Newtown Native Is Co-Producer For <br>'Ten Days In A Madhouse'
In 1887, The New York World’s “girl correspondent,” Nellie Bly, committed herself to Blackwell Island Mental Institution (now Roosevelt Island) in order to investigate, first hand, and report on the conditions there. Her experiences, published in The New York World and chronicled in her book, Ten Days In A Madhouse, is now a film of that same name, from Pendragon Pictures.
Nellie Bly’s faith in her ability as an actress led her to accept this assignment. It was a path not unlike that of Newtown native Saskia Larsen Fredericks, who has co-produced and is featured in the film, which premiered November 11 at the AMC Empire 25 movie theater in Manhattan. Ten Days In A Madhouse was released nationally on November 20.
A certified school psychologist and massage therapist for 12 years, the 1999 Newtown High School graduate decided, after some introspection, to deviate from that set path.
“I always thought I’d be good at acting, and I have no idea why,” Ms Fredericks said. “I wasn’t even in a school play in high school, or involved in community theater. I had thought about [pursuing acting] when I was in my twenties, but never had the courage to do what was outside of my training.”
When she finally screwed up her courage, she took all of her savings and enrolled in the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City, receiving her degree in method acting in 2013.
Ten Days In A Madhouse is a first for Ms Fredericks, both in acting and producing.When she saw that Pendragon Pictures was doing an international search for the movie, she was drawn to the story of the young reporter who stands as a champion of journalism, women’s rights, and the rights of the mentally ill.
“I actually did a self-taped audition on my cell phone and e-mailed it to them,” she laughed, as did nearly 8,000 other women. While she was not offered the title role (that went to 23-year-old Caroline Barry), Ms Fredericks was hired to depict Nellie Bly’s mother in a flashback scene. That scene was cut, she said, but director Timothy Hines then cast her in two different roles of abused women at the asylum.
She appears in the opening scene, alongside actor Christopher Lambert. It is a scene that is disturbing, Ms Fredericks said, as are the scenes she plays as another tormented patient. She is pleased that both are speaking parts.
“It is weird that my first film would be portraying abused women,” she said, as she finds it difficult to watch any violent movies or depictions of violence against women.
Co-producing the movie gave her the chance to be involved in many aspects of the film. A co-producer, Ms Fredericks explained, is a person on the set who acts as a troubleshooter. She and Donovan Le co-produced, doing everything from driving other actors to and from the airport, brainstorming scenes, and networking on behalf of the film. “I’m a ‘go-pher,’ and a voice for the movie,” Ms Fredericks said of co-producing.
An Early Whistle Blower
In the introduction to her book, Nellie Bly writes, “I am happy to be able to state as a result of my visit to the asylum and the exposures consequent thereon, that the City of New York has appropriated $1,000,000 more per annum than ever before for the care of the insane. So I have at least the satisfaction of knowing that the poor unfortunates will be the better cared for because of my work.”
Believing that Nellie Bly’s story remains as significant today as it was over 100 years ago, Ms Fredericks has approached the Government for Accountability Project in Washington, D.C., in hopes of receiving funding and cross advertising for the movie.
“The GAP protects whistle blowers, and Nellie Bly was certainly an early whistle blower,” Ms Fredericks said.
Ten Days In A Madhouse was filmed over two years, in Anaheim, Calif., and in Salem, Oregon. Salem, Ms Fredericks noted, is the same town in which the 1975 film, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, starring Jack Nicholson, was filmed. Ten Days were filmed in Fairview Training Center in Salem, an abandoned mental institution that Ms Frederick’s deemed “all around creepy.
Scenes for
“It was a huge, abandoned building where people had been mistreated. It was falling apart, there was no heat, and we kept hearing noises,” she said.
Ms Fredericks had the opportunity to see herself on film for the first time in May, when Ten Days In A Madhouse was shown at the Bentonville (Arkansas) Film Festival, chaired by actress Geena Davis.
“It was very strange to see myself on film, and that opening scene was hard for my family to watch,” Ms Fredericks admitted.
She is delighted that the movie has been well received since its premiere in New York, with an 8.6 rating at Internet Movie Database (IMDb).
“It’s a hard movie to watch, really a sad story,” she said.
If the film does well, said Ms Fredericks, she hopes that it will be released to a broader audience. Currently, it is expected to be released in theaters in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, New Jersey, Washington, DC, and California.
What is next for the Newtown native is still to be seen, but she is hoping to be involved in a new project, soon.
In a phone conversation of December 1, Ms Fredericks said she expected the film to be released in Connecticut theaters by mid-December.