INTERVIEW - Friday the 13th Not Unlucky For Travis Van Winkle

The Friday the 13th remake continues to intrigue... For this week's Web Stalker, I interviewed nascent horror hottie Travis Van Winkle, who informed me that being chased by Jason through the woods in real life is just as surreal as you'd think. But the life of a working actor is probably scarier in the long run, so I was glad to get to talk to Travis about his own uphill battle. It hasn't seemed to have affected his sense of humor...

TB: Do you ever look at your own IMDB page?

TVW: My manager will go through every now and then and tell me what's there; I try not to look at it. I had a friend who was on Everwood for a season and he got so caught up in looking at that stuff... Some people were nice, of course, but some talked shit -- talking about how he looked, you know, like an alien, or like a witch! It would make me crazy.


TB: How did you get started in film?

TVW: I dropped out of college to move to L.A. -- a little risky, but the second I got here, I started taking classes and got on track, and so far it’s going great... let’s hope it continues to go in that direction!


TB: That's a tough decision to make, because people are happy for you, but you know they're thinking you're making a big mistake...

TVW: Yeah, you can tell people are thinking, “Wow, you’re kind of crazy for doing this, you need to go back and finish college." But you can also see in their eyes that sort of "Damn, I wish I could take a leap of faith like that too!" But most people need that security, and this job doesn’t bring that. It forces you to live day by day.


TB: Is it hard to start breaking into success when your social circle is made up of actors who are struggling to do the same thing you're doing?

TVW: It's hard, but I always basically say that if you try and you do make the effort, it will pay off. You don’t know when, but as long as you really focus on it, it will pay off. Just because someone’s time hasn’t come yet doesn’t mean it’s not going to come. People I’ve come up alongside, I think we’ve all had those times, we’ve all gone through it. As you’re out here longer, you get a sense of that.