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Wyoming Actress Brings Film Project Home In Time For 10-year High School Reunion

After spending the past decade working primarily in New York City as an actress on stage, TV and for the Metropolitan Opera, Oakley Boycott of Lander is playing the character of Nancy in the sci-fi western film, The Rider. Director, writer, and leading actor Jesse Judy says the part was written for Boycott. 

“Oddly enough, the part that I wrote, the woman in mind was actually Oakley Boycott. Oakley read the part exactly how I envisioned writing it.”

The two had met years earlier at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City where Boycott enrolled after high school graduation. Judy describes the movie as a film noir time-travel piece...

“About a man that has to ride through time to discover who he is and reclaim his past but what he discovers is a past that he doesn’t remember living. So then, through that, he’s thrust into a war to stop time itself from being erased.”

He’s playing the lead of Rider opposite Boycott’s Nancy, who she’s looking forward to playing the part because of the character’s power and intelligence.

“She is an expert on time travel in the world that we have created. She knows a lot of things and knows how to work a room, work the room to her advantage with her intelligence and presence. She knows how to work a situation.”

The decision to shoot the movie in Wyoming came about when Judy and his business partner Brandon Martin realized through Boycott’s urging that filming a western in Wyoming instead of New York City made more sense financially. So they brought her on as a co-producer.

“She comes at things with a very creative mindset,” says Judy, “but at the same time a very strong business mindset, too, and to be able to marry both of those qualities, that’s the trait of a good producer.”

Judy says 80-90 percent of the movie will be shot in Wyoming, primarily in and around Fremont County, and the 12 person crew will shoot both in July and sometime this fall. The economic impact for the state will be slight through the purchase of permits and hiring of extras and crew, but he says it could be substantial in the future if their vision of establishing a film community here comes to fruition.

“We think bringing in a smaller team at first to kind of get the lay of the land and start the production process will also give us the opportunity to kind of cultivate that community on an intimate level.”

Though Boycott has performed professionally in Wyoming with the national tour of the musical, Cabaret, she’s particularly excited about the fact that she’s coming home around her class reunion, since she is doing exactly what she set out to do.

“I kind of get goosebumps thinking about it. I said that I was going to move to New York and do theater and film and make art and it is going to be important and will benefit my community. So to be able to bring art back, it fills my heart.”

Judy says the movie will be shot as 15 different short films to be released all together as a feature or as an episodic series, and Netflix has shown interest. As for Boycott, she’s looking forward to being home in time to join her classmates riding on the reunion float in the annual Fourth of July parade. The film is set for release next summer by Genesius Studios.

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