Director Mullen at helm of Wynonna Earp
When it comes to a westernthemed supernatural TV show, April Mullen doesn’t mind being a hired gun.
While still plugging away on her own movies, the Niagara Falls director was thrilled to step in last winter for back-to-back Season 2 episodes of Wynonna Earp. The first, titled Let’s Pretend We’re Strangers, airs tonight at 10 in Canada on Space, while the second — Whiskey Lullaby — airs next Friday.
It was a nice reprieve for Mullen, who is still in the thick of publicity for her sultry drama Below Her Mouth, and is busy prepping her next feature.
“It’s very refreshing, because you’re in for six weeks and then you’re out,” says Mullen from her rented cottage in Port Colborne where she’s writing a script. “It’s a much shorter commitment.
“It basically occupies your brain for six weeks but then it’s gone. Whereas a film I find occupies your brain for about three years. You’re just like constantly saying, ‘Would you get out of my head, you little bugger.’”
Based on Beau Smith’s comic which started in 1996, Wynonna Earp follows the great-great-granddaughter of mythic lawman Wyatt Earp as she battles demons and other paranormal threats in her hometown of Purgatory. It stars Ottawa’s Melanie Scrofano in the title role.
“I couldn’t even describe how much we connected, because we’re both complete, eccentric dorks at heart,” says Mullen. “We’re pretending to be adults in a big world.
“In high school, we would’ve done a lot of damage together.”
In addition to feature films such as 88, Dead Before Dawn and Badsville, Mullen has directed episodes of Bellevue, Killjoys and Aftermath.
Once she landed the Wynonna Earp gig, she binge-watched the first season and knew she was in her element.
“I loved how innovative the camera work was,” she says. “It was really different than most TV series and had a real hard comic book style to it. Fun, tongue-in-cheek, and there was like this wild, amazing bad-ass woman, which I really loved and gravitated towards.”
Filming took place in Calgary, which Mullen grew to love.
“I didn’t know what to expect when I was going there, and Calgary as a city is so far advanced than I envisioned,” she says. “Just their vibe of being immersed in the environment … I really loved being in nature. I would drive to the set and we would see foxes in the morning, and hawks. There would be packs of deer on set. A nice break from Los Angeles and the city life.”
Wynonna Earp has won a handful of awards and a loyal following since it debuted last year, with Variety listing it among the 20 best new series of 2016. The dialogue and offbeat plots have also earned raves, and Mullen says her two episodes will go over big with fans.
“In both my episodes, a lot of really big plot points are revealed, and there’s some heavy depth to the arc Wynonna takes,” she says. “I was really excited when I got to read my episodes — you don’t get to read them until you arrive.”
While she’d love to return for Season 3, Mullen is knee-deep in her next film, tentatively called Bloody Knuckles. The thriller starts shooting in Ireland in October.
She’s also still promoting Below Her Mouth, the R-rated lesbian love story with an all-female crew which earned Mullen national attention when it opened in February. She heads overseas Friday for the film’s Japan opening.
“It’s surprising, to be honest, because I never knew we’d pass through all of the censorship there,” she says. “I think it’ll be a really important film for the country.”