When first looking at "Repo! The Genetic Opera," certain folks might tuck their tails between their legs and run, but look closer and you'll find a dedicated cast and crew who ooze love for this project distributed by Lionsgate.

Directing is "Saw II, III, IV" helmer Darren Lynn Bousman (not the fifth and latest film), well fitted for the task at hand of capturing the essence of the musical-adapted film.

True, there's a lot of media attention surrounding Paris Hilton. You'll probably be asking yourself "Why Paris Hilton out of every actress to fit the role?" In truth, after speaking to Ms. Hilton at the interview, I found her to be very down-to-earth and a much more calm person than she may have been in her previous years. There's a certain shyness to Ms. Hilton despite being in the limelight so often and, turns out, she's actually a very sweet person.

Alexa Vega has certainly matured since her "Spy Kids" flicks, gone is the little girl but the bubbly personality looks in-tact. She's well-spoken and comes off as an intelligent girl with a keen eye on her future.

At first it's Darren Smith (writer) and Alexa Vega (Shilo Wallace).

Now were joined by followed by Bill Moseley (Luigi Largo), Darren Lynn Bousman (Director), Terrance Zdunich (Grave-Robber and Co-Writer) and Nivek Ogre. Paris Hilton (Amber Sweet) joined shortly after.

There's a certain British guy hogging the table...it was bound to happen at some point or another. Since my wife is half British I'll just ignore the limey this time...

Question:

Are you excited about the release or a little apprehensive or all of the above?

Terrance Zdunich:

"Well I think it's all of the above, at least for me. It almost can't come soon enough but at the same time you want people to be aware of it so it has a proper release. We debuted in Fantasia Film Festival just last week and we got to really see it for the first time with a real audience, the whole movie, and it was a wonderful and overwhelming experience."

Question:

How would you tell people what this film is about?

Terrance Zdunich:

"I think the most natural comparison would be 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' and I look 'Rocky Horror Picture Show and I think that's because: one - there's music involved, there's rock music involved, there's horror involved, there's certain futurism involved. But I think where 'Rocky Horror' leaves off and where we began is 'Rocky Horror' is a musical which means basically there's spoken dialogue and then there's sung numbers.'Repo!' is actually an opera which means that it's all sung. And then two - I love 'Rocky Horror' for this; 'Rocky Horror' is all basically about the camp and the flash and the fun and the glitter, and 'Repo!' has all that but I think 'Repo!' at it's heart actually has heart, it actually has a real human story at the center of it, even though there's all this wackiness. So I like to think that 'Repo!' is kind of a 21st century opera."

Nivek Ogre:

"I'm Pavi, face-stealing lothario"

Terrance Zdunich:

"I'm Terrance Zdunich, I'm the co-writer and composer and I play Grave-Robber in the film."

Bill Moseley:

"I'm Bill Moseley and I play Pavi Largo''s brother Luigi and we're constantly in struggles with one-another and our sister Amber Sweet, played by the redoubtable Paris Hilton and all of us are competing to try to be the next leader of GeneCo. Our father Rotti Largo, played by Paul Sorvino who's the head of the company and he's got a bad cough so we're all thinking about maybe succeeding him. And Luigi is a very violent character and overgearing but...I love my dad! I don't know about my brother but I certainly love my sister...I certainly love my sister."

Question:

What was it like working with Paris Hilton?

Nivek Ogre:

"Oh she was great! I think, coming from me, you see a lot of stuff written about somebody and you try not to let that affect how you see somebody. And then you see them in real life and you kind of see the more humanistic aspects of anybody and that kind of takes you a step back from all the things you try filter out on your own daily...you know, being bombarded by all these things about people and stuff like that. So there's things about her definitely that I can relate to, I see the struggle she has and I see what the human issue is ultimately, so that was a good experience."

Terrance Zdunich:

"It was a room full of metal guys basically and their kind of like 'Paris?' and she came in, and since at this point, I knew I was going to be playing Grave-Robber and Grave-Robber has, sort of intimate scenes with the character Amber Sweet that Paris plays. And so I'm there and we watched Paris come in and sing this song, she auditioned in this rool full of studio guys including myself and the two Darrens. And then the two Darrens sort of volunteer me to go up there, they were like 'Oh, Terrance is gonna play Grave-Robberr in the film. Here, use him as a prop!' So it was sort of a surreal experience; because on the one hand I'm sort of like...it's seems like it should be cool right, oh cool, you know this mega-celebrity is gonna kinda do a striptease almost for me. But she got down and she was professional and I was completely uncomfortable. It was really uncomfortable...watching...but then I realized no one was watching me anyway. And I got to relax and sort of watch it myself."

Zdunich's girlfriend is sitting on the table behind us and Moseley pipes "She was watching! Like a f#cking hawk!"

Terrance Zdunich:

"But anyway, so I realized nobody was matching me, they were watching her...and they were right to watch her, because she was doing a good job. That's when we were like 'Yeah, she's our Amber Sweet.' We saw a lot of girls for the part, she definitely stood out."

Paris Hilton and Darren Lynn Bousman enter in and the next round begins...read on for the Paris Hilton and Darren Lynn Bousman interview...

Interview By: Peter Dimako, Editor in Chief.

Thursday, April 24th, 2008 10:30PM PT. At the San Diego, Comic-Con

Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) (Released date: 11/07/2008)

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