Kool Kat of the Week: Too Many Freaky Roles: Actor William Tokarsky Cooks, Talks Tapioca, and Shares an Earful about the Buried Alive Film Festival 2018

Posted on: Nov 15th, 2018 By:

That time ATLRetro took a top secret AdultSwim behind the scenes tour and thought our goose was cooked when William Tokarsky boarded the bus!

At Buried Alive Film Festival 2018 (Nov 14-18, 7 Stages) William Tokarsky acts it up in THE GOD INSIDE MY EAR, the festival’s first feature, which plays Thursday Nov. 15 at 9 p.m. Directed by Joe Baden, the movie about a young woman who hears voices has been a hit on the festival circuit, winning a bunch of awards. Critics call it “trippy” and “surreal.” Sounds like a Tokarsky movie to us!

You may or may not know his name, but if you’re into weird cult horror and comedy movies and television, you know William Tokarsky. You’ve seen his pretty face in AdultSwim’s YOUR PRETTY FACE IS GOING TO HELL. He romanced a Goblin in Kool Kat Brian Lonano’s (CROW HAND[2014]) notorious award-winning short GWILLIAM (2015) which grossed out audiences at Buried Alive 2016 (Look for twisted “sequel/spin-off” GWILLIAM’S TIPS FOR TURNING TRICKS INTO TREATS in The EyeSlicer shorts segment Sat. Nov. 17 at 6 p.m.). If you don’t know those, he became an Internet sensation as the serial killer who cuts into the sitcom-intro-parody TOO MANY COOKS!

We cornered Tokarsky, checked carefully for sharp blades, and asked him nicely to divulge a few down and dirty secrets about his film and TV roles and why you should get the Hell down to Buried Alive 2018!

ATLRetro: Why should folks come out to the Buried Alive Film Festival?

William Tokarsky: All the cool kids will be there.

You were a judge for a previous BAFF. What was the most fun part of this task?

Judging is a lot like horse trading … everyone has his favorite.

Tell us about THE GOD INSIDE MY EAR and your role in it!

THE GOD INSIDE MY EAR is a creepy physiological thriller,  and you will only see my alter-ego on screen!

You became an Internet superstar for your–shall we say “memorable?!–role in TOO MANY COOKS?! Can you tell our readers how you landed that role? Did you have any idea you were doing something that would go so viral? Any “top secret” on-set anecdote that we can convince you to share with our readers?

I creeped out Casper Kelly on the set of YOUR PRETTY FACE IS GOING TO HELL, and he just wanted to creep out the rest of the Internet. I told Casper “COOKS would go viral or just die on the 4 am time slot”—one or the other. I was amazed at how fast it went viral! The sweater I wore in COOKS was put in a cardboard box and lost…so keep an eye out at your local Goodwill store!

You seem to be getting a reputation for being a go-to actor for humorous horror! Another memorable role of yours was in GWILLIAM, which was featured at BAFF. How did that happen and any behind-the-scene anecdote about that experience?

Ah, yes, GWILLIAM, the sleaziest film ever made. Everyone that read for it was sober and need I say more. And it was TAPIOCA…just TAPIOCA.

With Georgia becoming “Y’allywood,” you’re showing up in all sorts of features. Any other recent roles you’d like to talk about?

I have been working on a role in Savannah on a new TV show where I am the degenerate alcoholic stepfather of the bi-racial female lead  married to her black mother it’s all about drugs and poverty. It’s a COMEDY. I can’t say what it is, but just check my IMDb page and you can figure it out. 

William Tokarsky action figure! Just watch out for that tiny blade!

Any advice to aspiring actors? Either in general or locally in Georgia?

Be nice to everyone you meet and whatever you are doing … do it so good that eventually someone will notice you.

What’s next for William Tokarsky?

My next goal is to be flown First Class to LA to deliver about five lines of dialogue in the next big blockbuster!

Finally gotta ask, what is your favorite RETRO horror movie that you’d recommend to our readers?!

My favorite retro horror is the original THE BLOB (1958).

Read our full Buried Alive Retro preview by Melanie Crew here! Buy your Buried Alive Film Festival festival passes and advance tickets to individual screenings here or at the 7 Stages box office. 

Category: Kool Kat of the Week | Tags: , , , , , ,

Kool Kat of the Week: Brian Lonano Explores the Ins and Outs of Goblin Lovin’ With His Latest Short Film GWILLIAM!

Posted on: Jun 16th, 2015 By:

by Aleck BennettGwilliam_Poster_11x17_v03
Contributing Writer

Atlanta filmmaker Brian Lonano has been garnering raves on the festival circuit for humorous horror short CROW HAND!!!, which makes all of us at ATLRetro laugh like crazed lunatics every time we see it. Now he  is on the cusp of bringing us another heaping helping of the hilariously bizarre with GWILLIAM, a tender tale about the love between a man (William Tokarsky of TOO MANY COOKS and YOUR PRETTY FACE IS GOING TO HELL) and a goblin (an animatronic puppet). But he needs your help! That’s why he’s running an IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign, promising an insanely inventive and perfectly perverse variety of rewards for donors.

The short film has long been the weird nephew in the motion picture family. Since theatrical exhibitions largely abandoned the “selected short subjects” of days gone by (aside from, say, Pixar’s commitment to the form) in favor of more movie trailers and before-the-show advertisements, it’s been a constant struggle to get short films in front of large audiences. Sure, film festivals routinely devote chunks of programming to shorts, but the audience is always limited to the people in attendance. In recent years, however, that has changed. Say what you will about the Internet’s impact on the film industry, one thing is indisputable: it’s provided makers of short films with a platform that allows more people to see their work. That, in turn, has had an impact on television programming. Animated TV series have used the “two cartoons in one half-hour” format for a long while now, but some networks—most notably Cartoon Network and its [adult swim] programming block—have embraced the 11-minute episode as a standalone entity. And [adult swim] has taken that short film format into live action, with series like Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim’s multiple offerings (such as TIM AND ERIC AWESOME SHOW, GREAT JOB! and CHECK IT OUT! WITH DR. STEVE BRULE), YOUR PRETTY FACE IS GOING TO HELL and that twilight zone of weirdness at 4:00 a.m. where things like TOO MANY COOKS show up.

Brian Lonano - SXSW

Brian Lonano – SXSW

That’s where we cross paths with Kool Kat of the Week Brian Lonano. Lonano has been making short films for a decade now. His nine shorts have screened at festivals from SXSW to Fantasia International Film Festival, from Canada to Cambodia. And here in Atlanta, he’s been shown at the Atlanta Film Festival and the Buried Alive Film Fest. (He’s done promotional bumper shorts for many festivals around the world as well.) His shorts are typically a deft mix of wacky comedy, horror or sci-fi tropes and inventive practical effects.- a combo no better seen than in last year’s CROW HAND!!! His 10th film, GWILLIAM, is currently in preproduction, and to raise the funds for this endeavor (because while the Internet is a convenient platform, it’s really hard to monetize it), Lonano has turned to the new audience that the Internet has provided for assistance via this IndieGoGo campaign.

ATLRetro caught up with Brian Lonano to ask him about the campaign, his history in short films, what GWILLIAM is all about and what’s on the horizon.

ATLRetro: You’ve got nine short films under your belt in the past decade, including the inspired THE TRANSMISSION and the utterly berserk CROW HAND!!! What first drove you to dive into filmmaking?

I grew up watching films that featured a lot of special effects and puppets. I am a big fan of Jim Henson, Tim Burton, Spielberg and classic STAR WARS. JURASSIC PARK came out when I was 10 and I wanted to make movies ever since. I became obsessed with seeing any and every movie that Industrial Light & Magic did the special effects for. I didn’t have a camera for a long time so I drew comics and made puppets. As I get older I seek out more bizarre film oddities like HAUSU, THE VISITOR and A FIELD IN ENGLAND. Those kinds of films coupled with what I grew up worshiping keep me inspired to make movies.

You’re not only known for your short films, which have screened all over the world, but you’ve also been recognized by the industry for your usecommissioned work for festivals and television, something our readers might not immediately know about. What does Brian Lonano do when he’s not dreaming up weird short films?

My full time job is working at a post-production facility that processes dailies for TV shows and movies that shoot in town. The commissioned work I make is mostly for film festivals. I would direct a short film called a bumper that advertises the film festival and I would more or less have creative control which is great. I’m very grateful to film festivals that show my work so when I’m asked to make a bumper for one, I put a lot of effort in making a kick ass bumper to show how bad ass the festival is.

It’s a tale as old as time: a man and a goblin in love. What attracted you to this story, and just how disgustingly screwed up can we expect the end result to be?

GWILLIAM came about from a drawing my brother did back in 2011. He was drawing a picture of this weird little man—it just looked completely wrong in the best way possible. We laughed about the picture and decided we had to name the weird man. So we asked ourselves, what’s a gross name that would fit this monstrosity? And we decided on Gwilliam. After that we came up with a strange story where a different man was prowling at night and has an encounter with Gwilliam…I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. I’m excited about how gross this movie is going to be because it’s not gore centric like my previous film CROW HAND!!!. It’s a whole new kind of disgusting.

The preliminary sculpt you’ve shown on the website is impressive even in this early stage. Who’s behind the design of the Gwilliam puppet?

IMG_0150The sculpt of Gwilliam is actually created by Splatter Cinema super team Blake Myers, Luke Godfrey and Nick Morgan. They will be responsible for making the creature puppet for the film.

I see designer Rachel De Urioste mentioned in the IndieGoGo campaign. What she’s bringing to the table? Rachel De Urioste is a local artist, fabricator and designer and she’s designing the GWILLIAM perks for IndieGoGo. She designed the crow totem that was featured in CROW HAND!!!. When we were on the festival circuit with CROW HAND!!! I asked Rachel to make some plastic versions of the Crowtem so I could plant them in theaters and see if anyone would pick them up. I loved the idea of something tangible to take away from the movie. CROW HAND!!! is so short that I wanted to make a big impact with the promotion of it. So with GWILLIAM I wanted to make a new prize to give out to potential donors. If I was giving to a campaign, I would want something cool like a toy. I think people gravitate towards tchotchkes like that.

The variety of rewards you’re offering investors range from the innocuous (digital downloads, credit listing) to the utterly depraved (a Gwilliam sex doll???). How did you come up with these ideas?

I brainstormed ideas for prizes with Rachel and my wife/co-producer Victoria Cook. We all agreed the totems from CROW HAND!!! were a great idea and we wanted to take it a step further. Rachel had never dabbled in designing toys and I am a big fan of Archie McPhee‘s novelty finger puppets so I thought a Gwilliam finger puppet would be a great prize to give out. As I said earlier, if I was donating to something, I would want to get a cool toy. Rachel is making full painted Gwilliam finger puppets but she is also making rainbow editions of the Crowtem and Finger Puppet as well as solid color Gwilliams (we’re calling it the ROY G BIV collection) and even glow in the dark finger puppets! The blow up is another prize we allROYGBIV Gwilliams came up with. The doll would be life size (meaning Goblin size) and the goal is make it a functioning doll. We wanted our campaign to stand out and I figured weird finger puppets and blow up dolls would do the trick!

You’ve lucked up in nabbing William Tokarsky fresh off the TOO MANY COOKS brouhaha, but he’s also popped up in projects ranging from THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE to YOUR PRETTY FACE IS GOING TO HELL. How did your paths cross, and how did you know he was the right man to romance a goblin puppet?

William was very easy to get in touch with. I sent him a message on Facebook asking if he would be interested in working together on a project. We agreed to meet in person and I gave him the script to read. I didn’t say much about it until he read it. Thankfully, he was laughing at the script and said he would absolutely be a part of it. So far working with William has been terrific. He’s easy going, very funny and a great team player. I look forward to shooting so I can direct him.

On the local front, you’ve worked with the Buried Alive Film Festival as a judge, you’ve shot a great bumper for them, and you’ve had your shorts exhibited there as well. Any hope you’ll be bringing GWILLIAM to BAFF screens in the future?

If the film is completed in time I would absolutely love to screen it at BAFF this year. But because I am friends with Blake and the whole team (and they are also working on the film), it would be an out of competition entry. I love screening my work here because the audience gets what I am trying to do and they all seem to really enjoy it!

CROW HAND!!! from !ROBOT HAND! on Vimeo.

All photos courtesy of Brian Lonano and used with permission.  Aleck Bennett is a writer, blogger, pug warden, pop culture enthusiast, raconteur and bon vivant from the greater Atlanta area. Visit his blog at doctorsardonicus.wordpress.com.

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