Actor Eric Roberts stars in movie filmed at Dogwood Pass

Eric Roberts may not be a household name, but movie buffs know who he is.

Roberts has been in movies including: Purgatory, Batman: The Dark Knight, Expendables, Best of the Best, and The Righteous Gemstones, as well as made for TV movies.

Roberts, who may not be quite as famous as his sister Julia (Roberts) or his daughter Emma Roberts, he still is a big name in movies.

Although born and raised in Mississippi, Roberts has lived in a number of places.

“Well I’m out of New Orleans, Atlanta. But I have lived the longest in California,” Robert said.

One of Roberts’ newest roles was in a Western movie shot at Dogwood Pass in eastern Pike County. Filming was taking place in mid-August when the News Watchman staff visited the set.

“I think this is my fourth western,” Roberts said.

Roberts said he likes his role in the movie that is aptly named ‘Dogwood. Roberts’ character is the head of the bad boys gangs in this Western film.

“Well that’s why I’m playing it (the role). I just love this guy. He’s an entertaining a—hole. I play the bad guy, it’s as simple as that. I love the bad guys because they always have better clothes, they have like wilder women, and we get to die. It’s fun,” Roberts added. “I like to die. In fact, I’ve had a fan send me a montage of all the times that I’ve died … hundreds (of times). Then I had another fan who sent me a montage of the people I’ve killed … thousands, who knew?”

When asked what made him want to be a part of this film, Roberts said, “I love westerns, and my wife and I did a lot of homework on this boss (director of the movie Dianna Renee). We liked the homework we got on her; we liked her.”

Roberts is enjoying his life as an actor.

“That’s why I do this stuff because it is fun,” Roberts said. “I do not work for a living. I just have a good time every day. We have the best job on the planet. Everybody in our industry loves coming to work. That’s not true in most businesses.

“I love being an actor like I love being married to my wife all day every day. You know what it is, we all have fancy places we went to school. Like I went to Rodin, this stuff. It’s fancy, but the bottom line is we’re just movie geeks, we love movies and we love actors, we love movie magic, and we love setting up. We love fooling people, it’s our hobby. That’s what we like doing.”

Roberts wanted to emphasize the fact that a woman (Dianna Renee) is directing a film of “basically all boys”. He said she’s so good at directing, and everyone on the cast and crew likes her.

“It’s a man’s industry; I mean men started it and men own it. But now women are breaking in properly, you know about two generations late, but they’re breaking in finally. It’s true we should’ve started this in the fifties with women, but of course we didn’t. Fifty-five years later, we’re letting them in slowly because we’re a bunch of selfless boys, you know(us men), just how it works.”

According to Roberts, there are dozens of people in the cast of the movie Dogwood. There is a calmness, no freak out atmosphere with the cast and crew on the set of the movie. He’s also thrilled with the location and how real the town is in eastern Pike County.

“Well Dogwood Pass is blowing my mind for a couple of reasons,” Roberts said. “First of all, the screenplay was written about Dogwood Pass before they knew this place existed. They found this place by accident, I’m like Dogwood’s called Dogwood, what? So I find it all very fortuitous, a little bigger than us, I find it cool.

“Oh I love southern Ohio, it’s a beautiful place and it reminds me of north Georgia,” Roberts said. “The landscape, topography, it’s the same difference to me. Never been in this state, so far so good. Yeah, I like the peeps, everybody’s really sweet, even on the street. It’s a nice part of America.”

Producer Ruby Beckwith said she still has some work to do like looking at distribution contracts and other things before knowing when and where the film will be released. She hopes the Roberts’ star power and the high quality of the acting will gain some recognition.

“Because we do have a name star Eric Roberts, we’re hoping to be able to produce it in such a way that it is so well done that we are looked at in some of the top-tier festivals,” Beckwith said. “So, the tribeccas, the sundances, the cons film festivals, hopefully we can get such a great following that perhaps someone will help contract with us. So that we can get it on Netflix, we can get it on Amazon, we can get it on the top-tier subscription services to really put Pike County on the map.”