Actress Brenna Coates chatted about the new thriller “Neon Lights,” which is available on Demand and Digital as of July 12 via Momentum Pictures.
On her experience doing “Neon Lights,” she said, “I miss it! We made lifelong friendships, had some good and loud times, and made an insanely haunting movie.”
She played Dr. Laila Mori in the horror movie. “Laila was so calm,” she admitted. “Laila is a therapist, and after going to therapy myself over the years, it was a real self-actualized treat to sit in the power seat for once,” she said with a laugh.
“Laila is quiet, centered, and restrained. I am none of those things. So I absolutely loved it,” she added.
Brenna opened up about working with her father, the iconic Kim Coates (“Sons of Anarchy”). “It was hilarious,” she exclaimed. “My dad and I act all the time together; I make him record my self-tapes. It’s usually over FaceTime, and I almost always have an attitude. But actually being on set with him was a whole different thing. We’re each other’s biggest fans, so we just made each other laugh throughout filming, and I had a designated person to have my introvert re-charge with while on set.”
For young and aspiring actors, she responded, “Does this mean I’m old? I really am not qualified to start giving people advice. But one thing I did when I was younger while at acting school, that I’m really thankful for, have that just lived my life. I didn’t ‘eat, sleep, and breathe theatre.’ I took classes that had nothing to do with acting, I fell in love like a million times, I was friends with non-theatre kids, I read lots of books, I fell in love with writing poetry.”
“I studied abroad and basically forgot I even was an actor for about four solid months. Now I have life experiences that I lean on all the time for my characters. My path was always gonna be that path. Don’t ever get insecure because you don’t know some obscure French Director, or because you’ve never seen some classic Hollywood film,” she elaborated.
“Do your thing, live your life. And just wait until the scripts start rolling through, and the parts start coming in. You’ll know exactly how to play it,” he added..
On her definition of the word success, she said, “It means fulfillment, it means contentment. It means making those around me proud.”
For horror and thriller viewers and fans, she concluded about “Neon Lights,” “Buckle Up!”
