[Interview] Marika Sila for DITCHED
Courtesy DREAD

Desperate to escape an overturned ambulance, a group of paramedics are trapped with violent prisoners. The group quickly discover that they are the victims of an ambush with the perpetrators hunting them down one by one.

DITCHED is an upcoming horror film by veteran storyboard artist Christopher Donaldson in his directorial debut. In anticipation of the January 18th release, we sat down with lead actress Marika Sila to discuss her experience acting for the very first time, how she came to transition from dancing to acting, and what her favorite scene from the film was.

Editor’s Note: This interview is spoiler-free. 

I was taking a look at your website and saw a video of your hoop dancing, which was so beautiful. How did you transition from dancing to acting?

Marika Sila: I think I was nine years old at the time I decided to be an actress. I was on the set of Scooby-Doo. Our family friend was working on it and he was able to bring my brother and I on set at a super young age. By that point, I was like, I wanna be an actress! I was also obsessed with Miss Congeniality; I’d probably watched it like a hundred times. It took until I was 21 years old to figure out the industry and get my foot into it. At that time, I had found hoop dancing which really changed my life, to say the least. I was at a yoga teacher certification in Costa Rica and I actually found hoop dancing there. That was the beginning of me opening up to a lot of freedom in my life as a performer. It gave me the opportunity to make money on tour and fit my schedule around acting. Shortly after that, I went to acting school, and now I’m more focused on martial arts, stunts, and special skills for film and TV. But hoop dancing training really helped me build a core set of skills and the strength that I need to do all the stunts and everything else that I do in film and TV now.

Courtesy DREAD

I think it’s really great to see more people of Inuit descent on screen. Representation is so important. I’m wondering if your cultural background has been part of the conversation with the people you’ve worked with?

Marika Sila: I love that question. It’s a really good question because it’s so important. Equal representation in mainstream media is so powerful because storytelling has the ability to create empathy and compassion. I think that racism dies in the face of compassion. When we’re given an opportunity to tell stories and facilitate a space that creates compassion, it impacts our nation as a whole on a much deeper level.

For me, as an influencer and an actress, my goal has always been to create a platform where I can speak about Indigenous rights issues and climate issues. Being an actress has always been a vehicle that I have chosen to build towards what is more important to me, which is securing a platform to speak about issues that I care about. In DITCHED, I was so excited to play Melina because for so long, Hollywood has painted us as the stoic Indian from like a hundred years ago, so it was a great opportunity to portray Melina as the lead character, a paramedic in a modern position of power. She’s strong and brave and it was just a great opportunity to portray an Indigenous woman in mainstream media.

What drew you to this film particularly? Was there anything that really excited you about it?

Marika Sila: I hadn’t acted in a horror film or in any scary movie at all before. I’ve done thriller with the Twilight Zone, but I hadn’t done horror with gore and stuff. Growing up, I’ve always been just terrified of horror movies, so I thought it was a good opportunity to just see how things are done and how horror films are made so I could desensitize myself to that. Now, when I watch horror movies I’m just wondering how they’re able to make things look so real. It was so cool to see the prosthetics and how everything works. I’d never worked with fake blood before, and I didn’t realize how sticky it is! It’s like corn syrup and it’s just so sticky. It was just so much fun to see everything come together.

Courtesy DREAD

Was there any difficulty filming with COVID?

Marika Sila: We actually filmed the whole thing before COVID! I think COVID kind of put a halt in everything, so it took a while for production to get it out. Looking back I’m really glad because it would have been so hard to film during the pandemic, especially with how close together we were inside the ambulance. We were able to squeeze in everything before things got bad, so we got really lucky there.

Without spoiling anything, what was your favorite scene to film?

Marika Sila: Yeah, it’s actually in the trailer. It’s the one where I have the rock. That was probably the most fun. It was at five or six in the morning and we had been filming all night. It was just such a fun scene. It was also a really good opportunity as an actor to push myself out of my comfort zone. Before, I always acted in more stoic roles where I was more put together and focused. This gave me the chance to not worry about how I looked and just focus on the storyline.


DITCHED will be available on VOD on January 18th and Blu-Ray on February 15th. To learn more about the film, check out our review!

Vidya Palepu
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