Chainsaw Sally, the film, has become something of a cult pre-classic on the festival circuit, winning awards and finding itself in a minor bidding war among distributors at the moment. One can’t fault the logic that this has as much—if not more—to do with April Burril’s performance as the title character. Obviously, there would be no “Chainsaw Sally” without “Chainsaw Sally”, so we’ve stumbled upon a rather dumb argument. Despite that, the trained dancer and model doesn’t quite see herself as an “actor” yet.
“I still have a hard time considering myself ‘into’ acting. I’m doing this because it’s a lot of fun, not because I want to be some kind of huge star. Not that I’d fight it… I did play dress-up as a child… Sometimes I’d answer the door dressed only in a variety of colorful scarves and cartoony KISS-style Halloween make-up on my face, much to my parents’ dismay, so maybe there’s an element of destiny in there somewhere. My acting ‘career’ really started with some shows in Harford Dance Theatre, where I first met JimmyO and his sister, choreographer Katie Hutchinson. A few years after those performances, after JimmyO had moved down to Mississippi, started the theatre group “Jamo” and then returned to Maryland. He and
Katie called me up and asked if I wanted in on the fun. And, obviously, I did.”
Soon after, JimmyO and April married. Which begs the usual question: is it difficult to work with your spouse? “It’s pretty easy,” April says, copping an easy-going attitude and ruining any hopes of juicy controversy. “I know this sounds corny, but working with your husband is easy if you’ve married your best friend, which I have. Also, we’ve always kept things very professional when we work on shows together. When he’s a director and I’m in the cast, that’s just how we treat each other on set. No favoritism or petty squalling.”
As for the character, April seems pretty happy with her crazy alter-ego. She’s been a hit throughout the country, with fans at numerous horror cons lining up to snap a picture of their new favorite fatal fem, who has since added the baby carriage accessory (with Baby Willow included) to her ensemble. “’Chainsaw Sally’, as a character, has far, far surpassed any goals we originally had for her. She’s grown from [something] made for the sole purpose of promoting our stage show to its target audience to a surprisingly popular web personality and now a surprisingly popular film personality. Never in my life did I expect to spend hours out of every week keeping up with fan mail.”
As for ‘cutting loose’ (pun intended) during the film’s elaborate kill scenes? “Aaaahhhh, like a breath of fresh air…lightly tainted with the sweet scent of chainsaw exhaust.”
Coming up next for her, are two projects—one being the tale of “Countess Dracula”, also known as Elizabeth Bathory, and the second being the obvious follow-up, “Chainsaw Sally 2”.
“Crazier than ever!” she says with frenzied enthusiasm. “For me, I’ll keep on with my career as an artist and my alternate identity as punk-schlock slasher ‘Chainsaw Sally’ and I’ll only stop when it stops being fun.”
Visit the official Chainsaw Sally website.
