{"id":15027,"date":"2019-06-13T19:59:14","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T23:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=15027"},"modified":"2020-05-01T10:25:54","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T14:25:54","slug":"high-velocity-victoria-rowell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/high-velocity-victoria-rowell\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria Rowell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; width: 100%; height: 400px;\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html?backgroundColor=%23f3f3f3&amp;d=sg18_lo-res_for_flipbook&amp;hideIssuuLogo=true&amp;hideShareButton=true&amp;pageNumber=212&amp;u=portlandmagazine\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h1>High Velocity &#8211; Victoria Rowell<\/h1>\n<h3 class=\"p1\">In spite of difficult early years as a foster child, Portland native\u00a0<strong>Victoria Rowell\u2019s<\/strong> ties to Maine are unshakable. Here\u2019s what she\u2019s up to now!<\/h3>\n<p class=\"p3\"><em>By Colin W. Sargent<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-15028 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/SG18-Rowell-278x300.jpg\" alt=\"SG18-Rowell\" width=\"278\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/SG18-Rowell-278x300.jpg 278w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/SG18-Rowell-200x216.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/SG18-Rowell.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 278px) 100vw, 278px\" \/>On May 10, 1959, future ballet principal, dazzling actress, Ph.D., bestselling author, and movie mogul <strong>Victoria Rowell<\/strong> was born at Mercy Hospital in Portland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">This summer, she\u2019s shooting a film in which she\u2019s the executive producer, director, screenwriter, and a lead actress. We caught up with her as her production company, Days Ferry Productions, LLC, revs up to full throttle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>The village of Days Ferry goes way back in Maine history before it became Woolwich. Established in 1754 on the banks of the Kennebec, it seems almost like a fable\u2014a magic place, like <em>Brigadoon<\/em>. Is Days Ferry your Castle Rock?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Well, I\u2019ll tell you, I love history. I cover my Maine connections in my memoir <em>The Women Who Raised Me<\/em> [Harper Collins, 2007, a <em>New York Times<\/em> best seller]. My mother\u2019s side of the family is buried in the Castine cemetery. In our family plot, one of our family members was the drummer boy for the 16th Regiment in the Revolutionary War. I named my production company Day\u2019s Ferry in 1999, when I was house-hunting along the coast. I was very close to buying a fabulous house on Peaks Island, with mature trees I loved but no septic. I couldn\u2019t be 3,000 miles away [in Hollywood] and have no septic tank! Anyway, I kept looking. And during this journey I saw a spellbinding place set on the water. It had gone many years unattended. It was in Days Ferry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>What\u2019s the name of your new film?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><em> Jacqueline and Jilly<\/em>. No ampersand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>Since you\u2019re the executive producer, director, lead actress, and co-screenwriter, how did you pitch it to yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">The logline is \u201cAn American family drama\u2014three women, two shattered dreams, one addiction.\u201d The father\u2019s a well-heeled lobbyist in Newport News, Virginia\u2014horse country. They share a charmed life. They live in the perfect house with a perfect, manicured lawn. There\u2019s the pious grandmother, the mother, and the daughter, training to be an Olympic equestrian. She has a nasty fall. When she turns to opioids, her mother goes into denial. How could our daughter possibly have become an addict? This couldn\u2019t happen to us. How could she possibly behave this way?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>What\u2019s the heart of the story?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">It\u2019s about the family peeling back the onion. I started tinkering with this story in 2006. Now we are in a pandemic with opioid addiction, with a 13-percent uptick in the last year. In the story, first there\u2019s the denial, then the acceptance, then the resolution. I pitched it to the Government Film Office in Washington, D.C. We\u2019re negotiating a Lincoln Theatre debut in Washington. The reason everybody\u2019s interested is because there\u2019s such a need. That\u2019s why it\u2019s PG-13. It\u2019s less on the optics of drug addiction than on the person who\u2019s in recovery, and the importance of family in contributing to that recovery. The goal is to have family early on have a conversation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>You directed all six episodes of <em>The Rich and the Ruthless <\/em>last year. Working in all three dimensions as executive producer, writer, and director, not to mention acting in the movie this summer, do you think you\u2019ll experience, at least creatively, multiple personality disorder?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Hollywood has changed because the industry has changed. UMC, HULU, Netflix\u2014the business morphs every day. There is heavy lifting as an executive producer, but luckily I\u2019ll have help there. I\u2019ve been to Virginia twice for the scouting process. We start production on July 21 and wrap on August 4. We\u2019ve been blessed with the Riverside Regional Hospital allowing us to film at an annex that is not being used at this time. I\u2019ve met the mayor of Newport News. Hampton University is allowing us to shoot on their historic campus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>What script software do you use? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">I like WriterDuet. It\u2019s an amazing piece of software that allows multiple writers to work on one script. My main co-writer is Patricia Cuffie-Jones. I\u2019ve already worked successfully with her\u2014I did one of her plays in D.C. For my computer, I use a Macbook Pro. You\u2019ll laugh, but as a Mainer, a daughter of Maine, I\u2019m an extremely practical person. My Timberland boots must be 18 years old, and this Macbook Pro must be eight years old! It reminds me of the 1955 Thunderbird I used to drive. Just because something\u2019s old doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s broken.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>Who are your lead actors?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Richard Brooks, a star from <em>Law and Order<\/em>; Daphne Reid [T<em>he Fresh Prince of Bel-Air<\/em>], a consummate actress; myself; and I believe in casting newcomers. Nikko Austen Smith plays the daughter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>Alfred Hitchcock says, \u201cGreat villain, great movie.\u201d Who\u2019s your great villain? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">The villain in this case is the opioid, the addiction. By virtue of the therapist and the doctor, who\u2019s played by Lamont Easter [<em>House of Cards<\/em>, <em>VEEP<\/em>, <em>Madame Secretary<\/em>], we\u2019re able to get facts to the viewer dramatically. I\u2019m consulting with Dr. Jocelyn Cox, a leading addiction psychiatrist in Atlanta [Associate Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Program Director at Emory School of Medicine]. She\u2019s been reading the script.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>Is there a figure who\u2019s the conscience of the film?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Yes, the grandmother, Zillah Stuart, is the conscience. As is the case with many grandparents, she might lament what\u2019s happening to her granddaughter, but she dotes on her. She\u2019s astonished that her granddaughter could be addicted to painkillers or worse. She is the North Star in the narrative. She offers levity too, which is important with this subject matter. There has to be a balance. The audience has to have tension and release, tension and release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>How much does your longtime foster mom in Maine, Agatha Armstead, float into Zillah\u2019s character?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Agatha is in all that I do. She\u2019s very regal and wise and humorous, like Zillah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>What\u2019s the funniest thing Agatha ever told you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">It\u2019s more mystical than funny. On her 60-acre farm in West Lebanon, Maine, where I grew up\u2014I went to school in Berwick\u2014we had an over 200-year-old farmhouse, a barn, and some outbuildings. She purchased the property after the war in the 1940s. She was a proper Bostonian\u2014very religious. I\u2019ll never forget what she told me. There was a big electrical storm that caught the house by surprise with its windows open. You know what big is for a storm in Maine. Well, a bolt of lightning went through one window and out the other! Agatha was my inspiration, the quintessential mentor. She studied piano at New England Conservatory, and it was she who saw my love of dance. Some people are meant to be raised by one mother. I was meant to be raised by many. Agatha guided me toward a dance scholarship in Boston [Cambridge School of Ballet] that lasted for eight years and started so much for me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>You\u2019ve acted with so many talented people: Forest Whitaker, Christina Ricci, Samuel L. Jackson, Dick Van Dyke, and even that force of nature Eartha Kitt. When you were in New Orleans to shoot <em>The Feast of All Saints<\/em> with Forest Whitaker, novelist Anne Rice was the executive producer. Did you watch her in action? Was there something you learned from her that you\u2019ll be taking into<em> Jacqueline and Jilly<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">We shot <em>The Feast of All Saints<\/em> in Canada. I didn\u2019t see much of Anne. Of course she was on top of the story. But all of that factors into the changes that are happening in Hollywood. The push for diversity. Fair economic exchange on both sides of the camera. For every 22 opportunities, one woman gets one. Right now, there\u2019s a sea change of change. I\u2019ve been diligent. And I appreciate all the influences that have come my way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong><em>Jacqueline and Jilly <\/em>explores themes of denial and the dangers of looking the other way. One of your earliest movie experiences was in <em>Leonard Part 6<\/em>, starring Bill Cosby. In the wake of #MeToo, our readers would expect me to ask you if he harassed you in any way.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">I never had a problem with Bill Cosby, but I have no reason to doubt the women who have shared their painful experiences. I\u2019ve met Camille Cosby and at least two of his daughters, but that does not diminish my sorrow for the women who have had this experience. I don\u2019t think every experience with every person is the same. In my case, it was paternal. I was a recurring character on <em>The Cosby Show<\/em>. What\u2019s happened is devastating.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Looking the other way really is an overarching theme with conflict. It\u2019s easier to look the other way from poverty, from the Israeli and Palestine conflict, from millions of hungry children, from immigration injustice, from people coming from many parts of the world looking for a better way. We are in a crisis. People are looking the other way when Hawaii is on fire. [As a culture], we look away from sexual harassment or addiction. In <em>Jacqueline and Jilly<\/em>, everything is perfect; everyone\u2019s driving the right car. One of the catalysts is the daughter taking responsibility for her addiction. But her mother wants to keep her quiet. Many generations of success are at stake. The father is a lobbyist [with a reputation to protect].<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">You really can\u2019t get sober and fight addiction quietly behind closed doors. It\u2019s not just the family, it\u2019s the community. Oftentimes when families are embroiled in this war\u2013this incredible struggle\u2013to keep a child or family member alive, the community should be involved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">I\u2019ve met with Mayor Price in Newport News. There\u2019s not a community in our country that\u2019s not touched by addiction. Addiction does not discriminate. It is staggering. It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re the CEO of a global company. It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re a doctor or the president of a college. <em>Jacqueline and Jilly<\/em> is important not because I\u2019m a part of it, but because we\u2019re all a part of it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>Since you grew up on a 60-acre farm in West Lebanon, I\u2019m guessing you know horses. When did you first ride one?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Our neighbors up the road were the Nadeaus. They had fabulous horses. I must have been seven or eight years old. I remember I was on a smaller pony and I got thrown. That really shook me up. I\u2019m a ballet dancer. I don\u2019t like to fall. I\u2019ve never been a horse person.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>Is that where you got your inciting incident for the movie?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">My daughter Maya was a rider. And she\u2019ll be on set as an assistant producer for the film. But I don\u2019t believe my early fall figures into the story. I just really wanted to give dimension and production value to the movie. And Maine always informs me on where to go\u2013nature and being outdoors. So much of story becomes interior, especially in a low-budget film. This helped me take the action outdoors. The whole idea of nature. I wanted the daughter to be athletic. I found a wonderful stable in Virginia. We\u2019re the sum of our experiences. We can pluck them out, and they\u2019re there. It\u2019s like a massive library.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>I blasphemed this morning when I refreshed my memory that your first foster family in Maine couldn\u2019t keep you because raising a mixed-race foster child was forbidden to white parents by Maine law. I know you\u2019ve said you love Maine. What in your heart keeps you from hating Maine?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">When your history is lost to you, you lose everything. I\u2019m currently looking for my African-American father. Dead or alive. Dr. Herb Nelson is helping me, and now we have some new advantages in modern science. My mother\u2019s family is of European descent. John Howland of the <em>Mayflower<\/em>, an early settler in Maine, is my ancestor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>Mine too! Nice to meet you, cousin. What a small,<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>wonderful world it is.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">I\u2019m the 13th generation. Why I don\u2019t hate Maine\u2026 I love Maine. I love my mother, Dorothy Collins, though she was unable to care for me due to mental illness. I\u2019m grateful to her for giving me life. She had no prenatal care. [In 1959] I guess they were feeling she was not going to be able to take care of this mixed-raced child. She got no support from her illustrious family, who turned its back. But that\u2019s too bad. We existed. Thanks to Mercy Hospital in Portland, those nuns [Sisters of Mercy] took care of me. I keep in touch with them. I\u2019m grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Taylor for campaigning to take me out of the Home [Holy Innocents on Mellen Street]. They were able to take care of me. Then [two and a half years later] Maine stepped in. They said, \u201cShe\u2019s black\u2013you can\u2019t keep her.\u201d The state of Maine took me away from the Taylors because Maine was one of 16 states where it was against the law for white parents to raise a black foster child. Maine gave me life. Maine inspired me. My second mother, Agatha Armstead, gave me this farm life: swim in the lake, pick blueberries, learn about flora and fauna, shovel snow and skate. This was a true childhood. I believe God gave me this experience because God knew that I could share it with others. HBO has optioned my memoir <em>The Women Who Raised Me <\/em>twice. When we get that green light one day, we can shoot some of the movie in Maine! The Maine Film Office does offer some incentives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In spite of difficult early years as a foster child, her ties to Maine are unshakable. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,943],"tags":[226],"class_list":["post-15027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-personalities","tag-summerguide-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15027"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18549,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15027\/revisions\/18549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}