Tami Stronach film 'Man and Witch' still inspired by 'Neverending Story'

LOS ANGELES, July 26 (UPI) -- Actor Tami Stronach said making The Neverending Story when she was 10 inspired the rest of her artistic career, including her new film, Man and Witch: The Dance of a Thousand Steps , in theaters Sunday and Tuesday only.

Man and Witch is a fantasy adventure like the 1984 film in which Stronach played the Childlike Empress of Fantasia.

"I really credit The Neverending Story for inspiring me to be an artist, for inspiring me to make things," Stronach, 51, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. "It was a story that said, 'Go make things. Go be creative.' I really took that mandate seriously."

Stronach has been mostly off-screen in the 40 years since The Neverending Story was released. She danced with Neta Pulvermacher and Monica Bill Barnes dance companies before starting her own Tami Stronach Dance Company.

She also performed theater with Flying Machine Theater Company in the Soho section of New York City. Stronach's husband, Greg Steinbruner, wrote Man and Witch to encourage her to return to film acting.

Stronach plays the witch, who assigns a goatherd (Steinbruner) three impossible tasks in return for her love spell. She said it was fitting to return in another fantasy film like Neverending Story and her favorite film, The Princess Bride.

"Fantasy is this genre where we can tackle big philosophical questions in a whimsical way that's full of hope," she said. "So we can examine dark things, but there's always light alongside of it."

In Neverending Story, Bastian (Barrett Oliver) reads the story of Fantasia while hiding from bullies. The story of Atreyu's (Noah Hathaway) quest to save the kingdom bore lessons about coping with Bastian's life struggles.

Forty years later, Man and Witch uses a kingdom full of ogres and talking animals to address issues of love and social status. Stronach wanted viewers to know that Man and Witch presents a diverse kingdom with people of color and LGBTQ characters.

"We're just trying to present a fantasy world the way the real world is," she said. "It's full of lots of people."

The central story is about the goatherd looking for love. The witch purports to help, but the quests on which she sends him range from lifting legendarily heavy objects to learning The Dance of a Thousand Steps.

The Dance of a Thousand Steps enabled Stronach to apply her choreography skills, with help from choreographer Chase Brock. The dance in Man and Witch is far different from her professional dance days.

"We got some '80s moves in there like The Robot," she said. "I was definitely not doing that in my serious avant-garde dance company."

Stronach said that producing Man and Witch illustrated the difficulties of creativity and imagination. As production was to begin in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Man and Witch to relocate from New York to Scotland, where production was still permitted.

Stronach then faced issues securing visas, replacing crew members and weathering Scottish storms, while waiting to secure Fathom Events to distribute the film to theaters for two nights.

Stronach said she felt like she had impossible tasks like the witch gave the goatherd.

"Art imitates life," Stronach joked. "If the character in the film can keep doing impossible things, I can solve this week's crisis and next week's crisis and the next week's crisis and get it to theaters."

Faced with such struggles, Stronach again drew upon fantasies like The Neverending Story for motivation. In Neverending , Atreyu must wade through the Swamps of Sadness, a metaphor for lethargy that can hold people back from their goals.

"It's really important when we're tackling difficult subjects to not just sit and wallow in how difficult they are," Stronach said. "Then it's the Swamps of Sadness. You're done. You're not going to get up and change or do anything about it."

Stronach said she believes Neverending Story endured because it uses fantasy to focus on hope. She hopes Man and Witch can join her first film in offering hope in modern times.

"We need to focus on hope," Stronach said. "We need to focus on imagination being the path out of difficulty."