Kodi Kitchen Interview

This is part of a series of interviews.

 

Kodi Kitchen, Cowgirl Up

Day 2 of the interviews  began with an interview with Kodi Kitchen who plays Dee on Cowgirl Up. Since I already knew that Kodi had grown up in Wyoming and wasn’t a stranger to the types of activities her character encountered on the Double D, I figured it had to be cool getting to relive part of her youth. “It was fun. As soon as we drove out there — Marnie (Marnie Alton, Abby) drove out there together — they had the bails of hay and the ropes. Everyone’s practicing. We use to play a fun little game as a child where it was like…watch the kid run, and you rope them. Now I get to be on the other end. It was fun!”

Next, I asked her what her reaction was when she first saw what her character was like. “Loved it. She’s very accident prone which I tend to be in real life. I got my first concussion at two on a horse, so I was excited about that because she just wants everything to be happy. She just wants to have fun, but she tends to always be the one that’s like, Oh man.”

Jo drags Dee along on all of her crazy adventures, which made me wonder if Kodi has ever been dragged along on such a journey. “When growing up, especially when I would go to Wyoming with my older brother, I was the little kid that would always trail along”

She was determined not to be outdone, or be told she couldn’t do something because she’s a girl. Even at a young age. She’d tell her brother, “If you can ride a steer, so can I.” Then, she started modeling, and she’d go back, and they’d ask, “What happened to you? You’re covered in bruises.”, and she’d say “Sorry, I tried to ride steers.” Obviously in a profession that relies on looks they’d question her and ask her not to do things like that, but that’s just part of who she is. “I like to roughhouse.”

I mentioned how it seems that everyone seems so down to Earth. Kodi agreed. “I think its kind of in a way, it’s a credit to Nancylee because, she’s like ‘Well, if I’m putting a show together that I’m passionate about, I don’t want to have people that I don’t like on set.’ Because if you’re going out there and you’re working such long hours, if you have just snotty individuals, its not going to go as well. But when you’re working sixteen, seventeen hour days, and at the end you’re like ‘Well, I’m still getting to hang around with friends, getting paid, and having fun.’”

If you’ve seen the Cowgirl Up premiere party photos, you probably noticed that Kodi wasn’t there. Did you wonder why?  “I was out of town. I model a lot for Oakley, and so, I was out of town working with them.  I had to go to Denver. I was so excited. In cold weather I get to wear winter attire! It was 70, and I feel like I’m still in L.A.”

Then, I asked her to describe the shooting process. The show was shot over two weekends. So it was a total of about four days. “It was looong. Marnie and I would be driving to set, but it was so gorgeous to watch.  It was just kind of desolate, and there were a lot of palm trees lined up, and you‘d watch the sun coming up over the mountain. If you were in a bad mood, it just eventually get’s erased. Its just so tranquil and it feels like the world’s yours. Then, you get there and everyone’s bundled up, not quite awake…everyone’s just sipping coffee…cut to an hour later where everyone’s on cup number three.” At that point Kodi hilariously started speaking rapidly as if she had indeed just ingested a large amount of coffee. Then, she added “You’re like what happened to the quiet voices?”

I’m always curious as to if an actor or actress finds their current role to be different or harder to play than their previous ones. So next, I asked Kodi if Dee is different than the type of characters that she normally plays. “It’s not what I typically tend to play, but it’s what I typically tend to be…a little goofy and accident prone. Typically I play–I mean I do comedy–but I do a lot of drama too.

I wanted to know why she thinks people who haven’t seen the show should watch. “Because it’s amazing! Because its about six girls of the two teams, and all of the other amazing actors. You’ve got everything from girls being goofy, saucy, and sexy to doing all of these active things in terms of roping. No one’s ridden, roped, or anything else, so you get a lot of the truth within the funny parts of that…its pure entertainment.” “It does have everything from the physical comedy, to the romance, to people having fun, and it was such a great group of people. I think it shows.”

So, does Kodi think the show is strong enough to go for a second season? “Yeah, it was such a great group of people. It had all the elements of comedy, to strong female bonds, to a little romance…”

 

This is part of a series of interviews.