Aaron D. Spears - Movie

Aaron D. Spears

By Rych McCain International/Nationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist

Photos Courtesy CBS-TV & Southern Peach Entertainment

Aaron D. Spears

Takes Us Down Memory Lane!

Aaron D. Spears

     All of us have a story of both good and bad memories from our awkward teen years. High school especially played a major role in shaping the personalities we have today. In those days the values of being popular, well liked, part of the happening crowd, dressing nice and scoring with the opposite sex were the main priorities for most as superficial as they would become later in life.  

  “Back Then” is a movie that focuses on the life of Gavin Miller as an adult doing big things while becoming “Man Of The Year” on the cover of a major magazine. But this is a far cry from the nerd on the “never mind” list he was on in high school. Gavin’s life turns upside down when Rochelle pops back into his life unannounced. 

(Young High School Version) L-R: Chyna Layne (Rochelle), Oren Williams (Gavin) and Sabrina Revelle (Andrea "Dre").

High School Rochelle (Chyna Layne)

      In high school, Rochelle was one of the prettiest, sexiest and most popular girls on campus. Nerdy Gavin relentlessly pursued Rochelle but she always kept him at arm’s length in favor of the more popular thugs and athletes. 

High School "Dre" (Sabrina Revelle)

    On the other hand Gavin’s best friend since grade school, Andrea “Dre” Devine was always there for him but he never committed to her as a boyfriend. So Rochelle and Dre became Gavin’s love triangle. The movie goes back and forth with scenes from the past and the present. 



                                                                                                                                   

High School Gavin (Oren Williams)

    Oren Williams plays the Young Gavin, Sabrina Revelle is the young Dre and Chyna Layne is the young Rochelle. The older Rochelle is played by Tae Heckard and the older Dre is played by Malinda Williams.

    The older Gavin in the film is played Washington, D.C. native Aaron D. Spears who may be best known as Justin Barber on the CBS Daytime Soap “The Bold and The Beautiful” for the last three seasons and is a co-star with Gabrielle Union and Richard Roundtree on the new BET Show “Single Black Female.”  Since Spears had to play the older version of Oren, and Oren was the younger version of him, how did the actors coordinate that? Spears explains, “They shot the younger stuff first. So I saw what he did, how he was, his mannerisms, the nuances of maybe how he walks and how he carries himself so I can try to carry some of that maybe corkyness or what they call herbness over to being the adult version of that.”

Adult Rochelle (Tae Heckard)

       Spears and Williams had the blessed opportunity to play opposite some of the finest actresses in Hollywood for this project. Spears ran down how the movie was shot saying, “We shot all the stuff with Tae Heckard kind of like one day or a series of maybe two or three days at the most. 

Adult "Dre" (Malinda Williams)

   Then I did the stuff with Malinda. Because as you know, a lot of time in film this stuff is shot out of sequence. So what they do, they fly that person in, considering that Malinda lives in New York, we do all of our scenes then I move on and we do other parts of the movie.”

          Because some film budgets are slim and time is of the essence meaning they can’t do as many takes as they may want, actors often have to switch emotional gears sometimes literally between takes of one scene to the next and be believable every time. How does Spears psychologically handle those types of mental demands from the set? 

Gavin's mom (Debra Wilson) Gavin (Spears)

      He laughs, “Sometimes you just have to let it stay on the set. There are actors who stay in character all of the time until they get home. When they are on the set or in their trailer they are in character. I haven’t done that yet. I don’t know if I want to or not. I’ll make sure I have to see how it feels to see the difference in maybe my performance. But as of now if I had to do something like crazy - sane – crazy- sane, you’re just kind of like a baby. A baby can be smiling one minute but when you pinch them they cry and if you do something to distract them from crying, they’re going to start smiling again. So you try to live in that moment as if it’s just happening. If you can do that, you usually can pull off a solid performance.”   

***Good! (Ride In The Middle)!

© 2012 Rych McCain Media/Syndication tm 
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