When she is not having tea with her plague rats or enjoying the sweet company of her asylum inmates, Emilie Autumn can be found working on exciting projects which involve beautiful music, inspiring poetry and great acting as it appears from her recent big screen debut in Darren Lynn Bousman’s The Devil’s Carnival. The young artist with the red blood hair and pale white skin, never ceases to amaze us, not that we would expect anything less from someone who describes her work as‘ the best cup of English Breakfast spiked with cyanide and smashed on your antique wallpaper’. Just a few months after the release of her latest album, Fight Like A Girl and an extending world-tour, Chasseur caught up with Emilie Autumn for an exclusive interview where we learned all about her unique ‘Victoriandustrial’ sound, big screen experience as well as about her plans to hit Broadway very soon.
You are a classically trained violin player. When and under what circumstances, did this adventure begin for you?
It was for when a violin caught my eye in a shop window, and I simply thought it was a pretty thing – had no real idea what it was all about. I pestered until I got one, and, quite literally from that moment on, the instrument became my primary tool of communication. I was painfully sensitive and shy as a little one, and the violin became my voice until I had accustomed myself to this world enough to use my own.
It seems that FLAG is actually the basis of an upcoming musical. How is this project coming along so far? What should we expect?
The album, “Fight Like A Girl”, is in fact approximately one third of the score to the upcoming musical based upon my book, “The Asylum For Wayward Victorian Girls”. While I’m on tour, I’m contemplating how I can bring the rat characters to life. In the end, expect Les Mis plus Phantom by way of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.
You provided the voice for all of the ‘characters’ of your latest album. What was the idea behind that?
I’m simply voicing the characters because, while I’m letting people into the idea that there are in fact multiple characters, it is still an Emilie Autumn album, and thus I ought to be the one making the music. Besides, I’d want to leave something for the Original Broadway Cast Recording, right?
You recently made your big screen debut portraying The Painted Doll in Darren Lynn Bousman’s The Devil’s Carnival. Could you share a few words about the experience?
At risk of sounding melodramatic, acting in The Devil’s Carnival has changed my life. I’ve always been a theatre girl and never really had a fascination with acting for film, but working with such a brilliant director, cast, and crew, and seeing the challenges up close, completely changed my mind. I now fully realize the benefits and compromises each genre of acting and performing inherently has. Because of this film, I’m now to be heavily featured in The Devil’s Carnival Episode 2 which will begin filming shortly, and I’ve got another major film project of my own in development. For me, discovering my place in a new genre of storytelling has increased my skill in all the other genres I’m already established in, and I’m incredibly grateful for this, and to Darren for introducing me to this world.
The sense of female empowerment is evident in both your poems and music with FLAG being the epitome of this. What fuels your feminist side?
Being a woman.
You have your very own Asylum girls following you everywhere. How often does it get crazy behind the scenes?
Use your imagination, then double it. Triple that, and we are approaching the reality of the situation.
What would be your definition for ‘insanity’?
My definition would be pretty much the same as any dictionarys. The problem isn’t with the definition of the word. It’s with whom the word is supposed to apply to.
What makes the perfect tea?
The best water.
Hints on what’s to come?
Musicals, movies, magic, essentially, world domination!
Illustrations : Scott Mason © CHASSEUR MAGAZINE