I MET THE ACTRESS FROM THE CANCELLED AMERICAN SAILOR MOON SPIN OFF

0:00 so back in August of 2022 I went viral with my two-part documentary titled the Western World of Sailor Moon wherein I continued my investigation into the cancelled liveaction Sailor Moon pilot that had been produced in the early 9s prior to the anime series being dubbed into English in North America this rejected pilot animated by tun makers and commissioned by Renaissance Atlantic was colloquially dubbed by fans as sabon Moon because of its liveaction resemblance to Saban's major Productions at the time like the Power Rangers having only a lowquality trailer along with a handful of animated cells that had been leaked in the early 2000s I set out to unravel the story behind this miraculous artifact along the way I spoke with animators involved in the

0:45 project along with uncovering the identities of a handful of cast members who remember working on this pilot and eventually after all my searching I met with the former CEO of Renaissance Atlantic and Bandai himself Frank Ward and was granted full access to a copy of the completed pilot and music video submitted to The Archives of the Library of Congress after getting my hands on both tapes the world was finally able to see this ill- faded Sailor Moon project in all its Glory since then I've been able to identify all of the actors involved in this project but one still remained a looming mystery to myself and fans everywhere since 2022 fans have surged high and low to uncover and identify the actress who portrayed

1:31 Sailor Venus in the pilot there have been many different speculations about her being a cast member on Save By the Bell or 90210 or any other notorious late 80s to early '90s projects but still nothing was coming up and it's weird because out of all of the cast members I remember distinctly when investigating for the Western World of Sailor Moon this actress looked so familiar she just had these features on her that looks like maybe I've seen her in commercials or or something she had the most familiar face out of all the other sailor Scouts Venus Mercury Mars Jupiter all of my searches led me to dead ends until recently when I decided to give my search one last go just out of the blue when researching for another tales of the Lost video as luck would

2:17 have it when I re-input it the photo of this mysterious actress something miraculously came up and I was shocked this is Maria chidz former actress who performed under the name Ria Chase and now a California talent agent it was undeniable that this woman had to be the same woman who played Sailor Venus in the tun makers pilot and with a little bit of nudging and the help of her daughter I had the pleasure of sitting down and speaking with her about her time on the project as a special treat to Sailor Moon fans out there because I know you all are eager for any kind of Sailor Moon Updates this is my interview with Maria but first I'd like to give a quick shout out to Maverick from Mad cave Studios who were kind enough to send me a copy of their latest young adult graphic novel princess Gwen and

3:04 the Jewel Riders an update on the 9s animated classic for some of you younger girlies out there who remember growing up watching this cartoon this graphic novel touches on the magic of friendship and is a great read for fans of fantasy Adventure it also serves as a refreshing update to the Jewel Riders series and I really hope it spawns its own Shira type of animated adaptation this gorgeous graphic novel will be available May 28th through the Maverick website or you can get your hands on it through pre-ordering your copy for only $4.99 so thank you again to the lovely humans over at Maverick for sending me an advanced copy and now back to the video how are you today I am good I was so excited because you just like made my day my like month because aprils are

3:50 always bad for me since the past 10 years cuz on April 14th of uh 2014 my mom passed away of pancreatic cancer I'm so sorry to hear that so yeah and she was she was actually the agent that got me oh my gosh that's incredible so and now we have our own agency like I still own the agency it's called the Nancy chis agency okay and I'm now the owner with my daughter being my partner just like how me and her were oh that's that's heartwarming I love that so by you getting in contact with me it just made me feel so good you know it was like my mom giving me a sign that if everything is okay yeah you still have something to live for you're like you know it was like a nice full circle

4:36 moment I I like when synchronicities like that happen yes it's amazing it's like you made my day so for the last two years since the Pilot's Discovery Sailor Moon fans all over the web have been attempting to identify you the actress who played Sailor Venus here you are with us today and I have so many things to ask you hello could you let our listeners know know a little bit more about who you are and when you started your career in the industry yes um I started my career in the industry when I was 9 years old and I didn't have a lot of money so my mom said I could take one dance class so I called different dance studios and stuff and then I finally got in touch with this one dance studio and I was taking one dance class and then she happened

5:23 the owner of the dance studio happened to be in the industry like acting and all that and she was a manager so then she took me on as a manager needless to say I worked my way in there to where now I'm taking five dance classes a week for free and I'm helping out at the studio cleaning up and stuff and then I started doing auditioning and I did General Hospital I've done you know different things but back then when I was younger it went by a different name so I've gone by different names because I'm Latina but I could look Caucasian as well and so I went from using Maria chai is to Maria Chase to Ria Chase just so that it can open up the doors for me so then at the age of 18 my mom became an

6:10 agent so she became an agent and working with my friend's mom but I was always with a different agency so then afterwards my mom then pulled me up and under her agency so I was still acting and my mom was agenting and she got me this audition for the pilot and we did like several auditions and then I got chosen and it was very exciting and at 18 I had a kid back then when I did Sailor Moon um I had a I had a child at home oh but I was playing 16 yeah but no one knew because you know I had him at 18 and um I mean you you still fit the role perfectly like to a lot of people you were the best choice for what Sailor

6:56 Venus could look like honestly it's iconic yes and so um so I did have a child but I still continued my acting and stuff and um I did several commercials and stuff needless to say I was so happy to be playing like that 16-year-old role and you know just knowing every time I went to said plus I grew up in the dance world so that's why it really was my heart to do it because I I love dancing so I just I kept on acting and stuff and then after I did the pilot and stuff and you know got the sad news that it didn't get picked up because it was just too expensive to do I started to think like because I was helping my mom out a lot yeah at her agency I was like you know what I think I want to have another child and this is like in my late 20s

7:43 and I said I'm just going to become an agent with my mom and have another child and then that's what I continued to do and then my daughter became an actress and I've owned my own talent agency for now over 22 years that's amazing back in the days I was so excited because I knew what Sailor Moon was but I never thought about it out of all these years about how the anime world is and how they have fans and stuff and I'm like wait a minute I did do an anime yeah and it it hit me once you reached out to me I was like wait there is you know like Sailor Moon fans and we have shirts shoes like everything and so now that I think about it I'm like you all these years I should

8:29 have been really like looking into that type of stuff that's the interesting thing about anime like even though it's a niche it has a very wide audience and so many people have been inspired by it even a lot of film directors like there's even been a lot of Netflix series that have been adapting anime as of lately so it's just this growing thing and it all started from Sailor Moon Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon that is and that's crazy and I'm I'm a part of that yes and it's so exciting but I have to tell you I was so excited that I was Sailor Venus Sailor Venus is the one of Love exactly and if anyone knows me I'm so filled with love I love people I love giving people opportunity you know and the fact that I did grow up not having

9:14 much I as an agent I want to give people something you know like I want to give back and I want to make sure that you know if you can afford to go to college you could do the business and make tons of money in it you know like so um it fit me so well because I am filled with love actually during the whole process do you remember how you found out about the casting for it I know you said through your mother but was it more of like a hey here's this opportunity she was she was an agent so we saw it in the breakdowns yeah I actually went to we sent the picture over it came out through breakdowns through the agency and then they sent the picture over and then we did like several we did call backs and you know we had to dance in the audition and and all that and like I

10:00 said back then I was a dancer I loved being able to be on set and meeting all them girls and stuff it was such a pleasure like you know meeting people and you know just all of us so excited to be doing a pilot because in this business if you get to be able to do a pilot it's such a great thing even if it didn't go is like you got to say I got chosen for this pilot yes I mean I I spoke to Tammy Adrien of Starship Troopers and when we had our conversation and she just told me she had a lot of memories filming certain shots that she recognized when she saw the pilot and she said she had a lot of fun cuz it was very girl power oriented mhm I remember too being in the thing and we had to do these spins and all I thought about was Wonder Woman I was

10:47 like oh my god when I was a little kid I used to play what is it I think it's freeze tag you have to be your superhero and so I would always want to be freaking like oh my gosh I loved Wonder Woman and and every time I did that spin and they were filming me I was like this is just like Wonder Woman yeah oh that was for the transformation sequences yes yes that's where how we transformed just the concept of it I was like oh my God we get to be humans and then we get to spin like Wonder Woman and turn into our powerful girls and go save the world how cool is that and just the simple fact that you know everything that I had going on at my home it was like a kind of like a get away yeah and it was like I was living a whole different life and

11:33 an exciting one I am curious though I know it was partly liveaction and also half animation were you guys able to see what your anime counterparts were like we were able to see they did talk to us about like what your powers are and it's hard to remember but being able to see what our characters look like I was in love with my character I was just so like it's like everybody's character they fit them so well like they actually did the animation to match us like T and I just loved how you know and the but I have to tell you um Mindy her character is was always my favorite because she got to be in that super chair like she

12:19 was in animation it's like she got to have an object to be fighting people yeah actually with Mindy um when I was doing my investigations one of the producer said that she was actually underage when she filmed that so oh yeah I forgot that yeah she was underage cuz me and the other girls we were all kind of similar in yeah you guys all looked like in the same age group though yeah I think we were and I think Mindy was and it was probably because you know trying to find that red head mat so well just the perfect part yeah do you have any keepsakes from your time filming on the pilot like photos or even costumes or even a script oh you know what I probably okay so when my mom passed away we had to move from our house right the

13:07 the house that we own together because two years later I got breast cancer but I did um I had to short spell the house and so I have a whole bunch of storage stuff so it could be that I have maybe like a script or something in there yeah um I would really have to go digging deep so but now that I know all this is happening I will try to find anything from go that would be amazing I do have um I believe I should have some pictures too I just have to go through all because all my stuff is in boxes and stuff I will start to go through stuff and um look for step okay I know um for the pilot episode so from what I gathered from my interviews with the producers and some of the animators in

13:53 the script then they did name like uh Sailor Moon had a human name it was Victoria and then she transformed into Sailor Moon and one of the animators mentioned that the other actresses also had human names but they no longer had access to the script so they weren't really sure what their names were so if you are able to find that it could potentially reveal the other characters human names oh my gosh I feel like give me time to think but I don't know why Valerie is coming to mind Valerie um yeah I don't know why that is coming to mind but I'm not 100% positive but it could be Valerie okay but like I said I probably in an envelope somewhere because I had all my booking information I had everything in there I will try to

14:40 do some searching okay it may take me a minute though because like I said everything is in storage and I'll have to go through like boxes but if I could find something and if I could try to remember the name but I feel like it might have been Valerie Valerie I know it was such a pleasure to be able to meet a Adrian because you know I watched Swamp Thing to me in my head she was like a celebrity Adrien barau right yes yes it was great meeting her I do remember the other Scouts the ones that I was able to contact they did say that they loved meeting her too like that was a core memory for them because they were like Star Struck yeah yeah because I couldn't even believe I was like wow she's doing Sailor Moon but she she was she was a

15:25 perfect witch you know like a evil lady oh yeah so I know that we spoke briefly on Instagram and you had mentioned seeing the pilot have you had a chance to also see both the pilot and music video that are available online no wait wait did you actually have wait are they connected to each other uh so separately then the pilot episode was posted and then there was the pilot intro where which was a music video with you guys dancing around oh yeah I saw that part and then what was the pilot were they back to back like one end it one start it so the pilot was the 10-minute video and then it had a music video sequence but then there was a completely separate music video that they had in the Library of Congress which I was told I don't think I saw the pilot oh oh the pilot episode we did not I didn't see anything

16:12 that was 10 minutes long oh my gosh okay I'll send it you right now yeah all I got was like how you said the music video thing yeah so I'll send you on Instagram right now but this was the 10-minute episode oh my gosh I didn't even see it yeah I'll definitely take a look oh you you found it on YouTube mhm oh my gosh I didn't I only saw the other thing and was so excited so this must be like all new for you it is like no I'm looking at it right now and I'm like oh my gosh I didn't even get to see p none of us did because they said that no one and we would constantly ask can we at least see the pilot they said we couldn't see it unless it got sold oh my gosh oh my God this is so exciting to be able to see this oh my God watching this it brings

16:58 back massive memories and filming it and all oh my heart is sluttering right now oh oh my God I am so excited we would love to know more about what you're doing today if you'd like to share and if there's any upcoming projects that you're working on whether they be inside or outside of the industry just more about what you're doing well what I'm doing is I take care of a whole bunch of other people's careers so for the past 22 years I've owned my own agency and my is is to get people out there and to book these jobs for make other people's dreams come true but what a fulfillment it gives me to be able to get people to work it's like a a great thing you know

17:44 I feel like on helping people you know because working on sets and stuff you know even though they put out all these bad things you know like what happened on Nickelodeon and all this type of stuff there's probably way more better things that go on in people's lives than all the bad stuff there is like and just like in regular life for sure there's stuff going to be happening in people's regular lives but this comes out to life because it is you know you're on a show or whatever but for me I did experience a casting director trying to get me when I was um young underage to um breastfeed um a book because in the scene it was a young mom and she was breastfeeding and

18:30 I told him I was like Yeah but isn't there going to be a body double yeah like yes I just want to see how and you know but you know I got out of it and I knew it wasn't right and I didn't give into it but for me my whole life I've been in the industry I put my daughter in the industry and no one that has been you know very connected with me it's no Badness yeah if anything it's greatness because you got to imagine for all the people out there that they just don't have the money to go to college like they don't really have a future to be able to make a good amount of money it's like this opens the door for those people and it opens the door for people that have so much talent but can't afford to you know to use those talents

19:16 exactly I don't know it's just it's always and what a wonderful feeling whenever someone books because I just had a girl that um I'm always thinking outside the box and there's a a Jon salm film that's coming out and it films in the UK and I have a client and she's in her 30s maybe like even early 30s and I submitted her for this role and it was a woman in her 40s and when she got the audition she was like oh my go she says are you sure I should be auditioning for this I said yes I said because I submitted you they called you in from your picture yeah just do it and you know just to be able to get in front of these casting directors that is so big I said just do it and so she did it and guess is going to the UK my client he

20:02 booked you never know you never know like what could happen and then um my kid's father he was on it's so crazy that he mentioned Save By the Bell because he was on Save By the Bell oh my gosh he didn't have a he wasn't a series regular but he constantly was working on there and he always had lines because he was um a student that went to the sa by the Bell School wow and all those people were all my friends it's it's something that's common in every industry but I think it really means something special when there's like that silver lining when there are people that are dedicated to like protecting kids and making sure that everything goes smoothly and I'm glad that you're also part of that you know to make sure everything is more positive and that's why some people are like um there's kids that are so talented and they're like no I don't

20:48 want my child to be affected and I said Do You Realize some of these kids because what it did for me I grew up very like I grew up with nothing like going to McDonald's was a pleasure and we got to be able to get like two items so I grew up in a six kid family and one of us we all get a burger but then one of us will get a french fry one of us will get the drink and then we split it so to be able to say that I got something in life and that I do deserve and if you work hard and it it made my life better yeah they were positives and it just like enriched your life yes yes no it totally it totally did something different for my life to where I don't

21:33 know I just I became a great human being like I feel like I'm a good person and I get it all from my mother my mother like was so loved by the the acting world like tting directors and all that because it's us giving opportunities to those people that get do shut on them we're going to open it yeah we're going to open those doors you know we started the thing for when you see do you know who Noel G is Noel gami he plays Hector and all the Fast and Furious oh yeah Bruce Almighty we started him but we got him on all those things and I'm and it was all the gangsters that a lot of times that you see we were their first AG in because we were the agency that

22:18 said you know what we're going to give opportunity like if people want to be you know get out of games and you know become act it helped them too yeah now they're actors and they're they're doing good and he's done a lot of stuff yeah yeah you know we were never a big agency but we always keep users working but it's because we're open to helping people and so I'm just continuing the legacy of my mom I love that but believe me still got that acting bug in me and just unfortunately I can't act anymore because I'm an agent yeah so now I get other people it's amazing how life works because I when I say that April 1 hit and I just got this like even though I'm a happy person it just April always does

23:05 something to me because uh missing my mom when I got this news I was like this is crazy like I feel like my mom has something to do like spiritually like I just feel like now I could live April like so happy my mom wants me to be happy thank you so much for watching this video and if you like more like interview segments that are outside of the tales of the Lost documentaries let me know in the comments below because I'd be happy to do shorter segments like this and I mean it's it's you guys don't usually hear me just talking talking in front of a camera as opposed to the other stuff so yeah if you guys like this don't forget to like And subscribe and follow my socials and yeah I will see you with another tales of the lost in a couple of weeks bye