Saturday, March 8, 2014

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Ginger Parker and Luis Bustamante on the Creation of their Web Series BEVERLY PILLS, and Why the World is Ready for Scarlett Davis!

Socialite Scarlett Davis is used to the good life. But when she loses her money overnight, what is a girl to do? If you are Scarlett, you start selling prescription medication and make a killing doing it! Scarlett isn't any ordinary girl and BEVERLY PILLS isn't any ordinary web series. We Love Soaps received a sneak peak of the first episode, and Ginger Parker is truly hilarious as the wacky Scarlett with lines like:

"Carry this money, it's heavy!"

"God the new dog next door is so cute. Go by me one twice as cute!"

"I promise I married her for love, not for her green card, so she can clean for free!"

We also learn what an Asian Martini is! BEVERLY PILLS brings the laughs and we spoke with the masterminds behind the series, Luis Bustamante and Ginger Parker. Read our exclusive interview below.

WE LOVE SOAPS: How did you come up with the concept of BEVERLY PILLS?
LUIS BUSTAMANTE: I graduated in September and was doing my thesis film and made a short. I got a bunch of my hilarious and very talented friends to be in it. Then Ginger, my producing partner and protagonist, and I had this idea of grabbing from the film we already had and expanding it into a bigger and wider storyline. The film starts and ends where the season starts and ends.
GINGER PARKER: We thought the characters had so many little storylines that we couldn't wrap up in a short film or a feature. There are so many opportunities for programming on the internet now, so it revealed itself after we already had the ball rolling as a short film that it would work really well in the medium of the web world.

WE LOVE SOAPS: Indeed. How would you describe Scarlett?
LUIS BUSTAMANTE: She is the kind of girl who has never had to work a day in her life. She was encouraged not to. Little did they know that she has always wanted to be a business woman. She has always had this fire inside of herself to be more than a rich girl. Inside she is a hard worker, but she doesn't have the skills for regular work. And now that she has this access to prescription medicine, she thinks this is my business, and I don't care if it's legal, I will go ahead and sell some pills and make ends meat. But at the same time she is a really sweet girl, and loves her friends to death. She has these two best friends who she ends up supporting. If we were to compare it to a sitcom, she is the mother figure and the matriarch.

WE LOVE SOAPS: So Ginger, how hard is it to tap into your inner Scarlett?
GINGER PARKER: Luis and I have this kind of friendship and banter back and forth. We love inappropriate joking, and joke with our friends like that. While walking around the streets of LA, you see people who resemble Scarlett Davis, whisking away in their Lexus. It’s not hard. It’s fun to turn on that side to that way of thinking. The banter between the characters, because we are such good friends and know each other, comes very easily.
LUIS BUSTAMANTE: Ginger is the nicest, warmest, sweetest human being you would ever meet and she has to say the most horrific things that anyone can say. As soon as I would yell cut she would turn from this total c-word back into Ginger, she would say, "I'm so sorry for calling you that," because a lot of this is improvised.
GINGER PARKER: Sometimes we wrote things out there, some of those horrible things you would say to another person, like Scarlett Davis says all of the time, and then see their natural reaction in the editing process, and I was like, "OH!"

WE LOVE SOAPS: I have to say I am little jealous that Scarlett has access to so many pills! How does she have all those pills!?
GINGER PARKER: [Laughs] Well, it starts out in the first season, which you will see in future episodes. There is an incident that happens with her psychiatrist. But these are also Beverly Hills socialites with a healthy stash of their own and we hope in later seasons to present some characters around town who are also in the business.
LUIS BUSTAMANTE: All of these characters have an ongoing addiction but they don't consider it an addiction. These characters don't know right from wrong, sort of like a Seinfeld complex. It's how their life is.

WE LOVE SOAPS: Will Scarlett have a love life? Will she find a man?
GINGER PARKER: Perhaps in future seasons. We are toying with that.
LUIS BUSTAMANTE: The focus of the show has to do with pills obviously. But the main focus of the story is this love unit, this family unit with her two best friends who are also down on their luck. If there was to be a love story it would be between these three best friends who are trying to survive together. In future seasons, we would definitely want to explore seeing Scarlett going through a romantic experience. It would be the most opposite of normal character that we would see her encountering.

WE LOVE SOAPS: Just by seeing the first episode, there is so much to go through with Scarlett. How many episodes can we expect to see in the first season?
LUIS BUSTAMANTE: The first season will have six episodes. Some episodes five minutes, with some that go up to eight or nine.

WE LOVE SOAPS: How often will they be rolling out?
GINGER PARKER: They are coming out every other week, starting on March 10th.

WE LOVE SOAPS: Why is the world ready now for BEVERLY PILLS?
GINGER PARKER: [Laughs] I think the world has been ready for a long time for BEVERLY PILLS. It is slapstick comedy that is a wonderful take on a lot of the characters that are being focused on in reality shows, and then we take that into a sitcom effect. We hope this shines the light on how ridiculous this lifestyle is, kind of show a comedic take on a more down and out story. People can laugh at it and not be offended and not program their life like that.
LUIS BUSTAMANTE: Since we have been living in LA for quite some years now. We have both gotten to know and see behaviors and patterns in certain people. This happens out there. These characters exist and we want to portray them in a lighthearted way.

WE LOVE SOAPS: So it’s debuting March 10th, at what time will it debut on the internet?
GINGER PARKER: Noon! BeverlyPillsTheSeries.com!

WE LOVE SOAPS: So I have to know, will there be a cliffhanger at the end of the sixth episode?
LUIS BUSTAMANTE: It sets everything up for people to wonder exactly what happens next.  It's a definite cliffhanger, a new dynamic from the first season, with the same comedy and tone.

WE LOVE SOAPS: People are going to enjoy it. It’s really funny and I laughed many times. After watching the first episode, I have so many questions. I want to know about her daddy issues, where her dad is. but I guess I will find out in the future?
LUIS BUSTAMANTE: If you think Scarlet has daddy issues, you should hear about her mommy issues later on!

WE LOVE SOAPS: Mommy and Daddy issues! Oh no, poor girl.
GINGER PARKER: She's making it. Don't worry. There is so much story with all of these characters, and we hope to get to play it out for quite a bit

WE LOVE SOAPS: So there is a season two?
GINGER PARKER: We will be shooting in April, and releasing a few little sneak peaks from shots on set, fun things like that. They will get some previews before it actually comes out in August.

WE LOVE SOAPS: Is there anything else you want to tell the world about the series?
LUIS BUSTAMANTE: The tone of the story is there is a lot of comedy. But there are also a lot of stories that progressively develop. Each episode isn't stand alone. Everything builds up to the next storyline and all these different characters start unraveling in different ways. There is a lot of mischievousness, quirkiness and slapstick. This show caters to a lot of different tastes, and we touch on everything. We touch on gay issues, and we discuss obviously all of the issues involved in taking these massive amount of pills.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Thank you to Ginger Parker and Luis Bustamante, and look out for the debut of fun new web series BEVERLY PILLS on March 10th at BeverlyPillsTheSeries.com.

Michael Goldberg is a freelance contributor to We Love Soaps covering daytime drama and web series.

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