Though the star-studded film Hell Ride won?t hit theaters until August 8th, we couldn?t pass up an offer to speak with one of the film?s stars?the talented and quite fetching Julia Jones. Labeled as an obvious homage to Pulp Fiction, a film widely considered the finest of Quentin Tarantino?s work, Hell Ride stars Larry Bishop, who also wrote and directed the film, as well as Michael Madsen, Vinnie Jones, and Dennis Hopper. In the following conversation with Jones, she reveals details about being on set with some of the genre?s most respected talent, hanging with Taratino himself (who produced) and starring in her first blood-soaked sexually exploitative thriller.

For those that didn?t catch Hell Ride at Sundance last year, could you describe your role as Cherokee Kisum?

I play the love interest of one of the main characters, [played by] Larry Bishop, and the mother of another one. The movie is about those characters trying to avenge my death. I was killed by a gang member a couple years before.

What initially attracted you to the role?

She is a very tough girl and she has a very dark past. She?s the emotional core of the whole movie. In a film where a lot of the female characters are being objectified, she?s a strong and worthy person to the guys who are avenging her death.

I guess this was your first time working on a film full of blood, gore and sexual exploitation?

Yeah, I got beat up and my throat slit and lit on fire in this movie, which was definitely a first. I had prosthetic burns all over my face.

What was that like?

Oh man, prosthetics are very serious. They glue these things that look like wounds to your face, and you have to be really careful when you take them off. Mine got a little bit stuck. So I actually had a very serious bruise on my face after that. The actual filming though was really fun. I was surprised after some of the more intense scenes that I didn?t want to stop. I wanted to keep going.

Did you have a tough time dealing with the blood at first?

When I was actually filming it, I wasn?t really thinking that I had blood all over me and I was dying. I was thinking I?m dying and what that means. I was thinking I have a son and what that means and what is he going to do. I wasn?t thinking of the gore aspect of it. I know that some people on set got really nauseous. I didn?t really prepare for death because it wasn?t something my character knew was coming. So it makes it much more shocking to me if I?m puttering around in my hotel room and someone knocks on the door and all of a sudden I?m on my way to face death. The shock value helped me a lot.

The cast is full of genre veterans like Michael Madsen, Vinnie Jones, Larry Bishop?

And you really felt that. Just to have Dennis Hopper walking around? I think it really helps that a lot of the cast had worked together before and knew each other. The dynamic between everybody was really established and everyone felt really safe. As far as working with Larry, he?s also been an actor for years. That?s always really helpful for me because those directors have acted so they know how to talk to actors. Larry, the way that he casts, he tries to find people who really were the characters. That just meant that we had all these characters running around and you just got to do your thing because they trusted you to do it because that?s what you?re there for.

Did you get to work with executive producer Quentin Tarantino at all?

I didn?t get to work with Tarantino, but I spent some time hanging out with him at Sundance, which was a treat. You could feel his presence everywhere.

Did he make any appearance on set or was his interaction more behind the scenes?

I feel like it was. I started working when Cannes had started, [and] he was at Cannes with Grindhouse. I know he was VERY involved with post-production. He edited the film.

Were you a fan of his films?

Kill Bill?the second Kill Bill is one of my favorite films of all time. I?ve watched a lot of his interviews and read some things about how he works and thinks about film, and he?s just so passionate. I think that?s one of the things you always look for. It doesn?t get better than that. I?d love to work with him as a director.

There?s a lot of talk obviously about Hell Ride being a homage to Tarantino?s Pulp Fiction and some of his earlier works. Was it a conscious thought on set for the cast?

I think that was something that Larry was really conscious of. There are some very specific things that are homages to Quentin?s earlier stuff. As an actor I try not to be too aware of the genre and try to stay true to the circumstances and my characters. There were definitely a lot of other people on set that were aware of that connection.

So did you refer to any of his past films for your specific role?

I did look at some of his films in the past and looked at some of the female characters. There are some parallels there. But a lot of it was in the script. I mean you read it and it?s kind of like, ?Whoa, this is really Tarantino-ish.?

What was your favorite on-set memory?

Oh my gosh. [Laughs.]I have some really crazy?Um, I?m trying to think of which ones I can say. It was kind of the type of set where everyone shows up and just works really hard, so we had a lot of stuff going on but were having fun at the same time. I remember once, we were filming in this hotel in the middle of nowhere that was absolutely disgusting and smelly, and it just smelled like people had been chain-smoking with the windows closed for days and days. I was locked in the bathroom with a sound guy recording some voice narration, and in the next room David Carradine was killing somebody. [Laughs.] So it was just a very surreal experience in the middle of the desert.

And we can still expect Hell Ride to hit theaters in August?

Yeah, that?s what I?m hearing. August 8th.

Anything else coming up that you?d like to tell the fans to watch out for?

I have a film called Three Priests coming out soon. It?s still going to festivals, but it?s a western starring Olivia Hussey and Michael Parks, who is also a Tarantino veteran. He was in the Kill Bill films and From Dusk Till Dawn. It?s another very dark film.

What is your biggest fear?

Spiders in my bed. Like tarantulas. Like fuzzy ones.