Exclusive Interview with Holidays’ Savannah Kennick

Savannah Kennick is an up-and-coming young actress from Pennsylvania. I recently had the opportunity to speak with her about her new movie, Holidays, out now on iTunes and Amazon.

What can you tell us about Holidays?

It’s a horror anthology movie that follows eight different stories over eight holidays and some pretty crazy stuff goes on. Not gonna lie (laughs).

How did you get into character?

I worked a lot with Dennis (Widmyer) and Kevin (Kolsch), actually. We had to do a lot of rehearsals and they had to really push me to get so angry all the time. I completely forgot about this: whenever I was doing press earlier for the film and I saw them a couple of days ago and they reminded me of us sitting in the locker room just them constantly telling me “Savannah, you have to amp it up, you have to do more, you have to be more angry.” And that, of course, got me so angry that I was doing scenes and I just started spinning because I was so angry. (laughs). They had to push me a lot. But thank goodness! I’m not that mad all the time.

What was your audition process like?

I got the script on a Thursday and the audition wasn’t until Monday, so I had a lot of preparation time with it. I got to really dive in and work really hard on it, which is a really weird thing as an actor. You normally only get it the night before, and it’s 14 pages and you’re like “ok, great guys!” But I went in on a Monday morning and Kevin was in the room and he let me play with the scene and we did it a couple of different ways. I can honestly say it’s one of the best auditions I’ve ever had. Then Tuesday morning I got the call that the part was mine and I was ecstatic.

How long did it take to film?

We filmed over three days. Not very long, sadly.

Since your part of Holidays is Valentine’s Day, do you have a best or worst Valentine’s story?

That’s a tricky one! I normally don’t think about Valentine’s Day, it’s a weird holiday to celebrate. Worst Valentine’s Day was when I went out with a guy and he didn’t pay for his dinner because he forgot his credit card. I was like “I’m a lady, I’m not buying you dinner.” (laughs). That was the worst. I’m only 17 so I don’t have many Valentine’s Day stories!

I don’t celebrate so I don’t have any stories either!

(laughs) Good! We’re in the same boat.

If you could have been in a different part of the film, a different holiday, which one would you have chosen?

My top two would be “Father’s Day” or “New Year’s.” They were mind-blowing.

So what inspired you to get into acting? I know that you did some modeling before.

When I was 14 I got scouted by a modeling agent and I moved to New York City. A lot of my friends were in film school and doing student films and were writers and writing. I grew up with really creative parents and they always wanted me to do something crazy, something creative with my life. I very quickly realized that I just love storytelling. And I just remember being 10 years old and watching movies and just being so touched by characters and feeling like that made sense to me. So I expressed it to my modeling agent that I was interested in it. And maybe just commercials or something, I never really thought that I would get anywhere. Then I met my manager and moved to Los Angeles about a year and a half ago.

How did you balance school and acting at the same time?

I graduated right before I got this film, which is crazy. (laughs). I don’t really have a problem balancing those two things because it’s two things that I take very seriously. Balancing a social life was very complicated. But it wasn’t really that hard because I take my job very seriously. It didn’t stress me out, luckily!

I hear that you enjoy writing. What do you like to write about?

I write a lot of things! I write poetry. I just wrote this really cool sci-fi/horror pilot script with my two really good friends, so that’s been a big project. I write short film scripts. I write a lot of things but I kinda just write for myself. I don’t really show it to anybody.  

Holidays just came out. Do you have any upcoming projects? 

I’ve been working on a couple different things, reading a lot of scripts, going to auditions. I actually have one as soon as I get off the phone I have to leave for. But I’m just really trying to work on projects that mean something to me because so much in television has impacted my life already. So I’m really picky with what I’m doing. I want to create things that I’m really proud of. I don’t want to look back in 10 years and say, “oh I hope nobody sees that one!” So nothing right now, but hopefully in the next month or so something is going to take off.

What makes you a nerd?

I’m sure my friends would tell you, it’s a little weird to me, but I graduated with a 4.2 GPA. I’m very into science and math. Extremely nerdy with science and math. That and I can probably quote a line from every classical movie you can name. Like, every line in Gone with the Wind.