True story: Lisa Guerrero called and left a message last night. Seems Stu’s Hunt Down on former Twins pitcher Scott Erickson (Guerrero’s husband) last week found not only a national blog audience, but a snippet – pertaining to “A Plumm Summer,” the film the two are working on — also made its way into Page 2 of the Los Angeles Times’ sports section. So she wanted to let us know more about the film; we called her back this afternoon and happily obliged. She reports that “A Plumm Summer” has received very good reviews at various family film festivals; there is a good chance that the indie flick will make it into Twin Cities theaters as part of a limited release in a couple of months. “We’re independent filmmakers … anything helps us,” Guerrero said. “We can’t afford to buy commercial time in all these markets.” In case you don’t know, Guerrero was a sideline reporter for Monday Night Football and a personality on The Best Damn Sports Show Period; she has also appeared in multiple men’s magazines and, well, her career is eclectic enough that we should probably just link to it and get on with things. She had plenty to say about the movie, Scott Erickson and John Madden’s cookie-eating habits. Folks, we give you our Q&A with Lisa Guerrero.

RandBall: Like you said, this movie sounds like a strange concept. I’m wondering how you got involved with it in the first place?
Lisa Guerrero: I’ve been an actress since I was a kid, even before I was a sportscaster or broadcaster. I had done a show for Court TV a couple years ago, and I told my agent I really wanted to get back to acting.

But every time we had submitted me for an audition, the casting director or producer would say, “Oh yeah, we know Lisa Guerrero. But she’s a sportscaster, not an actor.” It was a real struggle to get auditions. So my agent suggested we go in another direction and look for an independent production company that’s doing a small budget film and pitch you to these types of producers and directors. So my manager found out about the female lead in “A Plumm Summer.” At the time, Freddie Highmore, the little boy from August Rush and Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, was attached to it to play my character’s son. They had financing in place. I went in strictly as an actress. I got the role, but about three weeks later, Freddie dropped out so he could do August Rush — a better opportunity for him than an independent film — but they lost the funding. The project was just going to go away. Scott and I had discussed it, and we wanted to form our own production company anyway. … So when the financing fell out, I went to the current director and said, “If you guys can slash the budget, by less than half and recast this with actors and a crew that will work for scale, Scott and I would like to produce this with Home Team productions.

RB: Home Team productions?
LG: Yeah, that’s our company. We work from home, and we’re sports personalities, so it make sense. … So we got the rights to it, and worked out an agreement. We paid for the film, and we’re called the executive producers of the film. We sent scripts to people we thought would be the best adult leads, and the first actor we sent it to was Billy Baldwin, who plays my husband. He immediately said yes. He plays an alcoholic, very troubled character. The second person we sent a script to for a different character was Henry Winkler.

RB: The Fonz!
LG: The puppeteer, who’s a true person named Happy Herb. Henry got back to us within three days and said, “I’ll do it, I’m in.” Once we got Billy and Henry, the entire project came together. We shot on location in Montana. The actual real Happy Herb is still alive and has a cameo. The Governor of Montana has a cameo. It’s just a really sweet film. Most family films have animations, CGI … our film is a throwback to old Disney movies that you and I grew up watching. It’s all about the story, all about the family drama. No CGI, no special effects. Just a really sweet story.

RB: So Scott’s role is financing, doing some production. How is he doing overall?
LG: Oh my gosh. First of all, he’s a huge movie fan. It’s a dream come true for him to be on the set, watching the monitor, wearing the headset, working with actors. He was an accounting major at the University of Arizona.

RB: I didn’t realize that.
LG: Yeah, he’s really good at understanding money, working with unions, doing the DVD deal. He’s a very savvy producer on the business end. I do more of the production end that has to do with design, casting, script — the creative side. We have two really different roles. And of course all the actors are baseball fans. The kid who plays the lead, Chris Kelly, he’s going to be the star of a huge Universal project called Cirque du Freak … and we discovered him in Minnesota, on a videotape. He submitted when we were casting, and we were like, “Boy, he looks like could be the son of me and Billy Baldwin.”

RB: Handsome young man, he must be.
LG: Oh, thank you. Aw, shucks. But what’s amazing is he’s an incredible actor. He looks like a young Leo DiCaprio. And he’s from Minnesota. So for us to have an opening in Minnesota, with Scott and him having ties, makes a lot of sense.

RB: You alluded to this before, but was it frustrating ever to get pigeonholed into things — you had Monday Night Football, you were in various magazines — was it hard to get taken seriously with a project like this?
LG: It’s been a very varied career –- I’ve been a lead on a soap opera, I played George Lopez’s sister on the George Lopez Show, been on the cover of Playboy, did Monday Night Football, did Best Damn Sports Show.

RB: All over the place.
LG: All over the map. But I kept taking different adventures. Every single time I try something new, people raise their eyebrows or say, “Is this a smart move?” But I just wanted to choreograph my own career. I didn’t want to walk the same path as other people. I didn’t set out to be a sideline reporter; I set out to be an actor and a writer. … I have a real passion for being a different character. It’s up to a performer or a personality to get out of that pigeon-hole. Find something else to do. Surprise people. I think I’ve surprised a lot of people.

RB: You were in “Fire Down Below” and “Batman Returns.” I don’t remember those roles. Can you refresh my memory?
LG: I was blonde for “Batman Returns.” I was a volunteer worker campaigning for Danny Devito, and I looked nothing like myself. But that was pretty fun. “Fire Down Below,” I played a reporter. I get a lot of offers to play reporters. I’ve done that a few times, but that’s another problem: people try to get me for an athlete’s wife or a reporter.

RB: I think people remember you most for MNF — it’s a huge stage. What do you remember from that experience, and what’s your best story from that experience?
LG: The funny thing, and Scott laugh about this all the time, is that when people recognize me or e-mail me, the thing I get recognized most from is not Monday Night Football; it’s from Best Damn Sports Show. People quote specific things I said to Tom Arnold or Michael Irvin years ago. They remember a huge fight I got into with John Kruk over the potential players’ strike. People remember that stuff. Monday Night Football was a more prestigious gig. But yeah, Monday Night football, best story. Here is why I love John Madden: I hit it off with John and Al, they were like uncles to me. We had just finished a production meeting in a hotel, and the whole crew, John, Al, I, the director, were walking down a hallway. And there was one of those trays that people leave out from room service. Somebody had a cart out there with all the leftover food, half-eaten hamburgers, empty wine bottles. I’m chatting with John Madden about the head coach we had just interviewed. He stops in mid-sentence and lifts up a tray that is clearly leftovers, and right there is a cookie. There were half-eaten cookies around it, but there was one pristine cookie in the middle. He picks up the cookie, starts eating it and continues the conversation as if he hadn’t just picked up leftover food from a tray. For him, it was like, “Why would that be strange?” It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Scott was actually there. He was in the hallway, waiting by the elevator. He saw it, and said, “Did John Madden just pick up food from an old tray?” That’s something that really sticks out. That’s John Madden right there.

RB: Well, it sounds like you guys are enjoying this movie experience. Sorry if we were having fun with it, poking fun at it earlier.
LG: No, it was fine … and thanks. We have two more movies in pre-production. We’d like to make our money back on this one so we can do another one.

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