America’s mother is Danica D'Hondt, who was Miss Canada 1959. She comes from family with an acting background, and was the sort of youngster who enjoyed community theater and performing for friends and family.

America can now be seen in FRIDAY THE 13TH which is on DVD and Blu-ray, and in a six-page nude spread in the June 2009 issue of Playboy Magazine.

I spoke with America recently about her experiences and career.

Jonathan Stryker: Where are you from?
America Olivo: I grew up in Hidden Hills in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. I went to high school in Lake Tahoe in Nevada, then when I was sixteen I went to Calarts in Valencia (California) for a few years, and then I graduated from Julliard in New York. So, I kind of grew up all over.

JS: What part of the country do you like the best?
AO: I have been to almost every state. I was signed to Dreamworks Records as a recording artist for six years and we toured all over the country and I only missed roughly less than ten states in total. I have experienced so many things in so many different parts of the country. The U.S. is very close to the size of Europe and there are so many different types of people to meet and places to see that it’s hard to choose a favorite. I love New York pizza, that whole East Coast vibe, the change in seasons, and the intellectual mentality that people in New York have. Then there’s the energy of Greenwich Village and the great eccentricities of the people who live there. And New Jersey has been great fun, too. They have lower sales tax, and lots of malls, which is a girl’s favorite thing, I love that! (laughs) I just finished shooting a film, NEIGHBOR, in Philadelphia with my fiancée Christian Campbell. I met the director, Robert Masciantonio, while I was doing a cameo in the upcoming TRANSFORMERS sequel. So, I got to meet a lot of Phili people, although when I was with my band even though I got to see a lot of the country from the bus, sometimes it was hard to actually experience the essence of a city or town because all you really see are hotel rooms and hotel lobbies. You don’t get to appreciate the essence of the people or really the places that you’re actually visiting, and that’s what acting affords me.

JS: I asked Cerina Vincent this question as she’s into physical fitness. How do you find it working on films like FRIDAY THE 13TH and BITCH SLAP which require a great deal of physicality?
AO: Well, I shot BITCH SLAP before FRIDAY THE 13TH. And most of the time you have to hurry up and wait. You sit in your trailer, get all set up in makeup, then wait for a few hours, then you go out to shoot for ten to fifteen minutes, then you go back to your trailer. When Robert called me to do NEIGHBOR, and we were actually going to work on another script, he said, “Would you like to play the murderer?” I said, “I would much prefer to kill than be killed.” (laughs) Since I played the killer, I had to be on-set twelve to fourteen hours a day. If you’re the protagonist or the antagonist on the film (you’re called number one and number two on the call sheet), you end up having to be on the set pretty much all the time. Like on FRIDAY THE 13TH, Derek (Mears) was on the set all the time. I doubt that he got much sleep. But, it’s rough and you do what you have to do to make it work. My fiancée was my co-star in NEIGHBOR, and he had never done a horror film, and he was, unfortunately, the guy I have to torture in the film, so he was not used to being dirty and covered with fake blood. (laughs) Three days into shooting NEIGHBOR I ended up in the hospital because of damage to my eyes due to the prosthetics and I lost my eyesight for a few days. I had a patch over them. We worked that into the film, and it hurt, too. My hands and fingernails are a little bruised still and I haven’t had a chance to heal from the physical nature of the film. But, we all live by the mantra “The show must go one” as actors. When I shot THE LAST RESORT a few years ago, I went to a doctor requesting medication to help me heal faster than I was. I showed him my legs and I was bruised all over. He was subbing for my real doctor and he didn’t know what I did for a living, so he thought I was a battered woman who wasn’t fessing up. He tried to get me to tell him who did this, so I had to explain that I was an actress. Like I said, that’s the price we pay to make these kinds of movies!

JS: Were you always interested in the arts?
AO: Oh, yeah, I live by the arts. My mother was an actress and an acting teacher and my father walked into her acting class in San Francisco many years ago. She worked a little bit before she changed gears, but my siblings and I did a lot of theater growing up. I was constantly in community theater. We grew up knowing other people in the industry. James Doohan was my sister’s godfather, so these people were always around us. My best friend’s mom was friends with Vickie Lawrence, and we saw her everyday. On Halloween, we had great costumes because Vickie’s husband was in the industry and was in costumes, so when it was retro 1950’s at school, my friends and I wore real 1950’s poodle skirts. We had these floats, and we would put on festivals and shows in the streets of Hidden Hills. So, I was always a fan of movies and television. I enjoy performing action more so than actually watching it. I just watched SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE and it thought it was terrific. I love Spielberg, he is always bigger than life, he’s always going beyond the reality here, but still touches the general mass. I loved EMPIRE OF THE SUN, I thought that Christian Bale was wonderful. When I was a teenager, I liked ROCKY III and SPLASH. I had to watch those over and over. (laughs) When we got our first VCR my brother would tape Saturday Night Live and then add he’s own dialog, and that was our entertainment! I was president of the A/V club in high school, and my edit bay was two VCRs making crash edits, and I was in the drama club, all that stuff. I even did editing on the Apple II GS.

JS: What are your new projects?
AO: I posed for Playboy, the June 2009 issue. I just finished shooting NEIGHBOR, which just wrapped. FRIDAY THE 13TH is out on DVD now. THE LAST RESORT is coming to DVD in August. BITCH SLAP will hopefully be picked up for release this year. As you know, a lot of genre films begin as indie productions. Indies are great because you get to have so much more influence on the initial process of making it and developing your character without having a lot of studio executives breathing down your neck telling you how they think the character should be because they are trying to target a certain demographic, etc., which is understandable as they are putting up the money for the film. So, for that reason indies are fun to do. Although you don’t really get paid much on them, whereas the big studio films you get a good paycheck when you’re done.

JS: Who would you like to work with?
AO: Steven Spielberg.

JS: His name comes up the most, actually. And I met him briefly at the WAR OF THE WORLDS premiere in New York in 2005.
AO: I would love to have dinner with Steven, I would love to ride the bus with Steven!

JS: I was in Los Angeles in October and went to his mother’s restaurant, Milky Way, on Pico Boulevard. I talked her ear off about how much his films influenced my childhood moviegoing habits. They lived in Haddonfield, NJ for a while and she told me how she used to ride the bus into Manhattan. She was great to talk to. I was hoping that her son would have stopped in for lunch while I was there! I could talk to him for hours.
AO: I know! Me, too! I would love to be on Broadway with Matthew Broderick. He’s fabulous. And Christian Bale would be great to make a film with, although I wouldn’t want to be his cinematographer! (laughs) I loved “Moonlighting” and I loved Cybil Shepherd and Bruce Willis. God, Anthony Hopkins, Kate Winslet – I want to play her sister! I’ll dye my hair blonde!

JS: Do you like the horror genre?
AO: I was having breakfast with Derek (Mears) this morning and was thinking how great it is that we can both perform in this genre. In other genres, you might be told that you need to tone it down with your reactions, but making a movie like THE LAST RESORT, or FRIDAY THE 13TH we’re going for no-hold’s barred, because I’m naturally a frenetic and fast-talking person. So, the horror genre is suited to my personality. As is BITCH SLAP, the over-the-top film that should be out this year. As far as movies that I have seen that scared me, I was little when I saw POLTERGEIST and it terrified me. And COMMUNION with Christopher Walken scared the beejezus out of me! I thought I saw those little alien heads in my room. There are certain things that just creep me out. The first time I went and saw a movie that I shouldn’t have been seeing was when I saw THE GATE. I got in with some teen-agers and that was such a great time at the movies.

JS: My friend Matt and I went to see DEMONS in a theater in 1986 and he had the whole audience yelling and screaming at Tony the pimp and some of the other characters. It was unrated so only 17 and over could see it. That was one of the best times I had in a theater.
AO: The other instance that I have had like that was seeing the SOUTH PARK movie in Westwood (California) on opening night with college kids. That was a blast.

JS: Thank you for your time.
AO: No, thank you! This was so much fun.