We recently connected with Darrin Archer and have shared our conversation below.
Darrin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?
I got into acting and filmmaking rather late in life. I was 43 when my wife read a script I had written years before. In fact, I had a box full of movie scripts I wrote while working in law enforcement. It was kind of a hobby I guess. I would write a movie script and just file it away. My wife loved the first script she found, RazorWalkers, a sci-fi thriller and insisted that I needed to try to get it made. She’s really the one who saw talent in me as a writer and later as an actor. Everything cascaded from that moment to now.
Darrin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My father was a Secret Service agent and a police officer and I followed his example becoming a Military Police Officer in the USArmy as a reservist in 1986. I signed the papers to join when I was only 16 and later became an NCO (non commissioned officer) and an instructor during Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield. After 7 years in, I joined the local Sheriff’s Department finally ending up owning a Bail Bond/Bounty Hunting company in 2000 when I met and married the love of my life, Katherine. We had a daughter we named Katrina and through the following years, fostered numerous children…adopting five bringing our family to eight in short order!
All the while, I took acting jobs on some well known tv shows; mostly to learn the behind the scenes production aspects of filmmaking. I never went to film school so this was my best option. I did land a recurring role on the HBO series, House of Cards where I played, Walter, the Airforce One steward and shared many scenes with some outstanding actors like Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright.
As a filmmaker, my high point has been producing one of my scripts into a full length feature film starring Costas Mandylor (Mobsters, Picket Fences and the Saw movies). It’s a WWII action film called, Talons of the Phoenix, slated for distribution later this year.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Resilience is a prerequisite in the movie business. That and patience. I formed Bullet Time Productions with my wife, and my good friends and fellow actors, Russell Patrick and Gus Zucco. Together, we were determined to make one of my scripts, a WWII feature film, but we weren’t sure exactly how to go about securing an investor willing to take a chance on our fledgling enterprise. The decision was made to create a six minute video…a trailer really. Demonstrating to potential investors that we were capable of making the movie, a period piece, on a small budget but with the look of a high budget film. Covid had just hit the world as we started sending around our proof-of-concept video. It stayed out there for years before we were contacted by an investor who loved it! We had faith in the project and ourselves and he saw that spark. We were in business and I truly believe it was because we never stopped trying to get our vision out there.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
In my former life as a cop, decisions are made in the moment and you own those decisions. Responsibility to make almost every decision for my job started and ended with me. That doesn’t fly in the movie business! It’s best done as a group effort with other people. While ultimately consequences of decisions made on a film rest with the producer, those decisions are made by dozens of people whose talents and drive push forward the project. The director, the writer, actors, and crew are resources. I’ve learned through the process to trust other people’s gut feelings over my own in a lot of instances. That did not come naturally to me but now, I can think of no better way to make a great movie!
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