Ray Santiago doesn’t know where he’s going but it won’t be boring

Birth of the “Scooby Gang”

Ray Santiago – The Scooby Gang – Courtesy of Ray Santiago Instagram

1428 Elm: I saw the picture that you had tweeted out with you, Aurora and David lying on “The Body” pillow. It seemed like you guys had that tight familial unit like on Ash vs Evil Dead.

RS: You know on AVED, we didn’t have a lot of people around constantly. We had guest stars that came on and died. I got to run around with some new kids. We called ourselves the “Scooby Gang” because the director gave us that name.

We asked him to give us some references. What are you thinking? He said, “You guys, we’re calling you the “Scooby Gang.” Aurora’s name is Dorothy and it is kind of like you guys are on a weird race to try and get to Oz so to speak.”

He told us we were like the horror version of The Wizard of Oz. I was like, “Okay. I’ll take that and run with it!” We did bond and it was shot so very quickly.

We realized that we were going to have to show up on set and really bring to life these characters and make it believable that we’re friends. If you can, you should spend as much time with your castmates as possible.

We did that. They came over to my house and we would rehearse the scenes like a week or two before we shot. And then we would rehearse the day before we shot a scene. We would rehearse on set, we would rehearse at my place.

My neighbors thought it was hilarious. They could hear screaming and arguing. I spend a lot of time talking to myself in my house because that’s the nature of an actor’s life.

Aurora has a kind heart and a kind soul. She’s super young but she’s well adjusted and mature. It was just really nice to be in her company. We’re still really good friends.