Interview – Page 17 – We Are Movie Geeks

Composer Lorne Balfe Talks His Score For TERMINATOR GENISYS

Paramount Pictures’ and Skydance Productions’ TERMINATOR GENISYS led the worldwide weekend box office race earning a combined total of $102.7 million in 46 countries plus North America.

Directed by Alan Taylor, GENISYS returns to the Oscar winning Terminator franchise to take familiar characters in a new direction. When John Connor (Jason Clarke), leader of the human resistance, sends Sgt. Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) and safeguard the future, an unexpected turn of events creates a fractured timeline. Now, Sgt. Reese finds himself in a new and unfamiliar version of the past, where he is faced with unlikely allies, including the Guardian (Arnold Schwarzenegger), dangerous new enemies, and an unexpected new mission: to reset the future.

TERMINATOR GENISYS is written by Laeta Kalogridis & Patrick Lussier and produced by David Ellison and Dana Goldberg. The franchise has two more films scheduled to be released in 2016 and 2017.

Grammy winning composer Lorne Balfe has created an action-packed, emotive score for TERMINATOR GENISYS.

Left to right: Emilia Clarke plays Sarah Connor, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the Terminator, and Jai Courtney plays Kyle Reese in Terminator Genisys from Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions.

Lorne Balfe is a Grammy Award winning, Emmy and BAFTA nominated film composer from Inverness, Scotland. His recent credits include Dreamworks Animation’s HOME starring Rihanna, Jim Parsons and Steve Martin, Dreamworks Animation’s THE PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR, and “Manny,” a documentary about the life of boxer Manny Pacquiao which premiered at SXSW. Other composing credits include the animated film MEGAMIND and Ubisoft’s acclaimed game, “Assassin’s Creed III.”

Balfe began his career in Hollywood providing additional music on several major motion pictures including the second and third installments of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, “Iron Man,” and “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

He provided additional music and was the score producer on 2008′s THE DARK KNIGHT, which earned him a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture. In addition to being named Discovery of the Year at the World Soundtrack Awards in 2009, he was also the score producer for Guy Ritchie’s SHERLOCK HOLMES, which earned a 2010 Oscar nomination for Best Original Score. In 2011, he produced the score for Christopher Nolan’s INCEPTION, which also earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score.

With the movie building from 1991’s TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY, including shot-for-shot recreations, Lorne Balfe’s score honors the tradition of the past Terminator films by adding bold, new music to fit the action while tapping into the film’s emotional core as it explores themes of freedom and guardianship.

Prior to the film’s release, the composer and I spoke at length about the feelings of TERMINATOR GENISYS and getting the music right for the fans.

WAMG: I’m such a huge fan of the series and I felt this latest chapter was a lot of fun.

Lorne Balfe: It’s not as bad as the reviews, is it?

WAMG: There’s so much to like about it – especially seeing that Arnold Schwarzenegger is having such a good time being back in the role.

LB: I finally saw it again two nights ago and I’d forgotten what a fun film it is.

It’s funny when you read a review and you wonder if they thought they were going into THE KING’S SPEECH.

WAMG: As you were writing the score did you ever stop and think, I am composing for a TERMINATOR film!

LB: No and the weirdest thing is once I started, and it happened so quickly, that if I’d spent any time thinking about that, I probably would have had a heart attack and panicked. I wouldn’t have gotten a single note written.

It’s only now when you get asked these things you then start analyzing it and going, goodness sake! The most important thing about TERMINATOR is that I knew, especially coming from the world of video games and those type of franchises, how important it was to get it right for the fans.

I had to be respectful to that famous theme. It’s almost been forgotten in the previous two movies. It’s not a sequel or a prequel and the music had to be loyal to the franchise. And there has to be new music. When you see Arnold on screen as The Terminator, and he’s kicking ass, I want to hear, “Ba, da, bum, bum, bum.”

That’s the challenge with these things. When the new STAR WARS trailer came out, and you heard John Williams’ theme, you got excited.

WAMG: Fans will appreciate the main theme from Brad Fiedel’s iconic TERMINATOR score.

LB: There’s naturally an industrial world, so I kept with the main theme of the original TERMINATOR. They were very electronic sounds. I used the fantastic sonic sounds from TERMINATOR 2 – at that time, they must have been amazing! I don’t think I fully appreciated that at the time, but now I do.

There’s something about it being organic and manipulating it with the sounds. This is a different kind of TERMINATOR and each film has been different. It’s not meant to sound strictly like a TERMINATOR score. There are scenes which are identical to the original and musically I did it exactly the same. I scored it as close as I could possibly get it. The storyline moves on and John Connor character is different. That had to now thematically have this heroic, military type theme. There are lots of things that are different.

WAMG: I especially like the FATE and HOPE Track. It begins very simply and then explodes into an epic score – I loved the grandness of it, especially the percussion section. Once it again it ties together the emotional story of TERMINATOR.

LB: To me, the world of TERMINATOR has always been that metallic world. It’s very difficult when writing music like that. You’ve got metal up on the screen so you don’t put as much metal sounding motifs in your score.

The score contains everything but the kitchen sink. It’s a hybrid score, and although there are these massive action cues, there is a hell of a lot of emotion. The score needed to be much more personal to match the progression of the movie’s character development and convey the relationship between Sarah Connor and the Terminator. We spent a lot of time on that father/daughter theme.

Alan (Taylor) and David (Ellison) in a way really wrote that track. The payoff of the sacrifice at the end tied with the “FATE and HOPE” track, it was their point of view regarding the film. I tried to write the theme for that track a few times and I never nailed it. What makes it fun is at music college, they could explain why that piece of music doesn’t work. Whether it’s right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. They’ll analyze it and start going through your harmonic structures and changes.

When you work with a producer and a director, they don’t necessarily know how to describe things in a musical sense – they describe feelings. When somebody writes a piece of music for scene, it hits you or it doesn’t. There’s no point holding onto if it doesn’t – it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, you’ve got to move on. More time was spent talking about the theme for “FATE and HOPE.” I regard more as an emotion, than a theme. That’s when we found we were able to bring back the TERMINATOR theme in a very simple manner with the piano and just the three notes.

WAMG: How did you get involved and what was Hans Zimmer input as executive producer?

LB: I worked for Hans for about 10 or 11 years and now I work with him. We’ve done the TV shows “A.D” and “The Bible.” I got involved after someone heard my music and Hans’ studio is right next to mine.

WAMG: That’s convenient.

LB: Yes, when its two o’clock in the morning and you’re stuck on a cue, people walk in and out of rooms. You get advice and that’s the interesting thing about working in that kind of studio complex. As composers, we spend so much time alone, locked in a room, and when you have a building with lots of composers, you kind of wander around and talk because everyone is going through the same kind of problems – even if it’s a different film.

I’m working on HOME, which is animation, and Junkie XL is next door to me working on MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, it is all the same problems everybody is trying to figure out. But you realize you have to get your game up when you do listen to everyone else’s scores.

WAMG: Producer David Ellison has said, “This is the largest scale Terminator movie that’s ever been made.”

With that 800 lb Terminator sitting in the room, how did you go about scoring for the big action sequences in GENISYS?

LB: When you start writing for a scene, especially for a film of this size, things aren’t finished and as a composer, you have to have a really good imagination.

A lot of the visual effects aren’t necessarily finished, so there’s time to imagine what’s going on and of course, there’s a guideline. When the visuals change, the score changes because the color is different. That especially happens with animation. On HOME and PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR, I was on it for over a year and a half, and during that time it slowly evolved, you find that you don’t need to write as much because it will change.

With the action music, you never sit there and think, gosh, I’ve got to do big music because this is a big film. With TERMINATOR there was so much emotion and personally, I felt it was quite small and intimate.

You’re not supposed to notice the music all the time. Michael Kamen explained it best. He called it “underscoring.” I think that is such an important word – underscoring the action or the storyline.

WAMG: Do you find it easy to switch gears between animated films, such as HOME and PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR to a sci-fi movie like TERMINATOR GENISYS?

LB: Strangely enough, I find no difference at all. It’s the same gig. You’re trying to create something new. When you first sit down to try to figure out the sound and the melody of the film, you go through the same puzzles. Same as when I score for a game. There’s no difference.

A few months ago I did this commercial for FIJI Water. A 15 second commercial and it was just as hard as writing an hour of music for a film. With all the challenges, that’s what makes it fun.

WAMG: Did you make a set visit or have a look at the CGI beforehand?

LB: They wanted me to come down and be a body-double for Arnold. (laughs) Unfortunately, I didn’t actually get to go and I got brought on after they had started filming.

WAMG: I have no doubt when Arnold shows up in the film it will leave audiences grinning.

LB: When we saw it, and 1984 Arnold appeared, followed by the older Arnold, the whole place started cheering. It was fantastic. That one was a hard scene to score because you’ve got two Arnold’s fighting and it’s bigger than life with what you’re seeing.

Balfe is currently scoring the Paramount Pictures’ thriller CAPTIVE starring David Oyelowo and Kate Mara, releasing September 18, 2015. (Trailer)

CAPTIVE, based on a miraculous true story that drew the attention of the entire nation, is the dramatic, thrilling, and spiritual journey of Ashley Smith and Brian Nichols. After being taken hostage by Brian in her own apartment, Ashley turns to Rick Warren’s inspirational book, The Purpose Driven Life, for guidance. In reading from the book, Ashley not only finds purpose in her own life, but helps Brian find a more peaceful resolution to a harrowing situation.

WAMG: Have you finished the score?

LB: I have. It’s a great film and working on subject matter that’s a true story is always interesting. I’ve spent a lot of time on documentaries because they are real and with those score you can’t be too dramatic.

Working on CAPTIVE was fantastic.

Order the TERMINATOR GENISYS soundtrack here:

iTunes: http://apple.co/1LLqI5Q
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1NkzWGF

The film is rated PG 13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and gunplay throughout, partial nudity and brief strong language.

EXPERIENCE TERMINATOR GENISYS IN REALD 3D & IMAX 3D NOW

http://www.terminatormovie.com/

Actor Josh Wiggins And Director Boaz Yakin Talk MAX Movie

Over the decades, the silver screen has been filled with dauntless canines such as SHILOH, TOTO, LASSIE, BENJI and BEETHOVEN.

Now comes the tale of MAX.

A precision-trained military dog, Max serves on the frontlines in Afghanistan alongside his handler, U.S. Marine Kyle Wincott. But when things go terribly wrong on maneuvers, Kyle is mortally wounded and Max, traumatized by the loss of his best friend, is unable to remain in service.

Shipped stateside, the only human he seems willing to connect with is Kyle’s teenage brother, Justin, so Max is adopted by Kyle’s family, essentially saving his life. But Justin has issues of his own, such as living up to his father’s expectations for him; he isn’t interested in taking responsibility for his brother’s troubled dog.

However, Max may be Justin’s only chance to discover what really happened to his brother that day on the front, and with the help of a tough-talking young teen, Carmen, who has a way with dogs, Justin begins to appreciate his canine companion.

Justin’s growing trust in Max helps the four-legged veteran revert back to his heroic self, and as the pair race against time to unravel the mystery, they find more excitement—and danger—than they bargained for. But they each might also find an unlikely new best friend…in each other.

With an end of June release, this red, white and blue, patriotic themed film is one for the whole family. Just make sure to bring some tissues.

During their promotional tour throughout the U.S., the film’s star Josh Wiggins and director Boaz Yakin came to St. Louis to discuss military working dogs (MWD), the casting and the film’s themes of loss, love and healing.

The decision to make Max a Belgian Malinois, instead of a more familiar breed such as a German Shepherd, was informed by the fact that the Malinois has become the breed of choice to serve as MWDs for military forces and law enforcement agencies across the United States and throughout the world. Leaner than a German Shepherd, the highly focused dogs, when trained, can smell drugs and bombs and find bodies. They can be deadly and are trusted to guard the White House and the President of the United States.

Before writing, Yakin observed the dogs in action at the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base K9 Unit in California. Driven to hunt and capture prey, the Malinois has a 270-degree field of vision and the force of its bite equals 1,400 pounds per square inch. It can run 30 miles per hour and withstand the heat of the desert.

“The military aside, people connect with dogs so strongly,” says Yakin. “We often are able to relate to animals, and allow ourselves to be vulnerable with animals, in a way that we don’t with people.”

He continues, “Max became a metaphor for loss and for getting this family to understand and deal with that loss. And to discover what they need to do in order to reconnect with each other.”

Wiggins adds, “I went to where they were training the dogs and I got to meet them there. There was an immediate bond and I was happy to get the part. I love dogs and I have three of my own.”

The filmmakers cast Wiggins as Justin. “Josh is terrific,” Yakin acknowledges.

“We had seen him in HELLION and he was a natural. He was empathetic while not trying to fish for sympathy. For our film, he was immediately able to walk in Justin’s shoes. He’s very comfortable with the animals and he’s a very natural, truthful actor with an instinctive sense of what works. He was able to really ground the film. We were actually hoping he wanted to do the film.”

Wiggins immediately related to the story. He not only hails from Texas, where the film is set, but has a brother who served in the army, three dogs at home, and a father who trains bomb-sniffing dogs for the Houston Police Department.

The 15 year old actor explains that the movie is one that the whole family can enjoy, but that it’s also has, ”mature undertones and complex characters. It was great opportunity to be in this family themed movie while getting to flex some acting muscles.”

Wiggins describes his role of Justin as “a rebellious kid. Justin feels like his older brother was the trophy son and he’s overshadowed by him, so he sees himself as the outcast in the family. I think he resents his dad because his dad was a soldier, and that inspired Kyle to go into the Marine Corps. Now that Kyle is gone, Justin blames Ray in a way.”

Yakin adds, “Justin and Ray have a contentious relationship. He feels the expectations are being placed on him to live up to his father’s and brother’s ideal. He’s trying to figure out his own way and separate himself from their orbit.”

Wiggins agrees. “Justin is so unlike Kyle and so unlike Ray and doesn’t want to be what his dad wants him to be. So they clash in that regard. He wants to make his dad mad so he revolts, but he doesn’t really think about the risks involved.”

Wiggins says, “To me, Max is symbolic of Justin’s brother, Kyle. He has Kyle’s character traits of honor and loyalty, and he teaches Justin to have honor and to be loyal. The closer Justin gets to Max the closer he feels to Kyle and the better he understands why Kyle wanted to be a Marine, and why he left Justin to serve his country.”

MAX takes place in Lufkin, Texas, on the outskirts of San Antonio, near Lackland Air Force Base where MWDs are initially trained. However, filming actually took place in North Carolina, with production based in and around Charlotte. The small town of Lincolnton doubled for Lufkin, where several scenes play out, including the Fourth of July parade on Main Street.

Yakin says, “Of all the places we were going to shoot, it matched the area of Texas the closest. We wanted to film the forests and the nature settings to give it that rich visual feeling.” Wiggins adds, “It feels like Texas.”

To lens the film, Yakin turned to director of photography Stefan Czapsky, with whom he had previously worked on the action thriller SAFE. Czapsky notes, “I’m proud of the photography we accomplished, especially with the dogs and the outdoor action scenes required. Working with Boaz is great; he is very organized and plans out his shots and editing. He knew exactly what he wanted.”

In the film, Max is a specialized search dog. A MWD with this specific skill is trained to go out 300 yards in front of his handler off leash.

Animal coordinator Mark Forbes and his team worked for a month on just the basics to prepare the dogs to work off leash like a MWD.

Training extended to the actors as well, to teach them how to work with the dogs.

Wiggins worked with the animal trainers on the film to learn how to motivate the dog in each scene, and how to reward him. “You put a treat up on your forehead so the dog will make eye contact with you and then you feed the dog,” the actor details. “These dogs are geniuses. They are so well trained, they are amazing. We had so much trust in them and in the trainers.”

He laughs, adding, “Sometimes when the dog was off camera, they would put a big stuffed animal for me to react to instead, which was weird, but funny. You have to block all that out. It required a lot of focus.”

Additionally, Wiggins accompanied his father to the Houston Police Department dog training facility and ran with the dogs who were training in the bomb scenarios to get more comfortable with how they worked. “It was really cool,” he relates.

Forbes felt the young actors were well-prepared and did a great job with their four-legged co-stars. “To be honest, it’s hard to act with an animal in a scene because we’re over there making gestures, being in eye-lines and talking to the dog and sometimes talking over lines,” Forbes explains. “Josh was so gracious. He was great with the dogs, and so was his co-star Mia Xitlali (Carmen). Her character is somewhat of a dog whisperer, so we worked with Mia early on and spent quite a bit of time with her and the dogs so she felt comfortable. The dogs really took to her.”

The Marines are very much a part of this film and had a huge influence on the story.

Yakin says, “My friend Sheldon (Lettich) suggested we do the story on military working dogs. He’s a Vietnam Vet and a Marine. We went to Camp Pendleton to do research and of course, we had military advisors on the set. In the Afghanistan scenes, the part of the Marines were played by military members, so we had a very strong presence there.”

Along with the song “Forever Young” by Blake Shelton, composer Trevor Rabin provides the heartfelt score for the movie.

“We worked on REMEMBER THE TITANS,” the director says. “I love Trevor. He’s a real emotional guy, and his scores where he’s asked to do real action-types, he always wants to work on emotional pieces. I knew he was right for this movie – it needed an adventure theme as well as an emotional sound that was genuine. This is the first time we’ve worked together since TITANS and I was thrilled that he could do it. We worked very hard on it and I’m proud of it.”

What can audiences take away from MAX? Yakin says, “We hope that we’ve made a movie for families – one that kids especially will embrace. We don’t pander to them with these ideas.”

Wiggins adds, “It’s nice to have this kind of relatable, story-driven movie come out during the summer. Something different to offer besides the blockbusters.”

Yakin concludes, “There’s something about identifying with an animal that allows us to drop our judgments and inhibitions, and often our cynicism. And if we can drop those, we can bridge whatever gap there is with the people in our lives, as well.”

MAX opens nationwide on Friday, June 26th

The film has been rated PG for action violence, peril, brief language
and some thematic elements.

http://max-themovie.com/

WAMG Talks To LOVE & MERCY Score Composer Atticus Ross

Paul McCartney has called “God Only Knows” his favorite song of all time. In an interview with David Leaf in 1990 he stated,

“It’s a really, really great song — it’s a big favorite of mine. I was asked recently to give my top 10 favorite songs for a Japanese radio station … I didn’t think long and hard on it but I popped that (God Only Knows) on the top of my list. It’s very deep. Very emotional, always a bit of a choker for me, that one. There are certain songs that just hit home with me, and they’re the strangest collection of songs … but that is high on the list, I must say … God Only Knows’ ‘ lyrics are great. Those do it to me every time.”

Opening this weekend is the film, LOVE & MERCY. It presents an unconventional portrait of Brian Wilson, the mercurial singer, songwriter and leader of The Beach Boys. Set against the era defining catalog of Wilson’s music, the film intimately examines the personal voyage and ultimate salvation of the icon whose success came at extraordinary personal cost.

To create an original score that incorporated Wilson’s work but stood on its own, the
filmmakers brought in composer Atticus Ross, who won an Academy Award (along with Trent Reznor) for THE SOCIAL NETWORK. “Working with Atticus was exciting,” says director Bill Pohlad. “We envisioned the music that goes on in Brian’s head as a big part of the movie. Choosing the right person to create a score that delivered on that idea was an important decision.”

Made with the full cooperation of the musician and his wife, LOVE & MERCY offers a neverbefore- seen glimpse of Wilson, the boy genius who co-wrote such ebullient pop hits as “Surfer Girl” and “Fun, Fun, Fun” and the game-changing masterpieces “Good Vibrations” and “God Only Knows” before disappearing from the public eye for years.

Actors Paul Dano and John Cusack share the role of the troubled musical virtuoso who defined the “California sound” with sumptuous harmonies and visions of endless summers of surf and sand.

Spanning more than three decades of Wilson’s life, the film reveals the darker and more complex story that lies beneath the music’s sun-kissed surface and his redemptive relationship with Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks), all in the context of his unparalleled musicianship.

I recently discussed with Ross the importance of his score for this very intimate story of Brian Wilson as well as the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” and what melodies did, and didn’t, make into the much loved song.

WAMG: The film is so well done and while both John Cusack and Paul Dano don’t resemble Brian Wilson, they both captured the essence of the musician. I really loved it.

Atticus Ross: I did too! I’m very proud to be involved with it. I really enjoyed working with Bill (Pohlad) and we’ve become good friends through the process. I’ve had enough experience to know when you’re dealing with someone who has a real vision and Bill had a clear vision right from the start. It was such a pleasure to work with him.

WAMG: When were you brought onto the film?

AR: I met with Bill way before they started shooting. I was sent the script by my agent, Brian Loucks. He’s a real man of taste and he kept telling me it was such a good script and that I should read it. I felt like maybe it was out of my wheelhouse. But I did read it and agreed with him. Then I had an idea that there’s this mythology because you know Beach Boys music – it’s hard not to be a fan of “Pet Sound” music.

There almost a cliché aspect to “Pet Sounds” and it’s hard not to be a fan when you’re a musician. I had heard rumors over the years that there was this material that had been recorded but never released. When I went to see Bill, I said what I think would be interesting is if Brian Wilson gave me all his material, I could sample it and make the score that supports the story. There isn’t any point in the story that Brian isn’t present in one form or another. His voice is always there in the songs, even if it’s buried somewhere.

The original idea for the score was a bit more radical in what I had imagined – more like “The Grey Album” where you can’t recognize a source at all. I started off what that but it didn’t resonate with everybody, until I made it clearer and weaved Brian’s voice into it. It was a really interesting process and I probably wouldn’t do it again. It was such a lot of work.

Director Bill Pohlad

WAMG: How did you conceive the LOVE & MERCY score to make it the Brian Wilson movie without it becoming the Beach Boys movie – there’s such a harmonic balance between the two?

AR: There were two things. One is my brother was heavily involved and I couldn’t have done it without him, just purely in the hours that it took. There are scenes that just fly by that are maybe two minutes, like when Brian (Paul Dano) is lying on the hood of the car, and he’s working on “Good Vibrations” – we wanted it to feel like the music was coming into his head. Doing that piece took like ten days of solid work to get it perfect.

We also found going through the tapes there was a lot of cuts with only four tracks because that was all that was available, so everything needed to be timed – but it all clicked.

What was interesting on the “God Only Knows” tapes was there were some melodies that are beautiful that aren’t in the final version of it. When he’s lying on that car, we actually included them in there. It became this collage, but it was a long process. It’s hard when you’re trying to do storytelling to work someone else’s music into it and to keep it true.

To me, on one level, people seem to think of the Beach Boys as this very happy bunch when in fact it’s a very dark, real film. There’s great joy and triumph in the story that you come to love the film and that’s Bill’s triumph.

WAMG: Tell me about the dining room dinner scene after they’ve toasted Brian for his success with “Good Vibrations”? The clattering percussive noises with the silverware and glasses convey he’s in a bad state of mind.

AR: That was another thing that took ages to get right. It was a mixture of his original music and sound design with knives and forks and we built this cacophony of sound. We used this at the beginning of the film as well. It divided itself into original composition, sound design and reinterpreted Beach Boys songs. There are some intense scenes that give way to the emotional context of the film – regardless if you’re a music fan or not. I didn’t know how deep Brian’s story ran.

WAMG: The film reveals the darker and more complex story that includes Wilson’s battle with mental illness and drug abuse, as well as his years under the influence of his therapist. (Eugene Landy – Paul Giamatti).

AR: Before I started I interviewed some people who were around at the time – some of the engineers. They said everything was literally monitored. If you made a phone call, it was monitored. If you said something to Brian, Landy would ask what you said to him. It was extreme. The film isn’t taking license.

According to people I spoke with, it’s not even close to being as extreme as it was. There were bodyguards around all the time – it was bizarre. And to have Melinda come in to do what she did. It’s an incredible story about one of the greatest musical minds. He’s brilliant.

WAMG: Did you want to meet Brian Wilson?

AR: I didn’t want to hang out with him, but I have met him in passing. I was very concerned that everything we did had a purpose – that it never ventured into something he would find distasteful. At the same time, in the same way the film doesn’t pull any punches, I wanted to make sure that it was an honest score. From a musical standpoint, he’s a genius.

In addition to Ross’ score, Brian Wilson contributed an original song to the film, appropriately titled “One Kind of Love.” Featuring Wilson’s trademark soulful harmonies, the song is an ode to the woman who changed his life.

“It’s about Melinda and me,” he says. “She is my one love and the song is about the way we fell in love and the way we are in love. Love is timeless in the same way great music is timeless and this is an expression of that.”

LOVE & MERCY opens Friday, June 5

loveandmercyfilm.com

WAMG Interview: Elizabeth Shepherd – Co-starred with Vincent Price in TOMB OF LIGEIA

British actress Elizabeth Shepherd is best known for her dual performance as the strong-willed Lady Rowena and the ghostly Lady Ligeia opposite Vincent Price in director Roger Corman’s THE TOMB OF LIGEIA in 1965. Ms Shepherd has enjoyed a long career in movies and in British television since 1959 and her most recent big screen role was as Hillary Swank’s mother-in-law in the 2008 Amelia Earhart biography AMELIA. However, it’s the stage is where she most loves to perform and that’s where we caught up with her for this interview as she was preparing for her role in an upcoming production of the play Pygmalion in Houston. We had invited Ms Shepherd to be a guest of honor at Vincentennial, the Vincent Price 100th Birthday Celebration in May of 2011 here in Price’s hometown of St. Louis, but she had committed to the play and was unable to accept our invitation. She did however film a four-minute testimonial toasting Vincent Price on the centennial of his birth that we showed after a 35mm screening of THE TOMB OF LIGEIA on May 21st 2011 at The Hi-Pointe Theater. Before Vincetennial, Ms Shepherd took the time to talk to me about her career and her friendship with Vincent Price.

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman May 2, 2011

We Are Movie Geeks: Elizabeth, you were our first choice for someone to invite to speak as a costar of Vincent Price at our upcoming Vincent Price film festival

Elizabeth Shepherd: Well, I feel really honored. Thank you.

WAMG: Of all his female costars you, as Lady Rowena in THE TOMB OF LIGEIA, had the most substantial role in any of Vincent Price’s horror films

ES: I feel I was very fortunate as a young woman to meet Vincent Price and to share the screen with him and we were given a gift with this wonderful screenplay by Robert Towne which gave us these very lively characters to play. And he gave me two roles! The emotional stakes were real and so Vincent and I, both theater actors, were really given something to sink our teeth into.

WAMG: Do you remember the very first time you met Vincent Price. Can you describe that?

ES: What I remember is that when we met, I asked “Vincent, would you like to rehearse?”, and he was so pleased because this wasn’t the first impulse he was used to on these films. But Roger Corman really entrusted those roles to us, to the whole company because the whole cast was really the cream of British character actors. It was a very strong cast.

WAMG: Had you seen the previous Edgar Allan Poe films that Vincent Price and Roger Corman had collaborated on?

ES: No. I was a complete Roger Corman virgin! In England at that time, Hammer Horror was what we knew.

WAMG: Were you a fan of horror films?

ES: Not really. That was a world I had not entered into. But of course I did with THE TOMB OF LIGEIA and with DAMIEN THE OMEN 2 where I got my eyes pecked out. But horror now, I’d say is horrible! Because in those days, the films were character-driven, they were Poe’s ‘tales of mystery and imagination’, and that was what Roger Corman was conjuring up.

WAMG: Had you read the Poe story the film was based on?

ES: Of course, I read it immediately after getting the part. And I must say my first reading of the script was a tremendous shock. To begin with, I was rather dismayed on behalf of Ligeia herself as she in the Poe story was this magnificent woman and in our story she is instead the evil lurking in the background. I spoke about that to Roger Corman and I was rather indignant on Ligeia’s behalf. Of course, Rowena is just one sentence in the story. But he said that he and Robert Towne had discussed at length how to bring this story to the screen. An opium dream would be a little undramatic.

WAMG: Right, Poe’s story has a lot of drug references that were left out of the screenplay.

ES: Oh yes, the original story is an opium dream and you don’t know if she comes to life or not or if it’s all in his imagination. He’s so stuck on her in the original story that he can’t bear to let her go. So in his drugged state he summons her back. They decided that, instead of the opium, they would go with another current interest, that of mesmerism. They made that more of a mesmerization instead of the opium which gave us something to play so it was a very intelligent and creative suggestion.

WAMG: It certainly was. Robert Towne and Roger Corman were old friends and I suspect Corman really trusted Mr. Towne.

ES: Yes, and I understand that Robert Towne really thought there should be a younger actor playing Verden.

WAMG: Yes, well Vincent Price was about 25 years older than you

ES: But nobody but Vincent could have played that and in any case, Vincent Price was a most attractive man! There was no problem for Rowena to fall in love with him. I though he was charming and there was a sexual attraction, no problem at all.

WAMG: And you had many love scenes together. It’s a very romantic film

ES: Yes, like I said, the emotional stakes were real. Obviously Rowena was spirited and willful and a woman to be reckoned with so she was a worthy successor to Ligeia until we got back to the abbey, where he was under her spell. The love story yes, Rowena loved him but he also loved her. It was through Rowena’s love for him that he was able to have the courage and insight to know how to release her.

WAMG: How did you get the role in THE TOMB OF LIGEIA ?

ES: Paul Mayersburg was Roger Corman’s assistant, and it was he that put my name forward. I’m sure my agent did as well, but that was certainly a way in.

WAMG: So you auditioned I assume.

ES: I don’t have a clear memory of how that happened. I must have auditioned and I know I had a screen test.

WAMG: Did Vincent Price give you acting tips?

ES: Not so much really, it’s that he was so present and it was wonderful to play with him and his own state of being was contagious. He was so present and in character, it was wonderful to respond to and that doesn’t always happen,

WAMG: Did you ever work with Vincent Price again?

ES: No, I didn’t, though we did exchange some correspondence. And Roger too. Both men were very gracious. We know that Vincent was such a talented man in so many aspects.

WAMG: Did you eventually catch up with all of the earlier Poe films that those two made?

ES: Oh yes of course, once my curiosity was piqued. I watched them all and of course THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH had just come out before ours so I recognized the chandeliers and the props from the Corman repertory.

WAMG: When you saw the other Poe films, were you surprised how meaty your role had been compared to the other female characters in those films?

ES: Yes, there’s something very different about THE TOMB OF LIGEIA. It was a real drama.

WAMG: Right, and much of the first half takes place in the bright outdoors, which was unheard of for a Price-Poe film. They all took places in dank castles and mansions.

ES: Absolutely! It was an epic film. Five whole weeks on a Corman production? That was like APOCALYPSE NOW for him!

WAMG: What was it like working for Corman? I don’t think he gets enough credit as an actor’s director. He’s mostly know for exploitation.

ES: What was so good about him was that he entrusted the roles to us and kept out of the way. He set up the scenes very precisely. I remember, if you recall, the next morning I go and visit Verden and surprise him and he grabs hold of me, and there’s a beautiful shot through that lattice. That had to be so carefully lined up. As far as his visuals are concerned, Roger was meticulous so that he would help our work in the storytelling, by the way he would show sympathy for the actors and present the scenes in the best way. His choices of camera angles always favored the actors which was really nice. Now it’s all montage and special effects and too much editing.

WAMG: What can you say about that cat?

ES: Oh, the best cat was the amateur cat on location, which we borrowed from a woman in the village. When the cat was on Ligeia’s tombstone, it glared at me. Oh, that cat was an actor! The cat that had the glasses tied his nose hated those glasses. When I was in the coffin and Verden swiped the cat away, the cat ran off and was never seen again.

WAMG: He’d had enough of show business I guess. Did you keep any souvenirs from the set of THE TOMB OF LIGEIA ?

ES: No, not really. I was such a gypsy and at that stage in my life, I had not emigrated and was moving around all over the place. Someone since has procured for me a script because my own original script had somehow got lost so I now have one. I must say, I’m very proud of the movie THE TOMB OF LIGEIA. I hadn’t seen it for many years and my son was at the the Thacher School in Ojai, California, and one of his teachers taught a film course and put THE TOMB OF LIGEIA on the list to show. I happened to be in England at the time so I flew over and Edmund was to be the projectionist and I thought well, if I’m there, they can’t be rude about it. And everyone was thrilled with the film

WAMG: THE TOMB OF LIGEIA has aged beautifully and I have to confess when I was a youngster growing up on those films, THE TOMB OF LIGEIA was my least favorite because of its lack of overt horror elements and it was such a romance. As a little boy, I wanted more blood and scares but as I’ve grown, and the film has grown, I think it’s about the best in the series.

ES: Yes, people say that and I believe it’s true and it is rather different and was a wonderful way to end the series, on such a high note. And Roger Corman is tremendously underestimated as a man of the cinema. I was so glad that he got that award (the honorary Oscar) last year. At last, and not just for his own work but for the way he’s mentored so many directors and actors and he’s pioneered bringing foreign films to the American public. He’s quite the giant.

WAMG: Like I like to say, he discovered everyone! THE TOMB OF LIGEIA was also Vincent Price’s favorite of his Corman collaborations.

ES: Yes, and when he was interviewed by David Del Valle, I was very thrilled to have such praise from Vincent. That meant a lot because I admired him so much.

WAMG: If Vincent Price were here right now, how would you toast him on his 100^th birthday?

ES: Oh, of course with the very best champagne.

WAMG: Tell me about what you’re doing currently in Houston.

ES: I’m in a production of Pygmalion at the Alley Theater, one of the few theaters left that has somewhat of a permanent company so it has a tremendously wonderful reputation. It’s a very beautiful theater to work in and a very serious regional theater. I play Mrs. Higgins which is a so much better role in the real play than in the movie version.

WAMG: Have you played Eliza Dolittle before?

ES: I played Eliza Dolittle at the Shore Festival in Canada. So here I go from Eliza to Mrs. Higgins, so you know in my career I have gone from Ophelia to Gertrude, from Juliet to Lady Capulet, it’s good!

WAMG: When does this play start

ES: On May 20^th. If we’d still been in rehearsal I’d have come to St. Louis, but we’ll be on stage. I’m very pleased to have remained a working actress.

WAMG: Have you ever been to St. Louis?

ES: No, I would like to come

WAMG: Well, if you can make it out this summer, the Vincent Price exhibit is up at a local art gallery with all types of artifacts from Vincent Price’s childhood, and theater programs and such, and of course movie memorabilia including two lobby cards from THE TOMB OF LIGEIA, one of which you’re featured in prominently. That will be up until August.

ES: That sounds lovely and I do congratulate you on doing this and so many people I have discovered, by going to these horror movie conventions, love Vincent Price and quite rightly too because he also loved people.

WAMG: Well good luck with your play and thanks for talking with me this morning.

ES: Well thank you Tom, and best of luck with your event.

And here is the testimonial that Ms Shepherd made and that we showed at Vincentennial:

WAMG Interview: Christina Lindberg – Star of THEY CALL HER ONE-EYE

The doe-eyed , baby-faced Swedish actress Christina Lindberg is best known for starring as Frigga in the 1974 rape and revenge classic THRILLER, A CRUEL PICTURE, which was released in the U.S. under the title THEY CALL HER ONE EYE. Born in 1950, the voluptuous Ms Lindberg was an incredibly popular nude model in men’s magazines before beginning her movie career, which lasted from about 1970 to 1975. Her debut was the 1971 hit MAID IN SWEDEN followed by more successful “soft-core” sex dramas such as ANITA THE SWEDISH NYMPH, EXPOSED, CAMPUS SWINGERS, SWEDISH WILDCATS, YOUNG PLAYTHINGS and a dozen or so more. She went to Japan in 1973 and co-starred in SEX AND FURY and SEX IN JAPAN. Otherwise all of her movies were made in Sweden where she has lived her entire life. Christina refused to act in the hardcore sex films that began to dominate the industry by the mid-1970’s and left the movies to pursue a career in journalism. Christina is currently the editor-in-chief of FLYGRUVEN, a popular Swedish aviation magazine.

Despite her cult actress status, Christina Lindberg had never been a movie convention guest before her appearance at Cinema Wasteland in April of 2009 when I interviewed her. Her reception there was very enthusiastic as fans flew and drove from all over the U.S. to meet her, resulting in long autograph lines. She, along with Rickard Gramfors, head of the Swedish film society Klubb Super-8, brought along a 35mm print of ANITA THE SWEDISH NYMPH which was screened Saturday night at a theatre in Cleveland with an introduction by Christina. Seeing Christina Lindberg in her prime on the big screen was quite a treat and it’s clear why she captivated worldwide audiences in the early 1970’s. Still beautiful at 58, Christina, though very busy, was generous enough to sit down for an interview for WE ARE MOVIE GEEKS (Christina speaks in a thick Swedish accent and her English is only fair. This interview has been transcribed word-for-word).

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman April 4, 2009

WE ARE MOVIE GEEKS: Welcome to your first U.S. Convention.

Christina Lindberg: Well, this one is the first one. Three years ago I went to Los Angeles. They showed ANITA THE SWEDISH NYMPH and trailers at the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard but it wasn’t a convention.

WAMG: Is this what you were expecting?

CL: I didn’t expect anything to be honest.

WAMG: Are you surprised at the number of people standing in line all day wanting to meet you and get your autograph?

CL: Yes of course I’m surprised. I didn’t know that THRILLER (THRILLER A CRUEL PICTURE aka THEY CALL HER ONE EYE) was so popular. It’s strange.

WAMG: We American fans are a little obsessive. What do you think of all the different posters and books and magazines that people are bringing for you to sign this weekend?

CL: I don’t where they find all this good stuff. It’s unbelievable. But you know, when it comes to this big country you can find anything. There is so much people they find their own interests. In Sweden we are so small amount of people that just a few people are interested in cult movies.

WAMG: But you’re very well known in Sweden.

CL: Yes, I am rather well known.

WAMG: So you’re recognized wherever you go?

CL: Almost. I’m well known among people from 45 to 50 years old and up to death.

WAMG: Are you recognized when you visit other countries?

CL: No. I don’t think so.

WAMG: You’ve had sort of a recent resurgence with the Synapse Films people putting out your movies in America on DVD. You’ll probably get invited to other conventions.

CL: Yes. Why not? It’s nice to meet people are so positive and they are so…. they appreciate and they are kind. I love the energy you get from people when you meet them. It’s nice.

WAMG: You were born in Gothenburg Sweden. What was your childhood like? Were you upper class or….

CL: No no, I’m typical working class. My mother worked at cleaning trains. My father went away when I was very small.

WAMG: So you were raised by your mother?

CL: Yes and I had had two brothers and one sister and my mother was working all the time so I took care of them.

WAMG: So how were you discovered then? You were a model first.

CL: I was discovered as a model, you know. You went to the beach and they come up to you. In Sweden we have newspaper and we have some kind of beach girl and they took some photos and I went to some magazine and people saw it and they asked me if I could do some modeling and I thought…….I got some money for it and it was nice and I have no regrets. Not at all. And they sold those pictures to the producer and a well-known director.

WAMG: So you started as a model posing for men’s magazines. You were on the cover of PENTHOUSE June of 1970. How did you get picked for that?

CL: After a while I…. before that I had been on rather many magazines

WAMG: Mostly European magazines?

CL: Yes. Then I went down for LUI (the French version of OUI) and some German magazines.

WAMG: Were you on a lot of covers?

CL: Yes.

WAMG: Did you meet Bob Guccione (publisher of PENTHOUSE)?

CL: No I didn’t. It was in England (the Pet of the Month photoshoot)

WAMG: That was the first year of PENTHOUSE. It was a young magazine then. You were one of their first cover girls.

CL: I didn’t know that.

WAMG: How did you get into acting? Did you take acting lessons?

CL: No no. I wasn’t an actress. Those kind of movies they chose me because of my appearance of course and they wanted to sell the movie and they thought it was a bright idea that I took off my clothes of course. But the funny thing is those movies that were made between 1970 and 1974.It was a very special period because our famous actors and actresses in Sweden didn’t make much money so they thought it was a good idea to say “Yes Thank You” to be in those kind of movies and the movies were produced as good and big movies with the songwriters was very famous, the director and photographer were very good. All the staff… ¦ I worked with the same staff that worked with Ingmar Bergman.

(Christina’s point here is that her films may have been Sexploitation but they used the same crews and had the same budgets as the more prestigious Swedish films of the period such as the films of Ingmar Bergman)

CL: The same actors as well so it was a very special period and they showed those movies on big theatres so it was not small porn or something like that. And they made it for three months so it took it’s time to make those movies.

WAMG: They’re good movies. Do you have clear recollections of that period?

CL: Oh yes.

WAMG: You don’t have a lot of dialog in those movies.

CL: No but it’s natural you know. I was no actress.

WAMG: In fact you play a mute in several films. In THRILLER and the Joe Sarno films (SWEDISH WILDCATS and YOUNG PLAYTHINGS) you don’t have any dialog.

CL: It’s true. You are right. But after a while when I had played in 20 movies I was a little bit more….. relaxed.

WAMG: Did they have big premieres for your films?

CL: Some of them, yes.

WAMG: Did you go to those?

CL: No, you know it’s funny but at that time I was extremely shy.

WAMG: That comes across in your films. Did you like to watch yourself on screen?

CL: No, I didn’t and I didn’t like to go among a lot of people.

WAMG: Did you see movies at the theatre as a young girl. Were you a movie fan?

CL: No, I’m not. Not at all. To be honest it took many many years before I look at my own films. Some of them I have not seen yet. …………….

WAMG: What did you think when you finally saw them?

CL: Well, then I remember. It’s good to see, then I remember that period. It was a nice period in my life.

WAMG: Did you ever have the desire to go to Hollywood and break into movies there?

CL: No, I wasn’t asked. It’s not my world.

WAMG: But you did get invited to Japan to make movies there.

CL: Yes, you know I was small and I was shy and the Japanese people they are small and they are shy and we got along very very well. And they asked me if I could work. They have their own Hollywood in Japan. In Kyoto with the Toho Company I made those two movies (SEX AND FURY and JOURNEY TO JAPAN). They had like an old Hollywood with studios and so on and they shoot a lot of movies. So of course they wanted me to stay to make more but they work 24 hours a day. I was so tired after a while so when they called me (from Sweden) to make ANITA THE SWEDISH NYMPH, I said yes thank you.

WAMG: How long were in Japan?

CL: Three months making those two movies.

WAMG: Well, the reason You are here at Cinema Wasteland is your film THRILLER A CRUEL PICTURE also known as THEY CALL HER ONE EYE. How were you cast in that for director Bo Vibelius?

CL: I don’t remember exactly but at that time I was well know. I was well known for my nude movies and when he came to me with this manuscript I was tired not to have the real parts. I would like to have played something different. When I read the manuscript I though well, it’s a lot of violence. I don’t like violence but it’s a real part.

WAMG: Was the character Frigga mute in the script?

CL: Yes she was and I thought that was a good idea then I could concentrate on myself and express myself with my eyes and my body so well I thought it was a good idea to take the part.

WAMG: Well, it’s a great film. Quentin Tarantino said it is the roughest of all the 1970’s rape and revenge films. He’s very influential. If he says he likes an old movie then everyone has to go out and see it.

CL: That’s good for me!

WAMG: Yes that is. Have you been in contact with Tarantino?

CL: No I haven’t but when I was in Hollywood three years age he actually paid the traveling expenses, but I never met him. It sounds strange but he had his own festival in Austin so after we showed ANITA THE SWEDISH NYMPH at the Egyptian, we sent the movie to his festival. I’ve never met him but he’s a friend of Sweden I’ve heard.

WAMG: And he based, in part, a character in KILL BILL on Frigga. Have you seen KILL BILL?

CL: No. But he was influenced by SEX AND FURY I think.

WAMG: Oh definitely, the fight scenes. You should see KILL BILL.

CL: Oh, I have it at home. Both parts, but I don’t like violence.

WAMG: Of all your movies you made, what is your favorite?

CL: I think THRILLER is my best and the one called THE DOG DAYS.

WAMG: I haven’t seen that.

CL: No. It’s my second movie and it hasn’t been released on DVD.

WAMG: I’m sure it will.

CL: Hopefully, for all the people that want to see it, I hope they will.

WAMG: You cut a 45, two songs.

CL: Pardon?

CL: You recorded a record album with two songs, and on the sleeve of the record there are nude photos of you.

CL: They made the record because I was famous. At that time you sing and you screamed, and they did nothing to, what you say, they couldn’t.If you sing very badly like me they couldn’t….

WAMG: Cover it up?

CL: No. Today I should probably be a singing star and dancing, you never know.

CL: Did they film you singing these songs?

CL: Just photos. Not like today. Not at all.

CL: Did you eventually take acting lessons?

CL: I did. In the middle of the seventies I did. But because I thought if I was to go on I would like to getÃ¢â‚¬ ¦the directors told me you are well known for those kind of movies where you are taking off your clothes and if you want to go on we want you to wash your name. But we like you so if you go to drama school you are welcome to have parts in other movies so I tried to get into drama school and I almost managed but I failed…¦ I failed. So I thought well, I had to do something.

WAMG: You found other careers.

CL: Yes, then I educate myself as a journalist.

WAMG: Right. Let’s talk about your journalism career. You’re currently the editor of FLYGRUVEN magazine, an aviation magazine.

CL: Right.

WAMG: But before you got into FLYGRUVEN you were an advice columnist for men’s magazines?

CL: Yes I did. I wrote articles for example and then they picked an idea from your American magazine HUSTLER where they put famous people in sauna.

WAMG: Rickard showed a photograph of you nude in a sauna interviewing a man wearing nothing but a towel.

CL: Yes, a famous Swedish man. But it was my boyfriend taking the photo so it was all right, but I wrote the articles and I wrote for a lot of Swedish magazines at that time.

WAMG: Who were these men you were interviewing in the sauna?

CL: Football players, singers, one was a wrestler… TV personalities.

WAMG: Any Americans?

CL: No, just famous Swedes.

WAMG: Rickard said you got fired from that job.

CL: Yes, it’s a funny story because I was rather shy at that time and when I had to ask those questions I couldn’t, you know….. how you say?

WAMG: The publishers wanted you to talk dirty?

CL: Yes, but I couldn’t.

WAMG: It wasn’t you.

CL: It wasn’t me. So they thought I wasn’t good enough and said this isn’t a good idea for you and I thought I did the right thing.

WAMG: And then you met your long-time boyfriend Bo Sehlberg. Was he an aviator?

CL: He was a pilot and he was a photographer and he was a journalist. We started FLYGRUVEN together and he thought I could write for that magazine and it was nice to work together and I did not stop modeling because he was a photographer.

WAMG: Were there photos of you in FLYGRUVEN?

CL: Yes. When I wrote an article there was a small photo of myself but no nude pictures. I was on the cover of an aviation magazines. I took some flying lessons and that’s why I was on the cover.

WAMG: You are to this day still the editor of FLYGRUVEN.

CL: Bo died five years ago and I though it was a good idea to run the company.

WAMG: How did you get involved with animal rights and environmental issues?

CL: Yes I write articles about animal rights for the daily papers and so on.

WAMG: Is that something you’ve always had a passion for?

CL: Yes, since I was very very small. You get close to life when you are among animals. And I think when you are shy and you feel hurt inside and you are insecure sometimes you have difficult to relate to people. You can’t trust people and you relate to animals. And that’s the thing I have done. And I have to say thanks you to the animals because they have saved me in some ways.

WAMG: They showed a pilot movie you made recently here last night, your first acting in many years.

CL: Yes. It’s thirty minutes and it was shown at the festival in Gothenberg in Sweden. They who had produced it were looking for money to make three movies. And they will probably get the money. In Sweden you can ask the government for money if you make serious suggestion. So probably they can get the money. I told them I could do that part but it depends on my company. I have to run my company.

WAMG: What are your future plans?

CL: I have no plans. I do things that I like. I love to be here. If I have time. You know, I’m alone now days and I don’t ask anyone. I made my own life in the countryside. I do whatever I want. I like that.

WAMG: Good for you. Good luck with your future plans and thank you for sitting down and talking with me tonight.

CL: You’re welcome.

Many of Christina’s great films are available on DVD from Synapse Films.

WAMG Interview: Actor Michael Rooker – GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, Walking Dead

Pop culture comes to life in St. Louis next month! It’s the Wizard World COMIC CON May 22nd through the 24th at America’s Center downtown (701 Convention Plaza – St. Louis, MO 63101). As usual, Wizard World has an impressive line-up of celebrity guests including Elvira, Christian Kane, and George Romero, but the star I’m most excited to meet is actor Michael Rooker.

Michael Rooker was born in Jasper, Alabama in 1955. He has eight brothers and sisters. His parents divorced when he was 13 years old, and he moved with his mother and siblings to Chicago, Illinois, where he studied at the Goodman School of Drama. Rooker made his feature film debut by playing the title character in the gritty 1985 horror classic HENRY PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. He followed this with significant big-screen roles in TOMBSTONE, DAYS OF THUNDER, CLIFFHANGER, JFK, MISSISSIPPI BURNING, SEA OF LOVE, THE DARK HALF, MALLRATS, THE BONE COLLECTOR, SLITHER, REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA, SUPER and most recently as the alien Yondu in last year’s top-grossing smash GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, but it’s his role as Merle Dixon in the first three seasons of The Walking Dead that’s really made him a household name

In advance of his appearance at the Wizard World Comic Con in St. Louis May 22^nd-24th, Mr. Rooker took some time out of his busy schedule to talk to We Are Movie Geeks.

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman April 22nd, 2015

We Are Movie Geeks: I hear you’re coming to St. Louis soon.

Michael Rooker: That’s the story!

WAMG: Have you ever been to St. Louis before?

MR: Yes I have. I love St. Louis

WAMG: Your buddy James Gunn is from St. Louis.

MR: Indeed he is.

WAMG: How long have you been friends with James?

MR: He directed me in a movie called SLITHER about eight years ago and we became good friends.

WAMG: And you’ve been in all of his films sits then. I thought you were great in SUPER.

MR: Oh yeah, thanks.

WAMG: Do you ever get tired of talking about GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and The Walking Dead?

MR: Never, that’s such an awesome TV show and really a great film too so I never get tired of talking about that stuff.

WAMG: When you’re out on the street, what do most people recognize you from?

MR: Usually it’s the The Walking Dead but then after we start talking they realize that I was Yondu in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY which sometimes freaks people out when they make that connection.

WAMG: I’m an older fan. I saw HENRY PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER the weekend it opened.

MR: Right on man!

WAMG: It’s one of my favorite movies. How did you get the role of Henry?

MR: I was doing a theater piece in the time in Chicago. The director of that play actually did the prosthetic work for the film and he turned me on to the producers. They were having a hard time casting Henry so he suggested I go over there and meet with them. At that time, I had not acted in a film or any TV shows at all, so this was a great role for me to kick off my career with.

WAMG: Did you do some research on the real Henry Lee Lucas?

MR: A little bit. The director, John McNaughton, had some information for me and I looked up some myself as well. Lucas had done an interview with Barbara Walters and I watched that and I also watched some footage of him being interrogated by some Texas rangers. All that footage and all those interviews really helped me get a good handle on the role.

WAMG: I believe Lucas was still alive at that point.

MR: Yes he was, he died in prison about 10 years later I believe from heart disease.

WAMG: It was a shame about Tom Towles, did you guys remain friends after filming the movie?

MR: Oh yeah, we stayed good friends after the movie. He and I and John McNaughton, we all hung out whenever we were in the same city and we saw a lot of each other when we were at different conventions and fan gatherings.

WAMG: Have your daughters seen HENRY and what do they think about it?

MR: Yeah they’ve seen it. It’s not their cup of tea but they understand it was just a role and they like some of the things I do in it. Most of my friends like everything I’ve done but my daughters are kind of picky.

WAMG: You got some great non-villain rolls after HENRY in films such as THE MUSIC BOX, CLIFFHANGER and DAYS OF THUNDER. I would have thought you would’ve been more of a horror guy. Did you turn down a lot of horror roles after that?

MR: I did. I turned down a lot of roles that were basically the same kind of stuff, the same character. I could have done more stuff like that but I wanted to make sure that I didn’t get too pigeonholed in the horror genre or any genre really. If you look at my resume, you’ll see a lot of different types of films that I was in around that time. I was fortunate to be cast in the movie EIGHT MEN OUT. That was an important role for me to get because that’s the part that ended up getting me my agent and after that my career really snowballed and I kept getting role after role after role often in some pretty prestigious movies

WAMG: I watched JFK again recently. Your part in that film is huge. You have a lot of dialogue.

MR: Yes, JFK was a great role for me.

WAMG: What was it like working for Oliver Stone?

MR: He was a really cool dude, and great as a director. If you were in the zone, he would leave you alone. But if you were somebody who wasn’t putting out or being where you were supposed to be, he would let you know.

WAMG: Were you offered the sequel to HENRY that was made a few years later?

MR: They talked to me briefly about it, but by then they couldn’t afford me.

WAMG: Are there any roles that you turn down that you regret?

MR: Yes but the HENRY sequel was not one of them! But sure, there were a few.

WAMG: Yeah, that Henry sequel wasn’t very good.

MR: Unfortunately you have a certain element that makes a good movie work and they didn’t have that element. They didn’t have me! Not to best my own drum, but after you do such an iconic roll like that, you can’t have someone else play that role. And you didn’t have the same director, John McNaughton. He and I were the key to the success of that movie. That combination was a magical one. It just worked.

WAMG: Who have been some of your favorite costars that you have worked with? I know you worked with Gene Hackman in MISSISSIPPI BURNING, and you worked with Kevin Costner.

MR: Oh, I pretty much get along with everybody. I do what I do and I have fun doing what I do but I don’t think I have any favorites.

WAMG: What was Hackman like to work with?

MR: I don’t know. I just had a couple of scenes in MISSISSIPPI BURNING and didn’t get to work with him. It’s unfortunate that Hackman has retired. He’s an incredibly talented actor but I guess if he doesn’t want to work anymore we have to respect that.

WAMG: You were certainly memorable in MISSISSIPPI BURNING.

MR: Thanks, that was a dynamite roll, I played a scary guy.

WAMG: You’re in St. Louis May 22nd–24th for Wizard world, Comic Con. Do you enjoy doing these types of conventions?

MR: If I didn’t enjoy them I wouldn’t do them. Absolutely! They are a lot of fun. There is a lot of energy at these things. They’re sort of exhausting but you’re meeting so many fans and I’ve built up a huge, massive fan base over the years and a lot of that is from meeting people at these things and getting pictures taken and such. It’s great to meet these guys and gals at the shows, if it wasn’t for the fans, actors would have nothing.

WAMG: What do you think of the reception that The Walking Dead stars have been getting at these conventions? I went to Horrorhound convention last year and all the stars had decent lines of fans to meet them but Norman Reedus, his line went outside and snaked around the building.

MR: It happens. The Walking Dead for me and Norman, we became fan favorites right off the bat. As soon as people saw us together and saw the conflicts that were going on, it was just nuts and it still is. My character has been dead since the end of season three yet fans are still all in. Dixon brothers! Dixon power! It just amazes me. Doing the show was great while it lasted.

WAMG: What do you like to do in your free time?

MR: Oh, I do a lot of things in my free time. I’ll tell you what I don’t do. I don’t surf. I don’t swim anywhere where I’m not the head of the food chain. I love to shoot. I love all of the shooting sports. I am an avid gun enthusiast. I really enjoy the process of going out on the range and spending money on ammunition and shooting it all up.

WAMG: Have you had a film role where you had to do a lot of shooting?

MR: Yeah, I started shooting mainly because of the film roles I was getting. I started learning more and more about firearms and safety factors and how to make sure you’re in a safe environment when other people have weapons around you from a movie like TOMBSTONE for example, or any of these other cop dramas I’ve done. I grew up with five sisters so I’m used to looking out for people.

WAMG: What’s next for Michael Rooker?

MR: I think I’m going to do MALLRATS 2.

WAMG: With Kevin Smith?

MR: Yeah, after 20 years! That movie’s fan base is now massive for such a tiny little movie. The fans of MALLRATS want to see a sequel, they want to see these characters come back so we’re going to do it. Kevin, and myself, I think we’re getting everybody involved.

WAMG: I think MALLRATS is a movie that most people did not like when it first came out.

MR: You’re right, it was not well received but it turned out to be just stupid enough that people have gathered around it and supported it and now we’re doing a sequel.

WAMG: Maybe it was ahead of its time.

MR: Oh it was definitely ahead of its time. But a lot of my movies seem to be ahead of their time.

WAMG: What about GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 2?

MR: There’s been a lot of talk about it. James Gunn just did an interview where he talked about the characters and how he was going to expand on them, And Yondu, my character, is one of the two or three that you will learn more about for the next film.

WAMG: Well good luck with your appearance here in St. Louis May 22-24. I look forward to meeting you.

MR: Oh, St. Louis is going to be great.

For more on the 2015 Wizard World Comic Con St. Louis, visit http://www.wizardworld.com/home-stlouis.html

WAMG’s Conversation with Composer Junkie XL On His Spectacular MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Score

Director George Miller has triumphantly brought to the screen MAD MAX: FURY ROAD and it’s awesome. With its rich dimension and exhilarating ride, this is the film that so many have been waiting for.

It’s 45 years after the fall of the world. There is no rule of law, no power grids, no water, and no mercy. In “Mad Max: Fury Road,” civilization is a memory, and only to a few. The world’s great economies have fallen into dust, the coastal cities have been erased, and in the wake of wars for water and oil, food is scarce and air is poison.

What’s left of humanity roams the Wasteland in wild tribes or clings to survival at the foot of the Citadel, a fortress spun into a cave system where water is pumped from the only aquifer for miles around. By controlling the essentials, the Citadel and its allies, Gas Town and the Bullet Farm, control the Wasteland.

Miller unleashes a world gone mad with the concussive force of a high octane Road War as only he can deliver it. The mastermind behind the seminal “Mad Max” trilogy has pushed the limits of contemporary cinema to re-imagine the beauty and chaos of the post-apocalyptic world he created and the mythic Road Warrior adrift within it.

To realize the clash and concussion of the Road War, the film’s musical sound could only be fully explored once Grammy-nominated producer and composer Tom Holkenborg aka Junkie XL entered the fray.

Miller had long been a fan of the experimental music of Junkie XL and it is there that the director chose the composer to take his post-apocalyptic universe to the next level.

Junkie XL has chartered the Wasteland with tempered moments of stillness and heightened levels of psychotic abandon, utilizing nearly 200 instruments to weave a blend of beating drums, sweeping strings and electric guitar-driven operatic themes.

In addition to MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, Holkenborg is also scoring a wide range of upcoming films, including the reimagining of the action thriller POINT BREAK, the crime comedy KILL YOUR FRIENDS, and Zack Snyder’s much-anticipated action adventure BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE.

Earlier this year I spoke with Junkie XL on his score for Jaume Collet-Serra’s RUN ALL NIGHT and recently we had a conversation on his latest music for the highly anticipated MAD MAX: FURY ROAD – a wild journey that stays with you long after the film ends.

WAMG: I’ve been listening to your score for the better part of the weekend.

There’s such scope and energy to the film and your music. For 15 years, MAD MAX: FURY ROAD existed as an idea. When were you invited by George Miller to collaborate on the score?

Junkie XL: Three years ago. It’s been really intense. I was wrapping up 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE, really on the last day, and I get this phone call from Darren Higman, the vice president of the music department at Warner Bros. and he said, “What are you doing tonight?” I said, “I wrapping up this movie and I think I can go home and have dinner with my wife.” And he said, “No you’re not. I have a ticket for you to fly to Sydney Australia.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. He said, “I’m sitting here with George Miller.” Boom! I wondered if he was going to ask me to score for FURY ROAD. He said, “I think you should come down here and we’ll talk.”

When he called me, I literally went home, grabbed my suitcase, and off I was. After 17 hours of flying, I arrived the next morning, was picked up at the airport and taken straight to the office. I go right into the screening room and I’m watching the first cut of the film with no beginning and no ending. It was just the car chase.

I’m completely jetlagged and I’m wondering what am I watching? What’s going on here? It was so overwhelming! I sit down with George and he asks if I liked the film. I told him it was fantastic and mind-boggling. I said I have to process this for a little bit. He said, “Go back to the hotel, go see and enjoy Sydney and come back tomorrow morning and tell me what you think we should do.”

I went back to the hotel and I couldn’t sleep. I’m so excited and I wind up staying up all night. I came up with this plan of what I thought the film’s score needed to be. The next day, 9 a.m., we just sit there over a cup of coffee and I explain to him in two hours that the score needs to be a big rock opera. That’s all we need.

At the end of that two hour conversation, George stands up and gives me a firm handshake and says, “I want you to be the composer on my film.” And that was that. I took the plane back, went home, my wife and I opened up a bottle of wine and I said, “What just happened to me?” (laughs)

WAMG: Did you go back and watch the 1979 film and listen to Brian May’s score?

Junkie XL: I didn’t. Plus I had very clear instructions from George not to do that. He wanted something different for this film and that was the reason I was talking to him in the first place. He’s worked with a string of fantastic composers in the past, Brian May being one of them. It’s a different film and Max is a different character. The whole setting is much more gruesome than the original.

The original two films had a lot of humor in them – this one, not so much.

WAMG: Certain tracks –We Are Not Things, Many Mothers, Coda, My Name is Max – contain such rich, emotional, sweeping orchestral themes. They’re lovely for the quieter, human moments of the film.

I wasn’t expecting the string motifs. Why go for these cues?

Junkie XL: There are moments in the film where the characters step out of this gruesome, dystopian world that has been created for them and they interact with one another as human beings. George and I were debating for a long time what color and tone the music needs to be. Even with emotional scenes, we didn’t want to go with music that didn’t say anything.

One of my favorite time periods in film scoring is the 1940’s and 1950’s and in the early 60’s during the golden days of Bernard Herrmann and the start of Ennio Morricone. So much amazing music was written then. Not only for film but classical pieces from the neoclassical composers. There was so much rich material written then and George and I wondered why more of that wasn’t being used in film scores today.

Film scores today – especially when its action movies – it’s become its own language and they all start sounding the same. We wanted to create something that had a really unique, counter-identifiability to it that needs to be strong – even in the emotional cues. These are strong characters and even where the music is emotional, they needed to be strong melodies brought with absolute performance execution.

That’s why we went for this style. I think it works remarkably well with the picture.

WAMG: A perfect example is the “Redemption” track.

Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and the Wives are in the War Rig for much of the film. It is like a ship of lost souls. They have this quiet dignity, while not lessening what they’ve gone through.

Junkie XL: Exactly

WAMG: Since they’re in there for such a long time, tell me about the ambient sound effects from inside and out that you hear in these scenes?

Junkie XL: I did a lot of music sound design. I worked closely with sound designer Mark Mangini and the people that work with him – amazing, talented people. The music was so far developed when the sound design people came on board, they used my music to balance off the sound design.

Sometimes the car noises were in sync with the music. The sounds of the cars they were using were in a related key of my music. It was wonderful to work together and to have that space to work on it.

WAMG: It adds to the claustrophobic feel of the film.

With the “Walhalla Awaits” track, did you utilize a choir? Do we hear vocals?

Junkie XL: None actually. These were all done with the sound design, but it sounds like a choir. That was part of the thinking on how to compile this score.

For instance, all the cars that you see, all the objects that you see in this film are all repurposed bits and pieces from other things because that’s what that role is. If I wanted to create a truck, or a car, I needed to create it from spare parts from other cars. That’s why each car looks so unique. It’s not like you can go to a dealer and say, “Get me a War Rig. I’d love one.” You have to make one. A lot of the smaller objects were made from something else.

If we apply that to the score, a lot of things you hear in the score function a certain way like a car, but it’s not a car you’re actually seeing or listening to – you’re listening to something else that was repurposed to become this thing. That’s where the choir comes in. That’s why I sampled a lot of metal objects and the sound design of them to create rhythm instruments, but they’re not drums.

Of course I did use drums, but the same goes for strings, same for brass and same for choir. What you think you’re listening to is actually something else. It’s been repurposed to become that instrument.

George Miller

WAMG: George Miller has said, “We see Max’s evolution into a nobler, more reliable man. We see what his better self could be. It’s where Furiosa already is. She’s fierce in her determination. Her heart gets pretty close to being crushed on this journey they take, but together, they find some way to stand against the chaos of the world and find some sort of redemption.”

The fight between Furiosa and Max is like a rugby match. She could have her own spinoff movie.

Junkie XL: The photography is pretty intense there.

WAMG: This is where the big percussion section comes in. What instruments were used for this scene?

Junkie XL: That is the section that is 100% compiled by me hitting on all kinds of metal objects, whether it’s a car or car doors or oil drums or paint cans. Even chains hitting against a metal plate – it’s all made from metal sounds. It actually took me a week to compile that whole sequence from those sounds. It was very over the top.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD opens in theaters Friday, May 15

Follow Junkie XL on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The original motion picture soundtrack is available now from WaterTower Music.

Buy on iTunes: http://smarturl.it/madmax_i

Amazon: smarturl.it/mm_fury_az

WAMG Talks To WOMAN IN GOLD Director Simon Curtis

After having robust box office numbers this past weekend and being praised by both audiences and critics, WOMAN IN GOLD opens in wide release this Friday, April 10. In his review, Jim Batts says, “WOMAN IN GOLD concerns a celebrated work of art, but it’s also about two inspiring lives also worthy of celebration.” Read his review here.

WOMAN IN GOLD is the remarkable true story of one woman’s journey to reclaim her heritage and seek justice for what happened to her family. Sixty years after she fled Vienna during World War II, an elderly Jewish woman, Maria Altmann (Mirren), starts her journey to retrieve family possessions seized by the Nazis, among them Klimt’s famous painting ‘Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I’. Together with her inexperienced but plucky young lawyer Randy Schoenberg (Reynolds), she embarks upon a major battle which takes them all the way to the heart of the Austrian establishment and the U.S. Supreme Court, and forces her to confront difficult truths about the past along the way.

The movie stars Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds, Daniel Brühl, Katie Holmes, Tatiana Maslany, Max Irons, Charles Dance, Antje Traue, Elizabeth McGovern, Jonathan Pryce, Frances Fisher, Moritz Bleibtreu and is directed by Simon Curtis.

Simon Curtis began as a theatre director and directed extensively at the Royal Court Theatre London as well as the National Theatre, Donmar Warehouse and Lincoln Centre, New York. He directed ROAD at La Mama and LITTLE VOICE at Steppenwolf Theater Chicago and on Broadway.

For the BBC he directed Maggie Smith, Ian McKellen and Daniel Radcliffe in DAVID COPPERFIELD, Sally Hawkins in TWENTY THOUSAND STREETS UNDER THE SKY, David Oyelowo in FIVE DAYS (HBO), Julie Walters in A SHORT STAY IN SWITZERLAND (International Emmy Best Actress) and Judi Dench, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton. Eileen Atkins and Tom Hiddlestone in the multi Emmy and Bafta winning CRANFORD. He is the Executive Producer of the forthcoming INDIAN SUMMERS on Channel 4 and PBS.

His debut film MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (TWC AND BBC) with Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Kenneth Branagh, Emma Watson and Judi Dench received two Academy Award Nominations and was nominated for three Golden Globes and six Baftas.

I spoke with Curtis about his latest film the day after the New York City premiere.

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WAMG: How was the premiere for the film?

Simon Curtis: It was fantastic and we had members of the Schoenberg and the Altmann Families there. We had the party at the Neue Galerie in front of the painting so it was very meaningful actually.

WAMG: Helen Mirren looked fabulous.

SC: She looked stunning, she really did!

WAMG: WOMAN IN GOLD was inspired by the documentary “STEALING KLIMT”. What was it about Altmann’s story that personally struck you?

SC: I loved that it was a great story from the 20^th century taking us from Vienna at the beginning of the century to California at the end of the century, making us all think of our past. It’s a film about memory in many ways. My last film is called MY WEEK WITH MARILYN, this one is “My Week with Maria.” It’s a huge scope of a story.

WAMG: I thought it was very effective to have the German characters speaking with English subtitles.

SC: That was part of the changing of her identity. Maria grew up in Vienna speaking German and moved to America speaking English.

There’s a scene toward the end where Maria’s father, in his heart wrenching final farewell to his daughter, says, ‘And now I speak in English, the language of your future’, which for me is a critical moment in the film. So I was lucky that everyone supported me in that.

There were a lot of nationalities who immigrated, leaving everything behind. There’s a price to be paid for that.

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WAMG: Maria married aspiring opera singer Fritz Altmann. After reaching the United States, Maria and Fritz settled in California and raised four children. Why not include their four children in the movie?

SC: We had to leave out a lot of things. We could have done more on Klimt and Adele and do all kinds of things, but we thought our story was more about this odd couple. We thought had Randy and sons bumped into each other in the story, it would complicate things. And really, we wanted to get them to Vienna as soon as possible.

WAMG: Maria’s escape from Vienna could be a film all by itself.

SC: Yeah, it could be.

WAMG: Cinematographer Ross Emery’s images were striking – showing the past in sepia tones was an effective and subtle nuance.

SC: He’s a great cameraman. We opted to use de-saturated visuals for the historical past, while the contemporary scenes are shot with the vivid vibrancy of modern American cinema.

WAMG: The turning point in the movie comes when Ryan Reynolds stops at the Holocaust memorial. It’s an emotional moment that really grabs you.

SC: That’s based on a real event that Randy Schoenberg told our writer, Alexi Kaye Campbell. Randy said he was overcome with emotion at that point. That was the impetus of the film and a truth that was put in.

Ryan Reynolds played it with intelligence and when his character is moved by events, it’s all the more moving for the audience.

Ryan is a wonderful actor and I was very pleased to make the film with him.

WAMG: After watching the “STEALING KLIMT” documentary, I noticed Reynolds and Mirren were very much like their real life counterparts. Were they your first choices?

SC: Helen was my first and only choice. Although I knew Helen, I’d never directed her, so it was a thrill when she shared my enthusiasm for the script.

I was happy to have them both in the film and was thrilled with their chemistry.

WAMG: The interaction between the two was great.

SC: Their chemistry really drove the film. It also added a lot of humor to the film.

WAMG: WOMAN IN GOLD’s score was collaborated on by Martin Phipps and Hans Zimmer. It’s such a terrific soundtrack.

SC: I thought so too. Hans Zimmer is no slouch, is he?

WAMG: How was the film received at its World Premiere at the Berlin Film Festival on February 9th?

SC: It was quite daunting and an honor to play the film to 2,000 people in the heart of Berlin for obvious reasons, but it played really well! We were very excited.

Some of our best reviews were the Austrian and German ones, interestingly enough.

WAMG: With the troubles going on in the world, why is this a good time for this film to be released?

SC: That answers itself in a way. I think with all the troubles going on, it’s landed at a very timely moment – unfortunately you could say.

After the ruling in Austria, Altmann and her family subsequently sold the five Klimt paintings, with cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder purchasing the portrait of Adele for a then-record sum of $135M. Maria’s proviso was that it should always be on public display and it hangs today in Lauder’s Neue Galerie in New York City.

On April 2, 2015, Neue Galerie New York opened “Gustav Klimt and Adele Bloch-Bauer: The Woman in Gold,” an intimate exhibition devoted to the close relationship that existed between the artist and one of his key subjects and patrons. The show will be on view through September 7, 2015.

Maria Altmann passed away in 2011, at the age of 94. Since winning the case, Schoenberg has become an enthusiastic advocate for art restitution and set up a company dedicated to the fulfillment of those goals. He also used part of his own proceeds from the sale of Klimt’s painting to help fund a new wing for the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles, striving to keep essential memories alive for future generations.

From The Weinstein Company, WOMAN IN GOLD is in theaters now.

Visit the film’s official site: womaningoldmovie.com

Interview: WAMG Talks To EFFIE GRAY Producer Donald Rosenfeld

Coming to theater on April 3rd is the film EFFIE GRAY.

The film explores the fascinating, true story of the relationship between Victorian England’s greatest mind, John Ruskin, and his teenage bride, Euphemia “Effie” Gray, who leaves him for the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais.

EFFIE GRAY is the first original screenplay written by Oscar-winning screenwriter Emma Thompson. In this impeccably crafted period drama, Thompson delicately and incisively probes the marital politics of the Victorian Era, and beyond.

Dakota Fanning stars as Effie Gray Ruskin. The cast includes Emma Thompson, Julie Walters, Tom Sturridge, David Suchet, Greg Wise, Claudia Cardinale, James Fox, Sir Derek Jacobi and Robbie Coltrane.

The film is produced by Andreas Roald (Terrence Malick’s VOYAGE OF TIME) and Donald Rosenfeld (Malick’s TREE OF LIFE and VOYAGE OF TIME).

Producer Donald Rosenfeld spent 1987 to 1998 as President of Merchant Ivory Productions, in charge of the financing and production of such titles as James Ivory’s “Mr and Mrs Bridge” (1990), Simon Callow’s “The Ballad of the Sad Café (1991), James Ivory’s “Howards End” (1992) and “The Remains of the Day” (1993), Christopher Menaul’s “Feast of July” (1995) and James Ivory’s “Jefferson In Paris” (1995), and “Surviving Picasso”, among others.

He produced Chris Munch’s “Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day” (1996), which won Best Cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival, for which he recreated the Yosemite Valley narrow Gauge Railroad. Rosenfeld produced Ric Burns’ “New York: A Documentary Film” (1996-2003) and was executive producer of Taran Davies’ film about the people of Chechnya, “Mountain Men and Holy Wars” (2003).

He produced the romantic drama “Forty Shades of Blue”, which won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance in 2005. He produced Ric Burns’ first feature film, the four hours long “Andy Warhol” (2006), and he made “Anton Chekhov’s The Duel”, directed by the Georgian director Dover Kashashvili.

In-between, he was the executive producer of “Jodorowsky’s Dune”, the story of the Chilean director’s doomed attempt at bringing Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi novel to the screen.

EFFIE GRAY marks Rosenfeld’s third collaboration with Emma Thompson.

I spoke with the producer about EFFIE GRAY and what went into making this beautiful film with modern feminist themes.

WAMG: EFFIE GRAY is such a gorgeous, visceral movie. It’s magnificent.

Donald Rosenfeld: Thank you. We did strive for beautiful production values and we tried to do it at a low cost. I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I hope we will continue for another fifty more.

WAMG: What is the film about?

DR: It’s the story of a marriage out of a horror movie. John Ruskin was a child genius who turned into a major thinker in the Victorian Era. He marries a girl two decades younger than him. She is placed in a house with nothing to do while he does his work. His parents psychologically abuse her. It’s the story of a failed marriage and her escape. It’s the story of an early divorce because in Victorian England it was pretty rare. I think there are two divorces on record.

Effie conspires with a local, aristocratic lady whose husband runs the Royal Academy that employs Ruskin. Lady Eastlake, played by Emma Thompson, orchestrates her escape and the divorce. It’s an intriguing, suspense film. A little bit of horror, but it’s also a period marriage.

The film is filled with so much beauty as it was shot in Venice, Scotland and England.

WAMG: When did you get involved in the movie?

DR: I had previously worked with Emma on HOWARD’S END and REMAINS OF THE DAY. I cast her in HOWARD’S END – she was an unknown then and then went onto win the Oscar. On REMAINS OF THE DAY, the financers wanted Anjelica Huston because at the time she was the bigger star. I fought for Emma. I said look at Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins. It will be looked at by the audience as sort of a sequel – from HOWARD’S END to REMAINS OF THE DAY.

In the end, Emma was cast. Then we went onto to make another movie in Chile eight years later about the Pinochet regime and the Chilean singer, Víctor Jara, but in the end because of various actual death threats from the Chilean Junta that were still in power, we had to get out of there. We were even threatened in Paraguay on the way home. We decided not to make that movie – it was a life or death decision. I said, one day we’ll do something else.

She called me one day, five years ago and said she had written a script set in Victorian England. I told her I had written my college thesis on Victorian England, let’s do this. It was set in 1851 and we went onto make it.

WAMG: It looks like a period film, but it doesn’t feel like the viewer is in Victorian England. It has more of a modern vibe to it and it segues between the two.

DR: Exactly. It’s the beginning of the modern age. All these ideas that we formed about art and life seemed to have started there. When Mr. Ruskin talks about his new carriage or the money that he’s made and what it can buy, he sounds like a person from today. It’s a kind of post-war materialism, it’s incredible. I think you’re right and it’s totally relevant.

I think Emma wrote the female characters with the mind of today too because I think she wanted them to have, in a sense, the vision that women do today of both their rights and empowerment that weren’t really available to women then.

Effie is a great exception that she was able to take this, and generally she would have either been sent to an insane asylum or she would have been locked away. That’s how they dealt with a difficult wife, not like today. We gave her her freedom and in reality Effie falls in love with John Everett Millais at the end of the movie. They had eight children together.

WAMG: 20 year old actress Dakota Fanning carries the film and her portrayal will resonate with women. She’s superb as Effie.

DR: She is unbelievable. The casting director called me one day and we were looking for women around 20 years old and ideally English because of the accent. Celestia Fox who did HOWARD’S END and REMAINS OF THE DAY with me suggested Dakota Fanning. I had just seen her in a film where she was seven years old and that was ten years ago. Now she was seventeen. I met her and offered her the part immediately. The director, Richard Laxton, asked me later, “don’t I have anything to say?” I said no, not in this case. (laughs)

She went to work on the movie and we cast her little sister, Elle Fanning, as the little sister Sophie Gray six months before we started. But two months before we started, Elle had grown four inches taller than Dakota, so we couldn’t make her the little sister in the film. We had to recast it, but Elle and I are going to make another movie called OLIVE’S OCEAN. It is sad, but sometimes you have to recast based on things like that when people are young and they change rapidly.

WAMG: Emma Thompson writes the unemotional Ruskin (Thompson’s real-life husband Greg Wise) with some sense of sympathy.

DR: She says it was very hard to get used to Greg when they first got married because he was from the north of England, right at the border of Scotland and he’s very Victorian. She said it was hard to communicate with him in the beginning, but eventually warmed him up. It was in his nature to be that character – it was sort of going back to their beginnings. He was kind of this cold fish from Newcastle. Who knew that Newcastle created this lack of warmth, it was very funny.

WAMG: How was composer Paul Cantelon (THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL and THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY) chosen for the movie? His score, with the piano motif, is both haunting and simply lovely.

DR: I had just done a movie the year before where the composer lived in Florida. I kept having to go down there and I literally said, “I want somebody next door.” We were editing on 12^th Street and this agent called and said there’s this guy Paul Cantelon and he’s about a block away from you. I went to see him and realized he did THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY and I loved that score.

His music for EFFIE GRAY is breathtaking and I thought he did a great job.

WAMG: It’s perfect with cinematographer Andrew Dunn’s (“Gosford Park”, “The Madness of King George”) scenes of the Scottish Highlands, London, and Venice, Italy.

DR: It’s wonderful. I think it all comes together in a real depiction. We wanted to make those paintings come to life and match the landscape to them. Andrew Dunn is a genius and I’m so glad we got him. He was such a voice of reason. The Scottish train – we didn’t have more than one shot. He operated his own camera and he’s just a lovely guy.

WAMG: What’s your next project?

DR: The next one is called THE TUNNELS OF CU CHI written by Gary Trudeau who wrote “Doonesbury.” It’s set in 1968 Vietnam and it’s a war movie.

WAMG: You were producer on Terrence Malick’s TREE OF LIFE, one of my favorite movies of the decade. Every time I watch it I find something new.

DR: Thank you. It’s true and I think that’s how he works.

WAMG: And once again on the THE VOYAGE OF TIME.

DR: If you liked TREE OF LIFE you will love THE VOYAGE OF TIME. It’s magnificent. It will come in a forty minute IMAX version and a feature.

THE VOYAGE OF TIME was being worked on before TREE OF LIFE. When I first met Terrence, we were going to make a movie about Che Guevara in Bolivia where he’s executed, but with the other film CHE the field was too crowded. I asked him, “what do you really want to do?” He said, “I want to make this movie about nature and the beginning of the universe.”

We’re making the whole thing for about $20 million and it’s been wonderful. Douglas Trumbull (2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY) has been doing the special effects.

WAMG: Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are still attached?

DR: Both have always been there. By the way, Emma Thompson did some voice overs at Abbey Studios with Terry, but Cate was much more right for the part. As Terry said, Emma was a little too English.

WAMG: Is there a release date yet for THE VOYAGE OF TIME?

DR: It will come out at Cannes ideally in 2017.

WAMG: What would you like for audiences to take away from EFFIE GRAY?

DR: No matter how bad the world gets, you can fight for your freedom. If you find yourself in a terrible situation get yourself out of it. I think she did and she finds a perfect life for herself. That’s the next movie and we don’t show that here.

One of the distributors early on wanted me to add a text that says she went on to marry Millais. I don’t do that. If I don’t film it, I don’t put a text in. In MR. AND MRS. BRIDGE, Miramax wanted us to put a coda in at the end and my feeling is make the movie you make and let the audience dream a little afterwards. You don’t have to make everything all sealed up, all packed up.

Imagine if we did what one of the minor financers on TREE OF LIFE wanted – to take out the nature footage?

WAMG: There’s definitely an audience out there for EFFIE GRAY.

DR: I think so. You don’t see movies like this too often.

EFFIE GRAY opens in theaters
Friday, April 3

ORDER THE SOUNDTRACK ALBUM: http://bit.ly/EffieGrayOST

EFFIE GRAY is edited by Emmy nominee Kate Williams (“Empire Falls”, “Anton Chekhov’s The Duel”). Emmy-winner James Merifield (“Little Dorrit”) is the production designer, with Juliana Overmeer (“Anton Chekhov’s The Duel”) and threetime Emmy-winner Paul Ghirardani (“Game of Thrones”, “Little Dorrit”) as art directors. Twice Academy Award-nominated Ruth Myers (“LA Confidential”, “Emma”) designed the costumes and the hair and make-up was designed by Konnie Daniel (“Mr Selfridge”).

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Interview: SPRING Directors Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson

I knew I liked the directing team of Moorhead & Benson even before I talked with them. Their new movie SPRING blew me away when I saw it at Fantastic Fest in Austin this past September, but when I saw writer and co-director Justin Benson sitting with a coffee mug bearing the face of my long time celebrity crush Eva Green (something he got as a gift from the director of COCKNEYS VS. ZOMBIES), I knew this was going to be a good interview. Now with a full cup of coffee in my own mug that sported a silhouette of the Frankenstein creature, Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead, and I embarked on a long journey discussing monsters, love, Alan Moore, their upcoming Aleister Crowley film, and riding bikes around Cannes in $25 suits.

Talk about the process of writing, making, and getting SPRING released

JUSTIN BENSON: Spring was written while we were mixing our first film RESOLUTION. That film was just a passion project that we wanted to make and we didn’t know if anyone was going to see it. I was still working at restaurants and working as a production assistant and I just wrote SPRING without any sales or anyone interested. I just wanted to go write. After RESOLUTION was somewhat of an indie success, we had options. We started having people ask us what else we had and what we wanted to do next. At that point I had three scripts. We were showing the scripts to different companied and XYZ Films said you should do the “romance.” “We will help you on the business side.” They helped us on the business side a lot. What was it like Aaron producing SPRING?

AARON MOORHEAD: Riding around on a bike through Cannes in $25 H&M suits like hobos.

BENSON: That’s actually an exaggeration. Hobos don’t wear $25 H&M suits.

MOORHEAD: If a hobo needed a suit…

You don’t have a Salvation Army or a thrift store?

MOORHEAD: Ok. Ok. So slightly above hobos. So we needed to get the film made once we decided on SPRING. The problem is there isn’t a lot of precedent to get a film like that made. It’s more character centric and isn’t a straightforward zombie movie or werewolf movie. There are a lot of red herrings to what’s going on but this is ultimately a love story. Exactly how to make it is a little tough. All we knew was that the script was a little bit strong and the filmmakers had a pedigree. That’s all we had to go on. So we along with XYZ went to the Cannes Film Festival and double-downed out of our own pockets. Most of the people that go are paid to go by companies. We were like the only ones at Cannes paying out of our bank account. So our intent was to package the film, meet talent, meet financing, and get an Italian producer and scout the Italian coast. We did do some of that but what’s funny is that we had no money. We had nothing.

You just had the script at this point.

MOORHEAD: The script and the two of us. We stayed 30 minutes out of town. Rented cheap bikes. It was the year it rained all day every day. So we were riding around everywhere, getting soaked. Didn’t have WiFi so we were late to all of our meetings. There were people everywhere and wouldn’t get out of the way because they wanted to see Leoanrdo DiCaprio. It was just this insane trip. Cannes is an incredible beautiful place all the time but that trip made it feel like a nightmare.

We eventually got out of it and found Luca, our Italian producer, and we scouted the Italian coastline. We realized, “Ok. We can actually shoot in Italy.” There were other meetings, but it was basically green-lit when Lou (Lou Taylor Pucci who plays Evan) came on board. He read the script and liked it. He just came off of EVIL DEAD. His reps asked him what he wants to do and he said, “I kind of want to do a love story but also a horror story.” And they said, “Lou, those don’t exist.” Then a week later SPRING came across their desk. We sat with him and it was an immediate casting thing. We then had most of the pieces of the puzzle. Justin, why don’t you explain how we got Nadia.

BENSON: We sent an email to every international producer we met on the festival circuit asking if they know of a young woman who… it’s kind of like being photogenic but more like photo-smart. If that person on-screen says they are a geneticist, then they are a geneticist. Who is Commissioner Gordon in the Batman films?

Gary Oldman

BENSON: Gary Oldman is photo-smart. He could be the dumbest guy in the world but you watch him and think that he is noble and he is incredibly intelligent. Nadia had that quality. We interviewed her over Skype and she was very naturalistic and a charmer.

There was other stuff too but that’s basically the story.

Cool. I wanted to give the readers a general understanding of how this came about, especially because you guys came from short films and the micro-budget RESOLUTION, but this film looks and feels much bigger.

BENSON: It’s weird. We never had discussions about scale or scope. We were never conscience about that. There’s a story point in RESOLUTION that requires minimalism. Where with SPRING we didn’t have that. On top of that, we wanted the camera to feel like an omniscient presence in the film. When we had the opportunity to utilize the drone shots, that look kind of came out of it. This omniscient, floating, following, presence throughout the movie.

In the year 2014-2015, it’s harder than ever to get your second film made. We experienced a phenomenon where our first movie didn’t mean much to those financing our second movie. It was a micro-budget film we did ourselves, so they are convinced that if they give you a budget that you could pull off that trick. They treat you like you’re specialized.

So do you have to talk a big game? You just have to woo them with your words.

BENSON: Yeah. Pretty much. It’s interesting. The other thing is that there are so many more micro-budget filmmakers working now. Kevin Smith made CLERKS in the 90’s and Linklater made SLACKER then, and there were just less people making these smaller, minimal things that they made themselves.

The city itself becomes an integral character in the film. I didn’t know if there was ever a different city you imagined or wanted in the beginning stages?

BENSON: It was always an Italian city. It was written for the Amalfi Coast. When we found that region and went over to scout it, we found all the exact locations. It was weird with SPRING. You had Lou asking his reps he wanted to do a sci-fi romance. What are the chances of that? With the locations, being ignorant, we wrote the scrip for Italy then had everyone tell us it was impossible to make and it would be too expensive. Then when we finally got around to making it, there was this really tiny region in Italy that worked with us and wanted the film to come shoot there. Where if we were more business savvy we would have wrote it set in Giacarta or Colombia.

You have these incredible shots that push through the city or scan over the ocean, but then you have these tight biological shots of nature or plants in close-up. How much of that was pre-planned vs. just working off the environment when you got there? Was all of that part of the original vision of the film?

MOORHEAD: Most of that was in the plan. That was a big part of our original shot listing. We wanted this storm cloud over the story. This sense of doom. It was something that succeeded slightly in RESOLUTION. We didn’t use it as much in RESOLUTION. This omniscent encroaching force of nature idea. In SPRING it was even more important to Nadia’s story and the natural phenomenon. When we were shot-listing, we would ask the production designer to get some insects. In the script it says, “Close-up on insect, rack focus to…” Sometimes we would find things on location that it was so cool we had to shoot it. A couple of dead birds I think. Those were found just there. We planned something else but used them instead. As far as the drone shots, Justin and I talked about our hatred for really intrinsic establishing shots. They are filler. Time wasters. They are just informational and don’t really push the story forward. The worst thing in the world are all these films set in LA and there’s a pan down to a house in Pasadena

(Laughter)

So we said can’t we just cut out all those shots. When we were talking about SPRING we said, “How can we avoid establishing shots and still convey that its nighttime now?” So we created these shots that were establishing shots but still were observational to the tone of the story. So we had this drone when we were planning this. When our cameraman/steadicam operator Will Sampson said he had a drone that is when things clicked into place. On our off days, he would take the drone around and we’d be like, “Take it through the bridge!” What’s interesting is almost all the moving shots that looked like JURASSIC PARK were not as interesting as the God’s eye top looking down view.

It’s because they don’t have that John Williams’ score behind it.

BENSON: Can we talk about the score?

I actually love the score. It has this great romantic quality without feeling really cheesy.

BENSON: That’s exactly it.

MOORHEAD: Exactly it.

BENSON: Actually, if you want to listen to his music, he (Jimmy Lavalle) performs as The Album Leaf. He’s kind of like Trent Reznor. You have Nine Inch Nails but Nine Inch Nails is really just Trent Reznor. He has a revolving door of musicians that come in as The Album Leaf. He’s just incredible. Right out of college his manager hired me to document the making of one of his albums. So you travel around and really get to know someone. You bond and stay in touch. Aaron and I approached him to work on SPRING. We feel really fortunate to work with someone of that caliber. Aaron would walk away from the recording sessions and he would be like, “I can’t believe this music is going to be in our film.”

Yeah. It’s a great score. It definitely brought life to the film. There’s a romantic sensibility to it without sounding like a generic score that you would hear in something like YOU’VE GOT MAIL.

One of the things I was curious about is how you guys feel about critics and journalists describing the film as BEFORE SUNRISE meets H.P. Lovecraft? Outside of your feelings towards that comparison, was either of those two things influences on SPRING?

BENSON: I know it angers Aaron. I’ll quote him, “ I’m tired of being compared to this low-brow hack.”

(Laughter)

MOORHEAD: No. We love it. We don’t like to be compared to that because it puts this terrifying expectation on your movie. So that’s scary. We weren’t consciously taking from any one movie, but at a certain point, you have to describe a movie in a certain way. And we know that it isn’t really easy to do with our movie. That’s about as good of a description as any I guess. We’re honored.

BENSON: We recently got to meet him (Richard Linklater) very briefly. He might be the nicest person on the planet that we’ve ever talked to for 30 seconds.

(Laughter)

BENSON: I had a séance to communicate with H.P. Lovecraft but he wasn’t so nice.

So did you pimp out your film to Linklater? Were you like, “Hey, people say our film looks like your shit.”

BENSON: What happened was that Tim League at Drafthouse had already talked to him about it a little. It was crazy because he already knew about it. So that was pretty special. That was cool.

We love every single thing about SPRING. Maybe 20 years from now we’ll look back and say, “We fucked up!” But for now we love everything about it. So when someone says it’s like movies from one of the greatest living filmmakers right now…

(Laughter)

There’s a conversation towards the end of the film that takes place in a church between two characters about the unexplained or how things that people don’t fully understand are labeled as the supernatural. I didn’t know if you included this as a nod of sorts to the film itself and how hard it is to categorize it.

MOORHEAD: I don’t think it’s a comment itself about the categorization of the film. What do you think Justin?

BENSON: No. No. I’m trying to remember the conversation exactly.

MOORHEAD: It’s the one about how science is the unexplained…

Correct

BENSON: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know what’s sad: that’s my favorite scene in the movie and I have to ask what it’s about!

MOORHEAD: It’s because it’s 9:01 in the morning.

(Laughter)

It’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie and that’s why I was curious about it.

BENSON: Thank you! We love that scene! It’s very literal from my point of view. Maybe unconsciously.

Out of the whole film, that one scene kind of has everything that the film is about. You have the discussion of science. They are sitting in a church, which relates to ancient religions and societies. Then the whole time you have something right over his shoulder ready to… It’s a scene that packs a lot of elements of the film perfectly together. It’s a great moment.

BENSON: Thank you! That was part of the discussion. That scene is the tone of the movie. It’s heartfelt. It’s cerebral. It’s tense. Then it ends with a fun little joke.

Because you guys just came off of a film with two male leads, did you find it refreshing to develop a relationship between a male and a female lead?

MOORHEAD: It wasn’t so much we wanted to do a romance. It had more to do with wanting to show the beginning of a relationship instead of in the middle of a really long friendship like what RESOLUTION was. It was a deconstruction of being in love and the difference between love and infatuation.

For sure. You have this romance where you have the fear of the unknown or not knowing what the next step is or who this person really is that you’re falling in love with. Obviously it goes into some horrific and fantastical territory, but at the base of it you have this fear of something new.

BENSON: The script is consciously put into one week. What I put in there from my observations is the first 6 weeks or 3 months of a romance. Not really my own, but just talking to friends. A lot of what I know about romance is from friends coming to me or me witnessing friends’ relationships. For instance, I have had three different friends on their hands and knees begging for the girl to stay with them after a couple of months. The film only shows a week, but it shows all the familiar beats you encounter in a relationship.

The horror genre often has a need to push the limits in gore or to shock the audience, but with SPRING the “shocking” scenes are more beautifully grotesque. There’s a sense that you’re attracted to it but also repulsed by it. Can you talk a little about the imagery I’m referring to without spoiling anything?

MOORHEAD: Yeah. That’s kind of exactly it. That’s the sort of genesis of the movie – that exact idea. On a superficial level, it’s a visual film that has this body horror element set in the Mediterranean in this idyllic or fantasy place. It couldn’t be a more beautiful place. Then there’s this other idea of a beautiful romance and this horrifying dark secret. But there’s something beautiful about the magic in this world and the unpredictable nature of science. Every single level we tried to juxtapose as much of the beautiful and the grotesque. That was a big guiding thing for us.

BENSON: That’s also why the script is based in Southern Italy. You look out across these groves or these beautiful Mediterranean buildings and it’s so tranquil. Then all of a sudden there’s the most horrible example of body horror that just floats up from the Mediterranean. It has that much more of an impact because of where you are.

Can you talk at all about your Aleister Crowley film? Have you started pre-production? Is the script finished?

MOORHEAD: Yes. The script is done and is fantastic. I can love on it because Justin wrote it. It’s just one of those moments where you have to pinch yourself because you’re working on something so cool. Basically it’s a strange compressed bio-pic where we tell kind of the spirit and some of the events surrounding his life. Do you know who Aleister Crowley is?

A little bit. I know he was very much interested in this idea of blending religion and science and that some say his thoughts influenced Mormonism.

BENSON: Yeah. So early in his life he had these very interesting and progressive ideas. A lot of which people would agree upon nowadays. He had interesting ideas about religion, he was a poet, he was a mountain climber, and did this ceremonial magic that was important to him. So, what is it that changed in this man that believed in the spirit of rebellion for the health of it, that same man that was on The Beatled Sergeant Pepper’s album cover, into what the press would later claim “the wickedest man in the world.” He became a heroin addict, drove many of his lovers to suicide, and formed a sort of cult. So that’s the basic idea, to show this very large fall.

MOORHEAD: If RESOLUTION is about two men and their friendship and SPRING is about a man and a woman and their romance, our Crowley film will be about a man and his ego.

Are you nervous Aaron about filming a period piece and making sure the details of this world are accurate?

MOORHEAD: One really great thing about this period piece is that it’s mainly contained to his house along Loch Ness. When he brings his counter culture friends over to his place, it doesn’t look like any period piece you have ever seen. They are Victorian, spiritual hippies. They wear clothes that are very colorful and reminiscent of Indian garb. Most Victorian period pieces everyone looks like they are wearing shades brown. This won’t look like that. It’s possible that if you saw a frame from this it would look more surreal.

I’m definitely intrigued.

BENSON: Yeah. It’s a very cool story. One of the more interesting things on his Wikipedia page is that it explicitly states ‘though he is remembered as a Satanist, he didn’t even believe in Satan.’ The movie gets into why is that? How did that happen? That gets into this story about a character who was really one of the first pop culture figures that created this alter ego that completely took him over. Like an early Marilyn Manson or Eminem. It’s a really, really, really fun project.

It’s funny. Aaron and I did this small shoot yesterday and got home late and I was super tired. I started reading this interview with Alan Moore from The Mustard online. I thought I was going to read just a normal interview. That fucker went on forever.

He’s a talker. An interesting guy though.

BENSON: It was volumes! He talked about Crowley a lot. He always does. This is another interview where he talked about Crowley a lot and how it influenced his own practice of ceremonial magic. Yeah…

(Pause)

Alan Moore is fascinating. It’s fascinating to read an interview with the author of one of the greatest written works of the 20^th century – WATCHMEN. To have that person speak so eloquently and be so funny and smart and witty, and then just get into talking about ceremonial magic and the entity he spoke to from another dimension. I’m not saying it didn’t happen or that I’m judging him, but there are very few characters in pop culture that would get into this. So I’m thinking maybe he did, but I don’t know. Even though I don’t believe in the supernatural myself, but… anyways. Alan Moore is a fascinating man and has talked about Crowley a lot for the past 10 years or so.

Do you have someone lined up to play Crowley yet, because it sounds like Moore might be your guy.

BENSON: It’s funny. That’s why we’re talking to you. We’re trying to line-up the lead. Can you shave your beard?

I can. My wife is not going to be happy. She loves the beard.

MOORHEAD: Can you tip your head back just a little bit? Ok. There it is. There’s Aleister.

Just let me know where to be. I’ll put on the Indian garb. We can do this.

MOORHEAD: We’d really like to cast the real Aleister Crowley. So, if you get a hold of him.

Good luck with that. I heard he died a while back. I would talk to Alan Moore. He might be able to connect with him though his conversations with other entities. You guys could just call him up, right? I mean, don’t all writers and famous people know each other?

BENSON: If someone said, “ Yeah come over. We’re having a few people over. Gonna drink some beers. Come over. Oh and Alan Moore is coming over to have some beers as well.” If someone told me this, my head would explode. If you drink beers with Alan Moore, your life will never be the same.

I don’t even think he would drink beer though. I’m thinking he drinks nothing but Chianti mixed with goat’s blood.

BENSON: He’s just smoking something. You’re like, “that’s not tobacco, that’s not hash, what is it?” And he says, “It’s wizard powder.”

I don’t think that interview could have ended on a more perfect note. I want to thank Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead for taking the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks. Their new film SPRING is absolutely fantastic. You can read my review of the film HERE. It’s currently the #1 horror film on iTunes, so make sure to check it out in theaters or on demand right now

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