Dan Palmer Interview

Dan Palmer. Remember that name. In the near future he’s going to be one of those people you pretend that you have liked from ‘the beginning’. You know like we did when Robert Downey Jnr clipped on the Iron Man suit , Jim Carrey put on ‘The Mask’ or Simon Pegg picked up a bloody cricket bat. Palmer’s new film ‘Stalled’, (which he co-wrote with ‘Freak Out’ director Christian James) is a perfect vehicle for his oddball mix of dry Brit sarcasm and Rowan Atkinson slapstick. We caught up with the co-creator of the hilarious zomedy that takes place entirely in that most private of places…

What was it like working inside a toilet for the entire shoot of a movie?

Well, in a way it was quite peaceful. I can recall reading rumours about a certain well-known Hollywood leading man who would allegedly sit inside a box between takes as not to lose concentration. I could get away with that without coming off as a prize winning pr*ck!

As well as scripting you also play the melancholy handyman WC who finds himself trapped in the ladies restroom by a rabid pack of zombies, were you always intending on playing the role and if not who did you have in mind?

Well, obviously all my characters will have my voice to a certain extent no matter if I play them or not, but the intention was that I would step into WC’s shoes ..err boots.. Myself and ‘Stalled’ director Christian James have had several bigger projects crash and burn so when we started putting ‘Stalled’ together we basically said ‘If we can’t get a film set in a toilet off the ground we should really retire!’ . When we found our producers in Richard J Kerrigan and Daniel Pickering they had faith in me as a performer, and in Christian as a director, so it really wasn’t much of a discussion. The fact that they couldn’t afford anyone else was also a great help!

It is a major acting achievement pulling off what is basically a one man show for the entire running time of a feature length film. From such a strong performance I was surprised, when looking at your filmography, that your credits are few and far between?

Well, I don’t chase roles in ‘Emmerdale’. I don’t have an agent and would obviously like one if they understood my work and sensibilities. I enjoy creating and acting in my own stuff but as that takes time it does mean that you do less things ..and buy less stuff ..and have sex with less girls. Hopefully with the positive reactions we have been getting from ‘Stalled’ I will begin finding stuff that floats my boat. I have already been approached about a few fun things as both a writer and/or performer so we shall see.

It would be a shame to not see you on our screens more. I was saying in my interview with your lovely co-star Antonia Bernath that your performance made me feel as if we had a new Pegg or Rogen on our hands..

Sebastian Pegg and Eugene Rogen?!! Those guys are my favourite chartered accountants ever!

Who would you like to write for and who would you like to act with?

Ooh, that’s a good question. In an ideal world, where we’re free to choose (to quote 80s crooners ‘The Christians’) I’d probably pick someone who could reel off all my word-manglingly long rants; someone like Cusack or Buscemi or Dan Aykroyd or Downey Jnr. ACTING with? Well as you so eloquently pointed out I haven’t done much yet so I would like to do more with some of my actor pals; I have projects planned with Antonia, Chris Wright (‘Faintheart’), Tamaryn Payne (‘Vendetta’) and Tamaryn Payne’s bum. Oh, I really like the stuff Jess Weixler is doing. She was in ‘Teeth’ and one of my favourite films of last year ‘Free Samples’ which I highly recommend. She’s want to watch, so that would be cool.

‘Stalled’ hits DVD and Blu-Ray very soon, to prepare ourselves name your Top Five biggest movie influences for ‘Stalled’?

‘Career Opportunities’, ‘Day of the Dead’, ‘Three O’Clock High’, ‘Before Sunrise’, ‘Brain Dead’, ‘Breakfast Club’ ..that’s six. Deal with it.

Aside from the movie, what treats lay in store for us on the DVD?

Oh, we’ve actually decided not to include the film. Just the bonus stuff, risky marketing strategy I know. I am joking of course. There’s loads of great extas; two beautiful board to screen comparison featurettes that show off all the beautiful storyboards that our artist Natasha Saville did. You could randomly pick anyone of her storyboards and it would be worthy to frame and hang on your wall. We also have the trailer, two commentaries and a behind the scenes which has no back-slapping waffle, just real fly on the wall stuff that anyone interested in the filmmaking process will get a kick out of.

Fantastic. What’s next for the ‘Stalled’ team? Are you already in the midst of something?

Well, hopefully our producers will be getting something moving asap. We have a weird, dark little sci-fi that I pitch as ‘The Machinist’ meets ‘Happy Gilmore’ that we should hopefully be gearing up for sometime soon.

Wow. I can’t even begin to imagine what that would be like! Well, we look forward to anything that the creators of this new comic-horror classic conjur up. Congratulations on all your success.

Thanks Sophie!

'STALLED' is available on DVD and BLU-RAY from February 24th.

You can order today at Amazon.co.uk or pick it up at ASDA .