BLOOD PUNCH Interview with Milo Cawthorne

Wickedly entertaining and original, BLOOD PUNCH is something that even the biggest horror fans will have trouble finding anything to compare it to, and something everyone should see.

Actor Milo Cawthorne (DEATHGASM, ASH VS EVIL DEAD) took time out of his busy schedule to talk to us about meth, his character Milton, and the gore-tastic BLOOD PUNCH before the screening this Saturday 25th of June, 7:30pm at The Backlot Studios.

If you have an appetite for blood, violence and being entertained, tickets are available at https://www.trybooking.com/203509.

The ticket includes Blood Punch on DVD, entrance to the screening, and a Q&A with Milo Cawthorne.

What was it about Milton’s character that made you interested in playing him?

The change that occurs in Milton was interesting. It’s rare that I get to play such a big transition in a character. I’m often playing ‘nerdy’ characters who don’t change or learn, and this was a ‘nerd’ that had to learn to be a cold blooded killer, so that was interesting. Also Milton is self aware and has some humour about the situation, that’s always fun and part of what attracted me to the film as a whole, it didn’t take itself too seriously

Blood Punch is quite a violent film with some gory kills, were there any scenes or effects that made you uncomfortable during filming?

Depends what you mean by uncomfortable, seeing the effects being made and jiggled around with in between takes completely takes away any sort of squeamishness for me. In saying that, the cleaver to Ari’s throat was pretty creepy to watch, mainly because of the sound of the fake blood dripping onto the floor. Other than that, rolling around in sticky fake blood, on bark, with someone else whilst trying to make out with them is pretty uncomfortable in many ways.

Blood Punch reuses scenes over and over again, and it’s a great part of the film, but I imagine it must’ve been a nightmare on set, what was it like shooting a film that way?

You are so right! it was very hard to remember how far along in the story we were and what the characters knew at that repetition of any particular scene. Often we needed Eddie or Maddy to come up to us and say “You’ve just heard ‘this’ and ‘this’ is about to happen” It was a pretty fast shoot, and shooting way out of order, it got very confusing.

How would you say Milton develops as a character over the course of the film?

Milton goes from being kind of led along by other people, unsure of what he wants and how to get it, to being completely in control and knowing what he wants. There’s real joy in that contrast. At the beginning of the film he’s kind of in a rut, wants some excitement in his life, can’t stand the idea of a steady job, so he falls instantly in lust/love with Skyler who has this big promise, but he’s doing this ‘for’ her, to ‘save’ her etc and not really thinking about himself. I think by the end of the film he’s completely aware of what he wants and makes the ultimate sacrifice for his own needs, instead of other people’s.

Out of all the previous characters you’ve played in film and television, which one would be most likely to buy meth from Milton?

HAHAHHAH, great question, I played a real life guy once, in a mini-series about NZ’s biggest drug-lord, he was a Scottish hitman hired to kill the aforementioned really big NZ drug lord, they chopped up his body, mashed his teeth in so he couldn’t be identified, but they failed to remember to take off his signature necklace, so the police identified him and the Scottish dude got put away. His name was Jimmy, he’d probably the number one candidate for purchasing Meth, but who knows, maybe the green ranger from Power Rangers was hittin the pipe before he got into the suit, he was pretty energetic.

Some of the cast and crew you worked with on Power Rangers RPM, like Ari Boyland and Madellaine Paxson, and of course Olivia Tennet, all were part of Blood Punch, did working on a production with them feel sort of like a Power Rangers reunion, what was it like working with them again?

It would have been like a reunion if we’d been away from each other in between Power Rangers and BP, but we hadn’t, I hung out HEAPS with Ari and Liv in NZ and I lived with Ari and Liv in LA, both making the film and afterwards, we all lived with Eddie and Maddy for about 6 months and consider them our closest friends, so it was really like making a movie with your friends/flatmates, which was mostly really positive, no huge downsides that I can think of. You’d think there would be, but unusually we are still very close.

New Zealand has had some popular films over the past few years, such as Deathgasm and Blood Punch, how do you feel about New Zealand filmmakers and actors getting the recognition they deserve?

I feel pretty good about it, generally I feel as though NZ cinema is getting well played and well received overseas. Actually just reading that last line made me think of something, and I feel like this is changing slowly, but in NZ we have this mindset of “Was it popular overseas?”…”It was!”….”Ok now we can like it!” even though it’s our own stuff. Perhaps it’s something to do with the size of our country, but I feel the biggest thing we’re learning is to value our own work, for it’s own sake.