Interview: April Hunter – Actress (The Meat Puppet), Pro Wrestler

Exclusive HorrorNews.net Interview : April Hunter

Congratulations on being the latest Horrornews.net VAMP!
What are some of your earliest memories of monster movies when growing up?

Thank you for having me! I grew up with The Munsters reruns…I’d have to wait until I went to my Grand mom’s house to watch it, since my mom didn’t let us watch much TV. She called it the “idiot box”. Because of the ban, I read a lot. Anything and everything. I’d steal my dads Stephen King novels when I was far too young to read them. After Cujo, I don’t think I slept though a night for a year.

Could you tell us a little about your character, Jade, in the new horror  movie “The Meat Puppet”?

I play a dominatrix with American Gladiator Jamie “Fury” Reed. Our serial killer comes to us for “self flagellation” punishment every time he kills. And we give it to him.

Do you have any interesting stories about making, “The Meat Puppet”? Well…yes.

During the aforementioned “giving it to him” beating, Jamie broke a riding crop across Keith Collins thigh…and I misjudged when hitting him…slapped him full across the face. We were still filming the scene…he took it like a champ and keep rolled with it! After though…you could see the marks!

What do you like doing more, being an actress or being a professional  wrestler? Any similarities in those two jobs?

I like both. With wrestling, you only get one take to get things right since most of the action is live. I love that I don’t do the same thing every day. Faust said: “A man can endure anything except for a succession of ordinary days.” I truly get this. I can tell you that with acting, I don’t have a hard time rolling out of bed with aches and pains the next day. So, I’d lean towards THAT!

What is your opinion of “nudity” in horror films and “nudity” in  professional wrestling?

If nudity fits in any story, it works. I’ve seen a bunch of borderline X-rated foreign films, like “Irreversible” and the original “Girl With A Dragon Tattoo” where the nudity was necessary to tell the story. It’s when it’s gratuitous and just thrown in there that the film gets downgraded a bit to campy. Wrestling has gone almost G rated over the last few years to appeal to families, so there’s very little controversy there any longer.

This next question is right out of the page of Pro Wrestling Illustrated, 
Who’s your toughest opponent?

LOL–I’d say the TSA in airports has been my toughest opponent. And they WIN every damn time. “TSA…are you listening to me? I WILL get my rematch. AND my stuff back! I WILL be bringing a full sized water bottle so you’d better watch out! And when I do…you will KNOW how something that LOOKS SO GOOD can HURT SO BAD.” Aside from that that lovely & patriotic service, I’d say my next toughest opponents have been in Japan. The Japanese wrestlers train religiously and bring it when they hit the ring. I’ve been lucky to work there so many times. They have so much amazing talent in that country, they rarely invite western wrestlers over.

I love the Philadelphia wrestling scene from a fan’s perspective. What is it like wrestling in Philly, as opposed to other areas of the country?

Loooooooooooooooooove it. I love coming home. Philly fans are crazy, loyal, psycho and I love them. I started in the northeast…I was trained in Boston by Killer Kowalski and drove up and down the turnpikes working from Baltimore to Boston and everywhere in between. The fans there are awesome, the wrestling is athletic, fast paced and hard hitting. It’s heavily influenced by the Latino & Japanese styles. Then I moved to Louisville KY and worked a lot of Indiana and Tennessee as well, where wrestling is part of the culture. That was a pretty cool experience as well. The style of wrestling there tends to be slower and more about telling a story. Working all over Europe, UK, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Puerto Rico…every place has its own style of wrestling and you become very well rounded by learning the many styles and working a variety of athletes.

Here’s a question for ya, what’s the craziest thing that ever happened to  you during your pro wrestling career?

A severely broken nose from a frigging HIP TOSS. The girl I was working wasn’t very well trained and reared back with her elbow and smacked me in the face as I was coming at her to take her hip toss move. I hit the mat and blood splattered everywhere. We couldn’t get it to stop…my friend grabbed two tampons, shoved them up my nose and we hit the hospital to get it cauterized. I was in Toronto and had a huge pay-per-view taping the next day. (BTW, the rumors you hear about Canadian health care aren’t true. There was no wait and it was uber cheap.) I couldn’t sleep all night, I couldn’t turn my head…and we had to revamp the match to make it storyline based because the doctor told me there was NO WAY I could do anything. Can you believe the idiot who hit me actually pleaded this: “I really want to do punches to the face…I’m good at them.” Um…one: f*ck you. Two: no.

Halloween is coming up. What is April Hunter’s ultimate Halloween costume?

A vampire! But I’ll be at Chiller Theatre (chillertheatre.com Oct 26 &27) in NJ that weekend with Jamie & we are planning naughty nurses and Angel/Devil for that weekend. So…I guess THAT is my ultimate costume. I’ll also be in Indianapolis for HorrorHound Nov 16-18 and may dig out Jessica Rabbit. I’m in quite a few comic books and trading cards, so it’s fun to do the Horror cons to promote and meet people. :)

What else is AWESOME right now in the world of April Hunter?

Everything. Life is awesome! Oh, you mean I’m to hawk my stuff now? Right. OK. I have an equally awesome website that’s a bit on the naughty fetish side for those of you who are inclined that way. Videos, Galleries & tons of Behind-the-Scenes stuff, too.

http://www.aprilhunter.com/  . And tweet me! www.twitter.com/aprilhunter

Interview: April Hunter – Actress (The Meat Puppet), Pro Wrestler