20-year-old American actress India Eisley is best known for her role as Ashley Jurgen in ABC’s family drama series – The Secret Life of the American Teenager and for her vampire role of Eve in Underworld: Awakening.

Based on the ground-breaking Japanese Anime, this season with the DVD & Blu-ray release of ‘Kite‘, India shows us more of her versatility starring as ‘emotionless killing machine’ Sawa.

India gives deets of what it was like working alongside critically acclaimed actor Samuel L Jackson for Kite as well as highlights of her career in 2014.

 

In Kite, your character Sawa is a complete contrast to other characters you have previously played. What was your experience like preparing for this role?
I had never played a character like Sawa before, so I liked that it was something completely new for me. I worked with an amazing stunt coordinator, Jeff Imada, and we did martial arts and some weapons training, which was all good fun.

Sawa is described as an ‘emotionless killing machine’. What’s was the most thrilling part of playing such a character?
Just the fact that it was something completely different was nice, and she’s a strong female character – I think movies could do with more Sawa characters haha!

How did it feel to work alongside critically acclaimed actor Samuel L Jackson? 
He was exactly as you would imagine him to be, very cool! Samuel L Jackson is incredibly sweet and a very giving actor, it really was a dream working with him.

“Samuel L Jackson is incredibly sweet and a very giving actor.”

The original Anime film was banned in certain countries. How do you think today’s audience will respond?
Well, this rendition of Kite is far more tame than the Anime. It still has a certain amount of raciness, but not too much.

What is the main message that you personally want the audience to go away with after watching Kite and seeing the journey of Sawa avenge her family?
I would love if people could empathize with her. She’s a young girl, and she just happens to be stuck in dark, very unfortunate circumstances, but she finds strength in spite of it. I think this is a good message to send them away with.

Speaking of the journey, what have been your career highlights of 2014?
I’m working on a film right now called Social Suicide, and the people on it are just incredibly lovely and professional. So I suppose this would be one of the highlights.

What else can we expect from India Eisley in the near future?
I have just finished a film called Watching Heather (working title), and that was good fun playing a slightly crazy girl, and social suicide obviously. Also, have you heard they’re working on a script for underworld? So hopefully that will be something for the near future too.

What advice can you give to a Skool Girl?
My general advice would be to forgive yourself, as silly as it might sound. We all make mistakes, we all have flaws, whether it be flaws in our character or appearance, but that’s fine. We are all quite hard on ourselves and I think everyone (myself included), should allow themselves to have slip ups, it isn’t human to be in control and perfect all the time.