(c) Columbia/courtesy Everett Collection.
It is hard to believe that February, 2017 marked the 15 year anniversary of the cheesy yet beloved Britney Spears led film Crossroads.
While the film also starred the talented Zoe Saldana and Taryn Manning before they really hit it big, it also put Anson Mount on the radar thanks to his charm and good looks.
As one of the only male characters in the film, Mount, who is now 44, reflected on working on the film with such amazing women. In a message to TooFab, the Hell on Wheels actor said: “I had an enormously good time making “Crossroads” for the following reasons: [Producer] Ann Carli, [Writer] Shonda Rhimes, [Director] Tamra Davis, Taryn Manning, Zoe Saldana, and Miss Britney Jean Spears. I was lucky enough to have one of those rare film experiences in which I was outnumbered. I was surrounded by women. Beautiful, powerful, supportive, funny, fantastic … WOMEN. I consider myself a better man and a better actor for the experience.”
He continued, “love working with women, because I believe they are far better at navigating the strange ocean of social interactions that constitute film production, and they handle stress on a more intuitive level. For reasons more complicated than I can possibly understand, there is an extreme gender gap in Hollywood. We’re working on correcting that and we’re getting better at it. Tamra Davis represents one of the few filmmakers to have bridged that gap and to have become respected in this industry, both for her narrative and her documentary work. I hope there are more who will follow in her footsteps.”
Now, Mount is best known for his starring role on AMC’s Hell on Wheels which came to an end last year after five seasons, says he rarely sees those he worked with on the film, but values the times he does. “Every now and then I bump into people. I saw Taryn at a very boozy Christmas party in December of 2015 and it seems like it was yesterday. I dropped by to see Tamra and her family in Manhattan and I realize now that it was probably the year before that. I spoke to Ann Carli when she put in a good word for me, helping me to land the lead role in “Hell on Wheels”. That was in 2010. Time is fleeting. Such is life, and such is filmmaking.”
He concluded, “It’s wild being in my forties and seeing people still discovering “Crossroads”, whether it is for the nostalgia, for the campy fun of it all, or for the youthful sincerity of a new generation. For myself, it is a time capsule. When I see it, I don’t see what you see. I see myself, 28 years old… cocky… scared… exited… standing in a parking lot in Louisiana, laughing with Taryn as we sip hot cocoa and watch the grips rig the convertible. The laughter dies, Taryn wanders away, and I wonder to myself … ‘How the hell did I get here?'”