life where he doesn't have a lot of answers, but he has a lot of questions. Archie "was really a way for me to follow some of the questions I have about life," he says. "There's a few roles that if you're lucky enough to play, they let you work out some of your inner demons or at least latch into something where you can come up with some answers yourself. I just did a play at the Geffen [Jane Anderson's "The Escort"], and the whole play was about shame and about what shame does to our society. I came out at the end of that play feeling a lot more confident about myself. A lot more at ease either with choices I had made or choices I want to make.""Archie's Final Project" taught Sunday about connection and stepping outside himself to help others. He says, "It completely changed my life. Suicide is one of the biggest killers of kids, and it's skewing younger and younger. It feels great to be able to make a statement that might help somebody." Sunday says suicide prevention groups were involved during the development process: "We really wanted to make sure we were saying the right things. This is not a suicide prevention film, but it definitely starts a dialogue." Sunday is continuing the dialogue with teens by acting as admin on the film's official Facebook page.Be Prepared Sunday recalls one memorable audition where the girl acting opposite him hit her nose on the back of his head. He says, "She just started bleeding everywhere, and she got really embarrassed and ran into the waiting room, where all these girls were waiting to audition, and see this bloody girl running through crying. Bad stories like that, those things happen, but I think the worst thing is just to not be prepared."Although he does his best to make sure he's always prepared, he says not knowing the dialogue or understanding the character's voice is the worst feeling. "It makes you feel like a bad actor. It makes you feel like a bad human." But for Sunday, auditioning is almost a holy experience, and he has come to enjoy it. One of his best auditioning experiences happened during his run in "The Escort." He went in for an audition for a Vietnam film, and "this big giant scary guy"one of the producers whom the story was based onwas sitting there. Sunday nailed his audition. The big scary man congratulated him and asked if he'd read the whole script. Sunday hadn't had time and told him so, and the man shook his hand and said, "Goddamn, I appreciate your honesty." Sunday says he walked out of the room floating. "I didn't end up getting the movie, but that was a damn good audition," he says. When approaching a role, whether for an audition or for a project he's been cast in, Sunday says his main objective is to get it as simple as possible. He recalls a quote from Einstein: "If you can't explain something simply, you don't understand it," and says, "That makes sense to me when taking on a role. It needs to be simple and clear, or else it's just going to get lost and jumbled." Whether it's acting, writing, shooting, producing, or even editing his own material, Sunday says, "I will never face the inability to be in front of people. There's never an excuse for anybody to not be in front of people and performing and making a movie or acting somehow. If the content's good and you're good, people will watch it. And 'Archie's Final Project' is really the perfect example of that. You couldn't stop us." Outtakes Sunday's first job was as a magician at a pizza shop.He is co-writing a biopic about Daniel Johnston in which he will play the musician-artist.> He says the "Harry Potter" novels were his inspiration to begin writing; he was about 13 when he decided he was going to write the American version.