Watch the first part of this exclusive interview with Ashley Tisdale, who plays Rachel King in House of Ashes. Ashley explains what her experience was like on set shooting a video game for the very first time.
Get a glimpse of motion capture sessions with behind-the-scenes footage as well as her feeling towards the horror genre in general.
House of Ashes will release on October 22, 2021 on PlayStation®4, PlayStation®5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC and is available for pre-order now.
The Dark Pictures Anthology is a series of stand-alone, branching cinematic horror games, designed to present a new terrifying experience on a regular basis. Each game is unconnected and will feature a brand-new story, setting and new cast of characters. Experience moments of tension and terror alone in single player mode, with your friends through 2 player online shared story or with up to 5 players in the couch-friendly movie night mode.
Tanner: Ashley Tisdale, welcome! Now, Ashley plays Rachel in Supermassive Games, Dark Pictures Anthology's House of Ashes. All right, Ashley, what can you tell me about your character?
Ashley: My character Rachel, is a CIA operative, and the game’s taking place in 2003, and she is on a mission to find chemical weapons. So, she's pretty badass!
Tanner: Wow! Any particular parts of Rachel's character that you personally identify with?
Ashley: I don't personally identify with Rachel as much...
Tanner: No? You're not a CIA operative? No? You never...
Ashley: No, no!
Tanner: OK!
Ashley: No, I'm obsessed with the CIA, and so I was very excited to play a character because I haven't gotten to do that on TV or movies yet. So I was very excited to do this!
Tanner: And the horror genre, do you feel at home in that genre? Do you love that?
Ashley: I have never done a horror film.
Tanner: No?
Ashley: No, I have not!
Tanner: Do you watch a lot of horror?
Ashley: I do watch a lot of horror.
Rachel King: “It’s Pazuzu.”
Eric King: “Pazu-who?”
Rachel King: “Pazuzu. Do you not watch horror movies?”
Ashley: I am more known for obviously doing comedy ...
Tanner: Yeah!
Ashley : ... but this is like, you know what? For me, I've always wanted to do an action film and I am living out my action dreams doing this because, yes, it is scary, but there's so much action adventure in it and it's pretty cool, it’s pretty wild!
Tanner: Any particular things that scare you personally? What are you afraid of?
Ashley: Oh, I was actually just watching a really cheesy movie last night, that was about a shark. And I have to say, even though it was cheesy, it scared the crap out of me! When the shark shows up, it just like scares me so much! I love cheesy shark movies!
Tanner: Look what "Jaws" did to people in the ocean and swimming. People didn’t go to the bathtub after that!
Ashley: I know! But the technology has gotten so much ...
Tanner: That’s true!
Ashley: ... better since "Jaws". And it's like it's really scary!
Tanner: When people finally get a chance to play this game and take over these characters, what do you think they're going to really absolutely love about it?
Ashley: I think they're going to love the whole thing, it's dark, it's scary, but it's also a lot of, like, action adventure. And I think it's really entertaining and they're gonna have so much fun playing it!
Tanner: Cool, cool! How about all the characters, and there's a bunch of great characters in this game. Do you have do you have a favourite? You can say your own, that's OK!
Ashley: I mean, Rachel is pretty cool! I do love Clarice.
Clarice Stokes: “I’m gonna need access to your network.”
Rachel King: “Who the hell are you?”
Eric King: “This is Dr. Stokes. I’ve given her full clearance.”
Rachel King: “I bet you have!”
Ashley: Clare [McConnell], she played Clarice. She's super fun and, you know, there's a lot of guys in this game, so it's nice to have another female lead.
Ashley / RACHEL KING: “Come on, Clarice!”
Rachel King: “Clarice! Get up! Clarice!”
Paul Zinno / Jason Kolcheck: “This is a lost cause. The medication is back at the temple. We’re carrying dead weight!”
Ashley / Rachel King: “We can’t give up hope!”
Ashley: Everyone's really cool, I mean, we all have so much fun and we kind of are just like here kind of killing it!
Tanner: Yeah. How has your experience been with the other cast? It must be really cool to share this together!
Ashley: Yeah, I think that, like, what's so great is that everybody is really professional and ...
... obviously we're all coming into this new, none of us had done a video game before. So, it was just so different. But we all got it really fast. And so, once you kind of get into the feel of it, you just kind of like jump up and do your stuff, and ... it's really long days. Obviously, on set sometimes on my TV shows, like, I won't be in a couple of scenes, so I'll have time to kind of like chill. Where this is like, you have one lunch break, couple of breaks during the day, but you were up like all day. And so it is definitely like, physically a little draining because you're just like standing there and doing all this stuff, but it's nice to have a group of people that take it seriously and ...but still have fun at the same time. So it's cool!
