A former Richmond Community Theatre actor writes and plays the lead role in films that are going places.

Darrell Parker, 33, of Sanford was raised in Richmond County. Though working as a business manager, he spends his freetime writing screenplays and acting in films.

The film “Fistful of Brains” has been picked up by two companies for world-wide distribution later this year. The film will be released in Japan on Oct. 12, and in December will begin its world-wide distribution. Parker stars as the Sheriff of a western town set in 1872.

Parker starred in and co-wrote the film “Eight Lessons in Living Together,” which depicts the joys and challenges of a young couple living together for the first time. The film won the Best Narrative Feature Film Award at the Columbia Gorge International Film Festival in Portland, Ore.

Parker co-wrote the piece with Jim McQuaid in 2008, and are considering one more Roger and Tatum film.

“I have no formal training as a screenwriter,” said Parker. “I wrote my first screenplay in 2003, and had no idea what I was doing. In early 2004, I received a $30,000 letter of intent to produce my third screenplay from a large production house in Wilmington provided that I meet one condition: major mechanical overhaul of the script. The story was in good shape, but the formatting of the script was completely wrong.”

Parker said he buckled down and read every screenplay that he could get his hands on, read books on screenwriting and bought screenwriting software.

“Now, I can spot technical issues a mile away,” Parker said.

Parker said he has no formal training as an actor either.

“I started right in the Richmond Community Theatre with a walk-on role in ‘Send Me No Flowers,’ Parker said.

He will begin filming “Purity” late this fall, in which he will play the lead character of the psychological thriller about a man who believes that chastity is next to godliness and is willing to kill to prove it. Parker wrote the screenplay himself.

He was cast as the lead in a new web series, “The Fugue,” a psychological thriller about a man who finds himself in the middle of nowhere with no recollection of how he got there.

Parker is a partner of Turnip LLC, a Durham-based film and video production company that develops large and small scale training videos for companies and non-profits.

“We recently completed an in-depth training project for the Wake County Board of Elections in Raleigh,” said Parker.

As for acting, he said, “I love it, and I’d do it for free. In fact, I still do in some cases. I hope that my kids will see me chasing my crazy dreams, and will know that they can accomplish anything they want. All they have to do is try.”

Staff Writer Dawn Kurry can be reached at (910) 997-3111 ext. 15, or by email at dkurry@yourdailyjournal.com.

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