INTERVIEW: Fiona Dourif on her work with Guru Shuroo
Photo: Fiona Dourif stars in the new movie The Shuroo Process. Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures / Provided by Rogers and Cowan with permission.
Fiona Dourif, the accomplished actor known for her work on The Blacklist, Chucky and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, prepared for her newest role by considering her own upbringing and personal life. In the movie The Shuroo Process, Dourif plays Parker Schafer who hits rock bottom after a longtime relationship fizzles out. She is sent into a downward spiral of drugs and eventually gets fired from her job. Her saving grace (or is it?) is to enter a remote wellness retreat with the Guru Shuroo (Donal Brophy, who is also the co-writer), but it doesn’t take long for Parker to realize she may have entered a cult.
“I’m a child of the millennial UFO culture kind of craze,” Dourif said in a recent phone interview. “My family was very into it. While it never got cultish … I was raised in a specific culture that aspects of the script sort of reminds me of. It was very specific of the time. I thought it was well-written and interesting, and I liked the director. … I thought it was a cool story. I wanted to be a part of it.”
Dourif sees her character of Parker as an addict and fighter, someone who is exhausted from the churn of modern ambition. Her hard work doesn’t pay off with satisfaction; instead, she is left with a life that feels spiritually empty. The actor signed on the dotted line for the role because she appreciated the vision that director and co-writer Emrhys Cooper had for the movie.
“I have to feel like me and the director are on the same page and trying to do the same thing,” she said. “I have to like it and feel like it’s got potential to be something that I think is interesting. … It was really fun. We were all together out in this isolated farm in the Hudson Valley — together, 13 hours a day, and living together in these houses. It also potentially started to feel like a cult. There was a lot of laughter. There was a lot of long nights. It felt like an adventure. It was great. I had a really great time making the movie.”
Dourif’s father and co-star in this movie is Brad Dourif, the actor known for the Child’s Play franchise and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Although she comes from an acting family, she didn’t become interested in a show business career until later in life. She remembers having thoughts of following in her father’s footsteps as a child, but then she headed down the path of producing documentaries for the History Channel and TLC.
“I used to produce and then do research on documentaries for production companies,” she said. “Then I decided to take a risk. It turns out, acting, if you can make it work, is some of the most exhilarating moments you can have. It’s an interesting life, and I feel very lucky to be able to do it.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Shuroo Process, starring Fiona Dourif, is now available in theaters and on demand from Gravitas Ventures. Click here for more information.
