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Five Minutes With Tara Perry
As a young girl growing up in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Tara Perry always knew she wanted to be in show business. She got her start in local pageants and eventually made her way to California, where she found work in both television and film. Her TV credits include appearances on "How I Met Your Mother" and "Jimmy Kimmel Live." Her resume also includes national commercials, voiceovers for cartoons and independent films.
Her latest gig is as Demand Media's Movie Maven, where she gets to combine her two loves: acting and comedy. Perry hosts reviews of upcoming feature films and gives her take on movies that are hot or not.
How did you wind up as the Movie Maven?
Rich Kuras (the Movie Maven producer) and I met at the Empty Stage Theater where we did improv together. He called me up, said he had an idea for a show and asked if I'd be the host.
How much time do you put in for one segment, including any rehearsal and involvement in the editing and production process?
Each episode is different. Sometimes I'll head down to the Mania office to watch trailers and crack jokes with Rich to get ideas. We also discuss if it should be a green screen episode or a sketch-style one. The sketch-style episodes are usually shot on location. I LOVE the sketch episodes. We got to do one on the Pier, the Renaissance Faire, and of course we went to Austin for South by Southwest and to San Diego for Comic Con. Those take a bit of rehearsing just so all the jokes are delivered properly. There's not much of a rehearsal process though for the green screen episodes. A lot of the best parts are the unexpected ones. It takes a few hours per episode to film, and if it takes longer, it's because we can't keep from laughing. We have enough footage for five more blooper reels!
What's a typical day or shoot like? Do you work off a script or do you mostly ad lib?
Once we start filming we do a few takes following the script that Rich drafted up, and then we'll do a few takes with me improvising. Then it all gets edited together. I'm not in that process. I fully trust the guys in that department.
How is working as the Movie Maven like or unlike other TV, video and Web work you've done?
I love it because I have a lot of creative freedom. With the Movie Maven, a lot of my favorite parts are my reactions that the camera happens to catch, quoting other movies and the ad libs. It's really relaxed and always fun. It's also really nice because there is such a variety to the show. Not only are there the episodes with a green screen, there's the sketch-style ones, red carpet interviews, man-on-the-street [types] and videos of us sitting in on panel discussions. Who knows what we'll come up with next!
What do you like to do when you aren't being the Movie Maven?
I do improv every week. I perform with Big Bennessy at iO West in Hollywood and the group Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em. I also love to paint, hike, go to museums and of course, see as many movies as I can. Also, if it were possible, I'd go to Disneyland every day. It's my favorite place to spend a free day.
How did you wind up in show business and, particularly, comedy?
I always knew I wanted to be an actress. I did pageants in my younger years as a creative outlet and when the judges asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was always "a brain surgeon or a comedian."
I guess that was my first experience with stand-up. I had a musical theater scholarship to the University of Mississippi but decided at 19 to move to LA. I figured with what I wanted to do, I needed to be in LA to do it and the sooner the better. But stay in school kiddos!
I started taking improv classes as soon as I got here at the Groundlings, Upright Citizens Brigade and Improv Olympic. I also take acting class at the Lesly Kahn Institute.
What pageants did you do?
I was Arkansas' Junior Miss in 2004, but I never thought I'd do pageants. I was a bit of a tomboy growing up. Not like, I never wanted to wear dresses; more like, I'd rather play soccer, video games, build forts and watch "[Teenage Mutant] Ninja Turtles." One day, my sister brought home a flyer for a pageant from her school, and I think I said something like "Yeah, I could do that.” I did and won. I found that I really liked the feeling of an entire audience laughing at me. Strange, I know. But it was my first taste of the entertainment biz, I guess.
What was the first movie you reviewed as Movie Maven?
Actually, our first episode was called the "Mania Minute," and it was very much a test. It was a short entertainment news show where we talked about rumored projects of Mania's favorite directors and writers and what comics and DVDs were coming out.
