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Robert Mitchell interviews Trent Haaga after the World Premiere of
Deadgirl September 6th 2008

Mr Haaga having gotten his start working for Lloyd Kaufman and Troma Studios where he acted, wrote screenplays and co-wrote the book with Lloyd Kaufman Make Your Own Damn Movie Troma was a natural place to begin.

Robert Mitchell RM
Trent Haaga TH

RM "I am here in the lobby of Ryerson theater with Trent Haaga who I have been following since the Troma days. I was wondering if you still work with Lloyd Kaufman?"

TH "You know I haven't done anything with Kaufman in a couple of years, we still talk on the telephone and we are still friends but after having done two feature films and having co-written a book with him and doing a t.v. show and working as the head of production at Troma's offices in New York were else can you really go? I had to spread my wings and fly but we are still friendly and I love and admire the guy. (Lloyd Kaufman)"

RM "What was that like working for Troma? It must be a struggle to get such low budget independent films made."

TH "Well yeah, it always is and I'll tell you what it is, you make a Troma movie and people tend to put you in a box and I'm trying to crawl my way out of it and hopefully with this one (Deadgirl) will hopefully be a step in the direction I want to go."

RM "You have acted in over thirty movies and now you are moving more into screenwriting is that something you always wanted to do?"

TH "Absolutely I can tell you my acting career if you can call it that was a complete and utter mistake. I was a writer who was going to do a story about being an extra on a Troma movie and I went in to talk to Kaufman and I ended up landing the lead role in Terror Firmer and people saw that and they started giving me roles and my M.O. was to get in front of the camera and weasel my way behind the camera for the next gig. I acted in Terror Firmer and the next film that Troma did I wrote and produced it."

RM "Now your moving in the direction you want to go."

TH "Absolutely, I mean acting is a dog's life and I really appreciate the people who want to put me in their movies but I don't see a future for me in it, where as I mean I have gotten a lot more critical accolades and money from writing than I ever had from acting."

RM "It has got to be a lot more rewarding to take a blank page and turn it into a whole screenplay, a whole story."

TH "Absolutely and you have a level of  control than as an actor, especially working in a very low budget film as an actor you have absolutely zero control, zero control over the content of the script or how they are shooting it or anything and you seldom get more than one take anyway, so you don't even have control over your own peformance, so yeah ultimately as a writer you are in complete control until a bunch of producers and directors come in and say great job and you see what happens but I feel there is more of a future for me as a writer than as an actor and I am just fine with that."

RM "Since you are moving more behind the scenes, you have been a producer, a director of photography I can only assume you are making a natural progression to directing a film."

TH "Of course, I mean that is the ultimate plan. You know I came from a blue collar background, no one even thought I could make one movie and I have been doing these things and I have been producing and writing and acting  and learning so when I do direct than I am not going to make these mistakes that I have seen made on forty five previous features. It is going to happen real soon but that's all I can say."

RM "Now with Deadgirl and the subject matter do you think it will be a hard sell to distributors?"

TH "I hope not, you know but it wouldn't surprise me if it was a difficult sell. I was surprised someone wanted to make the film even though I always thought that it was a special piece of material. Now I have a script that once again I am shopping around town and no one will ever make this, so maybe in 2020 I will be able to direct it."

RM "And maybe we will be standing here talking about it"

TH "Exactly, exactly"