Felicia Day

In Part I of our interview with cover girl Felicia Day, we talked about her music, her background, and her first work with Joss Whedon. In Part Two, we move on to her show The Guild, and to what Ms. Day is doing today.

Dr. Horrible … was not your first foray into web-casts; you had already written, produced, and starred in at least one season of your own creation, The Guild, by then. Bearing in mind that many of our readers are NOT familiar with gaming culture, can you tell us about The Guild?

The Guild is a web series about a group of online gamers and how they interact online and offline. It does focus on people who game together, but the aim is to not be exclusively for people who understand every reference. Just like you don’t have to be a surgeon to watch ER, you don’t have to game to watch The Guild..

I wanted to make a version of Friends or The Office with a geekier bent. I think the show resonates beyond just the gaming niche and it’s definitely my baby, I’m so proud of it!

What made you decide to write and produce for the web? I know you have a sponsorship/affiliation with MSN & X-Box now, but before that, was funding an issue?

I was frustrated with the opportunities I was getting in Hollywood as an actress. Sitting around waiting for the phone to ring was making me unhappy and frustrated, so I decided to write a pilot script about gamers, because gaming is a world that I know very well since it’s my vice.

My co-producer Kim Evey read it and thought it should be made for the web, since that’s where our audience would be: playing games. We self-funded the first part of season 1, and after that, when we ran out of our own money, we put a Paypal button up on the website.

It was a complete whim, so you can imagine our surprise when we actually accumulated a budget to shoot another episode! This continued for the whole season, 10 episodes. It was so fantastic, and an honor, that our audience loved the show enough they wanted to help us make it. Still bowls me over. Now we’re partnered with Microsoft and Sprint to release episodes, but nothing would ever have happened with the show without those donors.

As if everything we’ve already covered isn’t enough, you also keep a blog, and you’re active on Twitter. Is social media something you use solely for interacting with fans, or do your friends and family frequent your website and feed as well? My friends and family definitely are connected to me online, especially on Twitter. It’s very funny when my Dad calls me and asks me about what I’ve been doing lately, solely from information that I post on Twitter!

It’s a new world, but I love it. It’s important to me not to use the online world just for promoting my show or myself. The reason I went to the net to make things was because there were fewer barriers to entry, and an appreciation for authenticity. If I lose any of that I would be very sad.

Do you have a specific goal with regard to your blog, or is it pretty much just Felicia, unfiltered? Do you keep a private journal (paper or not) as well?

I wish! I’ve never been good at keeping a journal.

I love my blog because I post pretty much anything that interests me. I love helping other people and making them laugh. I’m not a single-focus person, so my blog tends not to be single-focus either. Sometimes people will request specific blog topics and I try to accommodate them as much as possible when I have the time. Most of the time I’m sharing book reviews or posting more intimate, behind the scenes blogs on acting, producing and writing.

Many of our readers are also writers. Can you tell us a bit about your writing process? Do you procrastinate until you have no more excuses, or are you fairly disciplined?

Procrastination is definitely a problem, especially with all the other things I have to do with the web show. One must wear many hats in the web world because there is not a lot of money there.

Finding uninterrupted hours to write is a real challenge. I find the best way to get something done is have a deadline, cut off the internet, and wake up early. Priorities, priorites. If you want it bad enough, or there’s enough pressure, it will get done!

As well, many of our readers are self employed, or at least work primarily from home offices. As an actor and a writer, do you consider yourself self employed? How do you stay motivated on days when you have nothing scheduled outside the house?

I love the days where I have nothing scheduled!

The challenge is reminding myself that even if I’m not getting paid for a task, it’s part of the job: The auditions, the spec writing, the web site. All of it. I’m my own boss, so again, I make lists of my priorities and stick them in front of my face wherever I tend to waste time (in front of the computer mostly). It encourages me to not waste 6 hours playing video games. I do that sometimes too though, haha!

What special techniques have you developed to balance work, home, and family or relationships? Do you have a hard time separating aspects of your life?

I am constantly struggling with that.

I am so busy all the time lately that my friends who are not connected to my web video work tend to fall off the radar and my schedule and that’s bad! I love social media, but if I’m spending hours a day with people I’ll never meet and not seeing good real life friends for month, that’s a problem.

I can’t say that I’ve mastered it yet, but awareness is the key. If I have to put “coffee with friends” on a to-do list, I’ll do it!

Take us through a typical day in your life. Are you a morning person, or are you (like me) the type who stays up to the wee hours because inspiration hit and you cannot stop?

I definitely don’t work well late at night. The more regimented my schedule the better off I am, but it’s very hard to muster the discipline because I am my own boss.

The best thing I do for myself is to stay off the computer until I’ve created something and exercised. Body and Mind and then work. The trap of the computer is so strong!

You turn 30 this year, which is a milestone birthday for many women. Is it one for you, or is thirty just a number? Is there anything you haven’t accomplished that you wish you had? Is there one thing you’re incredibly proud of?

I’m not really concerned with numbers. Age is relative.

I am very proud of what I’ve accomplished and am glad that at this point in my life I’m on a path that creates interesting work for me every day.

The only thing I wish is that I’d been more confident and bold years ago, to stop asking permission to create things. But every experience is cumulative, so without that procrastination I wouldn’t be who I am today.

And I’m actually happy with who I am for once!

Where do you see yourself in five years, or in ten? I think one of the reasons I got into this business was to prevent myself from predicting something like that!

I love the unexpected twists that can come in the entertainment industry. I would never have predicted I would enjoy producing web video as much as I do.

I would hope I’ll be continuing to create content outside the system. It’s something that gives me great pleasure. And if I keep inspiring other people to do the same, then I’m on the right path.

What’s next for you? Where can we see your work again, and what should we be watching for?

We are in production on Season 3 of The Guild, which will be coming out in the late summer on Xbox/MSN. I have another web series with Machinima.com which should be out soon as well. I also appear in a special DVD exclusive episode of Dollhouse, so look for me there!

Hopefully I will be producing a few other web series in the next year or so, it’s my goal to get more stories out there!

Wish me luck!