Christian Kane

An excerpt from "Don’t Be Scared" by Abbie Bernstein. Appearing in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Magazine Issue 30 Apr/May 2007

"Christian Kane is chatting in the lobby with fans at the Be Scared convention at the Hilton Hotel in Burbank, California. He’s having a great time and explains why. ’I really like this, because it’s so intimate. I’m actually hanging with people, and talking to people, and getting to know people.’

People in turn are getting to know a good deal about Christian’s upcoming film project, Death Walks the Streets, which he both produces and stars in. Writer/Director James Zahn has flown in especially from Chicago to talk about the movie on a panel with Christian, actor/musician/associate producer Jason Manns, and co-stars Scott L. Schwartz (recurring Buffy and Angel demon guest actor), Justin Mentell, and Tom McCafferty.

Director James Zahn explains that he and writing partner Ben Brezinski wrote the original Death script between 2004 and 2005. The screenplay got good "buzz" and they were approached by studios, but James decided he’d rather have less money and more control. Executive producer Matt Pletcher came aboard and got Christian and Saw III executive producer Daniel J. Heffner involved. The story, the first part of a trilogy involving vampires, werewolves, demons, organized crime, and corrupt cops, is set in Chicago where most of it will be filmed.

The lights are lowered for a showing of preliminary art of some of the characters, both human and other, from the film. Scott quips ’I hope this isn’t a bad time to bring this up - I’m afraid of the dark.’

’I’ve been a part of this thing for over a year now,’ Christian says of Death. ’It’s got a lot of great stuff. James has a lot of Joss [Whedon]-type stuff in there - it’s not that he’s trying to copy, because he didn’t work with Joss - but this reminds me more of Angel than anything else I’ve seen so far.’

Christian’s character, Michael, is an ex-convict who was part ot The Organization. Christian describes Michael as a good person, but an anti-hero. ’He’s a lot like Lindsey - he wants to be good, but he doesn’t know how to do it. At the same time, if something comes up, he has no problem being bad.’

Christian looks forward to working on location in Chicago. ’[In] L.A. you have to go home [at the end of the day]. On location you don’t drop your character to go back to your life. I like to go on location - I think you get a better film.’

Scott, who has Ocean’s 13 coming up, says he excited about Chicago for a different reason: ’I’m looking forward to Chicago pizza!’

Additionally, Christian says he’ll be doing some music for the film. ’It could be country, it could be rock and roll. I really want to get into the film and then work with [Kane bandmate] Jason Southard on the music - he lives on this stuff.’

Apart from Death Walks the Streets, Christian says he’s primarily a singer/songwriter at present. ’There’s a couple of [acting] projects on the back burner, but I’m actually living in Nashville right now and concentrating solely on the music. I feel like I have to give that 100 percent of my attention because you only get one shot at a lot of things. So I’m really concentrating on that. Not to say that if something comes up - and especially with Death Walks the Streets - that I won’t go and do that, but right now, I’m very conservative [in directing creative energy toward music]..."