Interview with ElfQuest producers Stephanie Thorpe and Paula Rhodes

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digitalchicktv
– October 6, 2010Posted in: Articles, Posts, and Interviews, featured, interview, Stephanie Thorpe, Taryn O'Neill

DCTV creator Daryn Strauss asked producer/actresses Stephanie Thorpe (After Judgment, Gold: Night of the Zombie King) and Paula Rhodes (A Good Knight’s Quest) to shed a little light on their latest project, a much-anticipated trailer for ElfQuest, which they are crowdsource funding through IndieGoGo. We touch on childhood memories, magic, and what makes a good elf!

DARYN: For the readers who don’t know, what is ElfQuest?

STEPHANIE: ElfQuest started as a comic book, and has been much loved for over 30 years now. It was created by Richard and Wendy Pini, and covers the lives of generations of elves living on an Earth-like planet (albeit with two moons) called Abode. Its stunning artwork, tales of adventure, and ahead-of-its-time beautiful portrayal of love in all its forms has made avid fans out of many, including the both of us. It is unique in that it started as an independently produced comic, over the years has been with both Marvel and DC comics, and is now available in its entirety online at elfquest.com.

DARYN: Bringing ElfQuest to the web is a very innovative idea. As the fans know, it’s been taking a long time for the ElfQuest movie to be made. Where did the idea to bring ElfQuest to the web come from?

PAULA: Obviously, as we’re both actors, we’ve been right there with the fans drooling for a movie to be made (and hoping against hope to be a part of it), but the studio [Warner Brothers] has yet to bring one to light. When Stephanie tweeted that she was re-reading her childhood favorite, ElfQuest, my fingers flew across my keyboard, I couldn’t write her back soon enough. It was so exciting to find a kindred spirit that was also a web producer/actor/creator I admired.

STEPHANIE: Then it hit us. We’d been joking back and forth about which ladies we knew that would make amazing matches for the various characters, but there came a magical tipping point where we realized…we could actually do this.

PAULA: We had the knowledge and access to amazing talent, and somehow it just seemed like we HAD to make it. So, as all projects start in Hollywood, we set a date to meet for coffee.

STEPHANIE: This is a project that had a tech genesis: born on twitter, and bred on facebook and indigogo. It’s also got equal parts passion, undying love of the material and, well, magic. Paula and I have thrown every ounce of our being into this adventure.

DARYN: The creators of the comic have even come out and supported this project, which is pretty amazing! How did you inform them you were doing it?

PAULA: Our first step was to reach out to Richard Pini to make sure it would be okay to do. I had befriended him on facebook after meeting him and Wendy at Comic Con one year, and had recently seen that he’d been encouraging fan films. So, I laid out our plan to him in a message, crossed my fingers, and pushed send. He responded better than we possibly could have dreamed, and here we are.

DARYN: You have gathered a pretty amazing female cast for ElfQuest. Can you talk a bit about the characters they play and what we can expect?

STEPHANIE: We have gathered a pretty awesome cast, haven’t we?! Nearly all the gals we first discussed in the original twitter feed are playing roles for us. We wish we could have offered roles to all of them as there are so darn many amazingly talented and lovely women in our cyber circle, but eventually we had to pick a specific point in time in the EQ universe and go with the characters that were alive then, all while being aware that there were only so many bodies we could wrangle.

We decided to only portray the feminine half of the elves because: a) finding small, elfin lookalikes, who can act and at the same time drop a few jaws with their sheer hotness is much easier than finding the same number of small, elfin lookalike males, who can act and at the same time drop our jaws with their shirts off, and b) because we thought it would be beyond fun to shoot with a group of women. Not to mention that the intrigue of having beautiful elves in the woods was not lost on us, and the potential new fans it could bring to the series didn’t escape us.

So…who do they play? Let’s see. Now, this is going to sound a bit like explaining the plot of Lost in a few words, so it may come off sounding crazy, but we assure you that it all makes perfect sense in the beautiful quilt of a story that the Pinis created!!!


Taryn Southern (Private High Musical, Sorority Forever) plays Timmain, one of the original elves on Abode and an ancestor of the Wolfrider tribe. Elves don’t age, however, so she still looks smokin’ despite her thousands of years. She has the ability to transform into a wolf.


Cathy Baron (A Good Knight’s Quest) plays Dewshine, one of the Wolfrider tribe. She’s graceful and yet fearless, and loves love. She’s very Cathy.


Jessica Rose (lonelygirl15) plays Aroree, one of the glider elves of Blue Mountain. She’s a bit taller than the Wolfriders (as Jess at 5’4″ is a tad taller than most of us gals playing elves) and has the ability to fly, by herself, or on her massive bird.


Taryn O’Neill (After Judgment, Compulsions) plays Kahvi, the chief of the Go Back tribe of elves. She’s a warrior who leads her tribe in a life of battle up in the cold north.


Angie Cole (A Good Knight’s Quest, Sorority Forever) plays Joyleaf, the lifemate of the chief of the Wolfriders, and as much a chieftess herself. In the books, she’s the mother of the main character, Cutter. But no boy elves in ours.


Casey McKinnon (A Comicbook Orange) plays Brownberry, a Wolfrider and a huntress, and mother of Paula’s character, Nightfall. Many of the gals hunt right alongside the guys, and we loved that as little girls. Hey, Stephanie even took archery classes because of ElfQuest.


Jamie Blair (A Good Knight’s Quest) plays Foxfur, a Wolfrider. She too is one of the tribes hunters, but she spans both gender roles as she’s also a nurturer.


Paula Rhodes (A Good Knight’s Quest) plays Nightfall, a Wolfrider and huntress who’s preferred weapon is a bow.
(Paula: Her costume also requires abs of steal so I’m doing crunches as I sew.)


Shanrah Wakefield (Oz Girl) plays Clearbrook, a Wolfrider and usually gentile tribal elder (which just means she’s seen more centuries than some of us, elves don’t need wrinkle cream), but she is fierce in battle if those close to her are threatened.


And finally…Stephanie Thorpe (After Judgment) plays Winnowill, one of the Gliders. She was once their healer, but over the centuries has become very twisted and evil. She’s the villainess & also taller than the other elves.

DARYN: The project has already met your fundraising goal within a week, which just proves how loved this story is and how much people respect what you and Paula Rhodes do as web producers. What does it mean to the project to now have three more weeks to be able to raise more than you even expected?

STEPHANIE: First of all, reaching our goal in a mere week meant we were doing quite the Happy Dance! Honestly, we were blown away by the support and love that poured our way!

PAULA: Flabbergasted and tickled pink.

STEPHANIE: So yes, now we have 3 weeks to continue raising our bar even higher. Whatever is donated above and beyond will go right into upgrading the project. We’ll get better lights, better lenses, generally polish it even more. Icing. This has just absolutely made our childhood dream come to life. And to be doing it with so many of these uber gifted women makes us beyond proud and grateful. We hope people continue to donate to this project.

DARYN: What can we expect in the trailer?

STEPHANIE: You can expect a teaser trailer – it will be fast paced, suspenseful, urgent, and lovely. It will serve as a character introduction, a peek, a little taste. Our goal is to entice you to want to see more after getting this little taste of the world of ElfQuest, and to watch it a bajillion times so that the number of hits is astronomical enough that the studio is compelled to move forward on their feature film quickly!!!

PAULA: We’re going into this as fans. We’re aiming to both appease existing fans and to intrigue new ones. Every little bit of this project is a labor of love.

STEPHANIE: ElfQuest is partly what inspired me to be an actress and producer and why I always gravitate towards the fantasy and sci-fi genres. ElfQuest showed me heroines & adventure….and that I cannot draw. I did however, take archery classes. To know that we are contributing to this world we love so much is overwhelming.

To donate to ElfQuest, visit IndieGoGo here!

For more on ElfQuest, check out this piece by our brother site, OMFGeek here!