We Are Movie Geeks

THE LAZARUS EFFECT is in theaters now, and in celebration of the film I got the chance to sit down with star Mark Duplass to talk about the film. Check it out below.

From masters of horror Blumhouse Productions – producer of THE PURGE, INSIDIOUS and SINISTER franchises – THE LAZARUS EFFECT follows a group of researchers led by Frank (Mark Duplass) and his fiancée Zoe (Olivia Wilde), who’ve achieved the unimaginable – bringing the dead back to life. After a successful, yet unsanctioned, trial on a newly deceased animal, the team is ready to unveil their breakthrough to the world. When the dean of their university learns of their underground experiments, their project is unexpectedly shut down and their materials are confiscated.

Frank, Zoe and their team (Donald Glover, Sarah Bolger and Evan Peters) take matters into their own hands, launching a rogue attempt to recreate the experiment, during which things go terribly wrong and one of their own, Zoe, is horrifically killed. Fueled by terror and grief, Frank pushes them to do the unthinkable : attempt to resurrect their first human test subject.

Initially, the procedure appears to be a success, but the team soon realizes something is wrong with Zoe. As her strange new persona reveals itself, the team quickly becomes stuck in a gruesome reality. They are no longer faced with the question of whether they can bring someone back to life – but rather, the wrath of her return.

What was it about particular script that made you want to be a part of it, because you’re not a big horror fan, right?

MARK DUPLASS : I mean, I haven’t done a lot of it. I directed a movie called BAGHEAD that has a little bit of that in it, and I’m in a movie called Creep that was a partnership with Jason Blum, and that’s how we became friends. So, I was less looking for a horror movie to do, but rather was more excited to work with JasonI saw that the script was a solid, straight ahead horror movie that wasn’t as much about the gore as it was about being in a tight space in the psychology of horror. I was like ‘Oh, good!,’ that’s what ALIENS did, and that has the potential to be up my alley. When I knew that David Gelb was going to direct it, who’s a documentary filmmaker I was like ‘Oh, this is cool! We have a potential alchemy here to do a combination of naturalism with a science based horror project, and I was like ‘I think I could add something to this by just trying to do a really naturalistic performance,’ and make this lead character feel less like a super buff, awesome haired hero who doesn’t look like a scientist at all, but kind of looks like a science dork. When he’s running around, he kind of looks like a science dork too, and that was interesting to me.

The film does take on the controversial subject of science versus religion. Were you ever concerned with ruffling a few feathers? 

MARK DUPLASS : I was not concerned for a second about the subject matter being to incendiary for people because I feel like viewers at this stage have been hit with so much, and are so savvy that anyone who is put off or offended by this is really just kind of living in the stone ages. What was exciting to me about the essence of the story is that… I think people are very curious to figure out where we go when we die. I think that you can answer almost any question in 2015 by picking up your phone and googling it, and in three seconds you know the answer… and this one we never do. That’s kind of fun.

Does being a director yourself help when you’re on set?

MARK DUPLASS : It does, and not in the fact of where I’m like ‘Hey! You should do it like this?’. It helps me in a multitude of ways. One, being a director is incredibly stressful and exhausting, so when I’m on set as an actor I’m just having a blast because I’m not shouldering the entire ship. That’s fun. Second, I think I’m appreciative of how stressful it is to be a director, so I know how to not be a pain in the ass to my director, and respect their space. Thirdly, I think that I have a global sense of where the story is headed, what is unique about the project, and that allows me to try to be a guardian of one or two things on the set that I value. The thing I really valued on this set was to try to deliver and foster naturalistic performances amongst the whole cast. That meant improvising things to surprise people, and throw people off kilter, or taking that super scientific piece of dialogue and improvising around it so that it feels more natural. That was my whole goal. I just want these people to feel like regular people and scientists, and not superheroes. As much as I could do that with the kind of bad clothes, and the dorkier hair, and all of that stuff… that was important to me, again, rather than be like Hotty McHottersan who just so happens to be leading a science research lab. It doesn’t feel right.

I’ve heard actors say that watching themselves die on film is rather cathartic, because, as you just said, it’s the one unknown. Whether you do or not in the film, so that there are no spoilers, is this an area of acting that you enjoy?

MARK DUPLASS : Well, I don’t want to give away too much about the story, but what I will say is, what we have in our movie… there’s this wonderful little sense of ’10 Little Indians,’ which is just a great story. It’s really less a question of who’s going to die, but more of a question of when, and how are they going to die. Once that thing sets into place it gets really exciting. There was a lot of discussion on set about ‘What’s yours going to be like?’ and ‘How are you gonna do it?’. When you’re on a low-budget horror movie a lot of that is up to you as an actor. I’m super excited about how that element of the movie unfolds.

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THE LAZARUS EFFECT is in theaters now