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Interview: Meet Film Director & Book Author Chrys Phillips

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Chrys Phillips is a bestselling author, TV producer and now award nominated movie director. Chrys started off her career as a novelist. She is the author of several fictional books including the Magic Wars series. Phillips soared to acclaim with her TV Drama series Counter Play which aired on Australia’s Nine Network and Worldwide on Amazon Prime. Following this success, she made her directorial debut in her first feature film called Madison And The Happiness Jar. This movie was shot during the pandemic and premiered worldwide on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Roku and Sky Q.  As of today, it was announced she has been nominated for an Australian Directors Guild Award

 

Our readers would love to know more about your background, your backstory & how you got into the career you are in today. Please tell us more about where you grew up and how you got your start as an author, producer and now director.
 

I grew up in Sydney Australia and moved to Melbourne when I was fifteen to live with family as I had no parents to take care of me as a minor. Growing up in Australia I loved writing my own stories, I was a ferocious reader and book lover. I would read whatever books and classics as a child and then, rewrite the endings on how I would have liked the story to keep transporting. 
 

When my daughter was little, I began a youth theatre group and from here I became involved with theatre from full scale commercial musicals to independent productions. Once I had written many theatre scripts in began writing books. I still have many manuscripts of books I haven’t even published, haha! However, my series Magic Wars Saga gained much international acclaim and it sold over a million eBooks and this took me to America. I sold everything I owned even my car to fund my journey with my young daughters, to the states for book signings and meeting fans. Once I returned to Australia, I filmed my own tv series and that is how I moved into the movie industry.

 

You revealed in an interview recently you grew up with no consistent parents if any, what was that experience like and how has it shaped you into the woman you are today?  

Yes, for much of my childhood and teen years I had no nurturing home life or parents to support me, in fact I was working many jobs to pay for my own clothes and such from fifteen. I totally believe that having no family home as I lived with many people that I decided I would not allow that to define me, no matter what negativity was spoken and experienced around me. 

 

You are an award-winning author. Your bestselling novel Magic Wars: Wicked Love is a sci-fi novel set in a small town. Where did you draw your inspiration from when writing this book?  

I’ve always loved comics, superheroes and mythology and one scorching evening I was around midnight up and I began thinking of a place, a cool coastal town I would like to live in and therefore Lakeview was born into the sword. The characters were fuelled from that. I guess, the desire to escape my world and also create fascinatingly characters was always what I imagined.  If immortals actually existed around us, then this is something I wanted to crate and write…imagination 

 

Best Selling Author: Wicked Love by Chrys Phillips

 

Do you have any plans to release any new novels? If so can you give our readers a teaser?  

Yes, the third book in the Magic Wars Saga is launching these festive holidays and it is a bumper volume as the first two books have now sent us to a showdown of forbidden love, true love, action wars and quests to be solved. I also have two other series in draft edits. 

 

Recently you produced, wrote and directed the feature film Madison and the Happiness and the tv series Counterplay, a hit show on Amazon Prime and Apple TV. As a female director, what advice do you give to other women out there who are looking to get into producing and directing?  

Firstly, the truest advice is that it won’t be easy, you need a tough skin and do not take rejection personally and if you really, really want this career, then go out and do it yourself! Don’t expect the calls to come in, if you’re not out there making it happen and creating your own tv shows or movies.

 

 

What is next for Chrys Phillips?  

I’m going onto set again with a franchise big budget film and more books and scripts to platforms. Oh, and yes, must get a puppy! 

 

You Can Keep Up With Chrys On Instagram 

 

 

 

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