Interview with Melanie Stone, Star of Mythica

Mythica: A Quest for Heroes is a CONtv original movie that premieres online tomorrow (March 31st). Mythica is a three part movie series. The first installment follows Marek, a young wizard who faces discrimination as a club-footed slave, and her party of adventurers. Despite its small budget and simple adventuring plot, Mythica is a fun, entertaining movie. Marek may start as a “plucky” hero, but the complexity of her character and powers are something I’m excited to see play out over the rest of the series. Make sure to check it out tomorrow, online at CONtv.

  I got the opportunity to interview Melanie Stone, who shines in her role as Marek.

A Quest for Heroes is your first lead role in a movie, and you don’t get just one movie, you get three as this character. This has to be an amazing experience. What have you learned so far?

I certainly lucked out with this role! At the time I was living in Provo, UT, which is where Arrowstorm is based out of. I was definitely in the right place at the right time.

It was such an awesome experience! After essentially five months of filming I’d say I learned a lot; I was quite the newbie before this, so there was much to be learned. At the end of every day I’d walk away from set and think “Okay, so you weren’t quite prepared for that, but you handled it.” It was very much baptism by fire. Thankfully it was the perfect genre for me so I loved every second of it.

I feel bad for how much walking Marek has to do, given that she has a clubbed foot. In future movies does she ever get a horse?

Haha! Thank you for your sympathy! Truly it’s appreciated! Sadly, Marek never gets a horse of her own… Perhaps we can start a petition? “A horse for Marek!” I’ll have to ask Arrowstorm how many signatures we’ll need in order to convince them!

Mythica looked like it had some remote filming locations, and there were battles with spiders, orcs, and an ogre. What was the day-to-day filming like? Did the Ogre keep running into the boom mic?

We shot the entire thing in Utah; it’s a very versatile state! Everything was within an hour for the most part (aside from St. George and The Antelope Springs Cave). For me it was usually a 12-14 hour day. I was usually up by 3 am every morning. I’d drive to set, get my hair and make-up done and costume strapped, pulled and tied on… It was a complicated process. Then I’d run around in the mud, snow and sand (depending on location) with my team, battling whatever creature they threw at us! It was always an exciting adventure. That Ogre was a pain to work with though… No clue what he was doing.

Tell us about one of your first roles where you thought, this acting thing is for me.

I’d say it was when I was nine years old and I performed in a high school version of Wizard of Oz. In fact my oldest sister was starring as Dorothy… I played one of the munchkins. I milked that role for everything it was worth. I even tried to get the director to include me in the Emerald City scene because my munchkin costume was conveniently green. He said “no.” I said “your loss”…in my head.

Your character Marek isn’t entirely the pure-hearted hero. Were you afraid to show her darker side, or was that the fun part?

Oh that was most definitely the fun part. I’ve got a soft spot for fictional villains. On top of that I feel like most of us have a dark side, but we keep it under wraps. It’s nice to have a reason for unleashing it.

Without spoiling us with your future movie knowledge, are you cheering for good Marek, or dark soul-sucking Marek?

Both actually. As human beings we trip up, make mistakes, and find ourselves in places we don’t want to be. In film I like to see the protagonist lose it all, but in the end they make it out alive, and they’re stronger for it. It’s hopeful, and more importantly relatable.

Mythica: A Quest for Heroes is available to stream for free on CONtv with commercials, or start your VIP membership to view without commercials, and get a month free. CONtv is a new online streaming network dedicated to fans of comic con. I have a lot of hope for this network since they’re already making small budget, Kickstarter-funded films like Mythica available for fans to watch online.

The Kickstarter for the second movie, Mythica: The Darkspore just started today. It has sound track, dvd, blu-ray, and digital copy rewards in addition to other items, as a thank you for backing this fan-funded series.