Writer Without Fear

Originally published at Fangoria.com on August 27th, 2011

The supernatural thriller THE CALLER (now in release from Samuel Goldwyn Films) follows a young woman, Mary (TWILIGHT’s Rachelle Lefevre), as her life spirals out of control after she receives mysterious calls from an unknown stalker. The voice on the phone desperately wants her attention and will do anything to get it. How can Mary protect herself, especially when she can’t even see the person threatening her? Fango spoke with director Matthew Parkhill about the challenges of turning a simple phone call into a terrifying sequence, his ensemble cast and his upcoming projects.

FANGORIA: Tell us about the plot of THE CALLER.

MATTHEW PARKHILL: It’s a supernatural thriller revolving around a woman, Mary Kee, moving into an apartment to escape from an abusive marriage. She’s trying to get a fresh start. There’s an old telephone in this old apartment, and she starts getting calls from this woman. They’re nuisance calls; crank calls. She thinks her husband has set this woman up for it, but the woman says she is calling from the past. Mary doesn’t take it too seriously, and they start to bond over problems with relationships. The calls start getting weirder and weirder, and when Mary starts to break contact with the caller, all hell breaks loose! It’s a supernatural thriller with horror elements. It’s more old-school, about atmosphere and tension, instead of a body-count sort of horror movie.

FANG: What drew you to the script by Sergio Casci?

PARKHILL: The smartness of it. I really thought it was a smart script. At that time in London, I was getting the same kind of horror movies. A lot of them were kids in a room, with a killer on the loose, getting chopped up. Then I read this one, and it just had something different. I liked the psychological elements. I also liked the fact that I felt there was a role that an actress could do something with. The role of Mary was really interesting; she’s in every scene. The movie is about her psychological breakdown.

I also love the fact that we don’t try to explain everything. You have to figure it out yourself, put the pieces together. Your mind is racing to catch up with what’s happening on screen. When I read the script for the first time, that’s the reaction I had. My mind was racing to catch up with what was happening on the page. I love that feeling! We don’t have a bolt of lightning to explain how the telephone becomes this thing. It was just there. It was a very smart genre story, but with added emotional and psychological elements. 

FANG: A telephone can be used as a weapon of fear, as seen in the SCREAM movies, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS and in classic TWILGHT ZONE episodes. What were your inspirations for THE CALLER?

PARKHILL: There were three very particular influences for me, and I talked about them a lot with my director of photography [Alexander Melman]. REPULSION, the Roman Polanski movie, shares some similarities, because it’s about a woman going crazy in her apartment. I loved the claustrophobia in that movie, the sounds coming through the walls. The sound was an influence. Another was the GRUDGE movies, both the original and the remake. The tones of those were distinctive, even though the remake had the same director [Takashi Shimizu]. They have distinct feels to them. Again, it was the use of sound. You can watch THE GRUDGE with just pictures and it’s still creepy as hell, but the sound is so cool. And the third was LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, the Swedish version. I’m a huge fan of that movie! When I first saw that, it opened my eyes that you can make a genre movie in a different way. That movie has such a poetry, such beauty to it, both visually and in terms of the characters. And another one for the DP was DARK WATER, the feel and darkness of it.

We never actually talked about other phone movies, like SCREAM and WHEN A STRANGER CALLS. I didn’t see ours that way. I never really saw it as a phone movie, which is kind of weird because it is one, but that wasn’t a way I related to it at all. I related to Mary much more, in terms of her character and journey.    

FANG: Rachelle Lefevre delivers an amazing performance. She starts out as this vulnerable, fragile person and gradually develops into a headstrong fighter as she investigates where the calls are coming from. How did you work with Lefevre on building this character arc?

PARKHILL: The key to working with her was taking away the horror elements and just focusing on her character journey. We never talked about the suspension of disbelief regarding the phone. We just talked about the psychological journey of her character. I used to joke with her that the movie, from her point of view, was about marriage counseling. How do you deal with an abusive ex-husband? Those were the kinds of things we focused on.

It’s interesting that you talk about vulnerability. In my head, the character is much more vulnerable and Rachelle is a very strong actress. What’s fascinating with the way the movie grew, she plays the vulnerability much more internally, behind the eyes. She’s not running around screaming as a victim. She’s trying to keep her life together.

FANG: The most terrifying scenes are the phone conversations between Mary and the caller, Rose [voiced by DRAG ME TO HELL’s Lorna Raver]. How did you approach those scenes to build suspense?   

PARKHILL: The big challenge for me, as a director, was that a lot of the script was phone calls. The challenge was, how do you make those visually interesting? How do you build tension with one character in a room on phone? One of the things we did was bring down Lorna Raver to Puerto Rico. We could’ve just filmed Rachelle’s character reading off with a different actor and then added Rose’s voice in post. I didn’t want to do that. We built this modest set for Lorna, a sitting room we never saw. We shot in a warehouse and put in a phone line, and all the conversations were filmed for real.

Rachelle didn’t know what Lorna was going to throw at her. The phone-call scenes were never rehearsed, so when we were rolling, Rachelle didn’t know what was coming. In between takes, I’d sometimes say to Lorna, “Let’s throw something else at her, mess with her here.” It always came off as a surprise. Actors often say acting is about reacting. She had such a great actress to play off, which really helped make the performance believable. It’s one of the things I’m proud of with this movie. It feels very real in many ways.

It’s a fantastical premise, and I could have gone two ways with that. I could have embraced the fantastical and explained it, or say I wasn’t going to explain the fantastical and focus on the story and characters. We always tried to keep it grounded in reality.

FANG: Shooting in 23 days, was it easier to work at a fast pace because you cast several TV actors—TRUE BLOOD’s Stephen Moyer, EUREKA’s Ed Quinn and HOW TO MAKE IT IN AMERICA’s Luis Guzmán?

PARKHILL: To be honest, I never really thought about that. All three have moved from TV to film and back again. It was really tight. In their only scene together, Stephen was on his way to the airport and Luis was on his way from the airport. We only had them at the same time for an hour. It was a three-shot, and they were just so good at hitting it. It’s wasn’t about them forgetting their lines; they were getting into their rhythm and their places. Maybe that’s their training from TV. But I never thought about that; that’s a good point.    

FANG: Puerto Rico becomes another character in the film. What drew you to this location?

PARKHILL: Originally, Sergio’s script was set in New York. I got a call from one of the producers: “Could you do this in Puerto Rico and shoot San Juan for New York?” It’s not as crazy as it sounds, because a lot of movies have been shot here: FAST FIVE, THE LOSERS, MIAMI VICE. This place doubles for a lot of places. Originally it was a financial thing: There are tax breaks here. They flew me down here from London, and I remember arriving and thinking straightaway this wasn’t New York. Within 10 minutes, you could put a camera here and make it look like New York, but then, you would lose something. It has a great, different feel and texture. My argument was, “Why don’t we set it here? We can do that without changing the story.”

This isn’t advertised, but the movie is set in 2004. We changed the backstories a little bit. It benefitted the movie and made it more interesting. There are a lot of low-budget New York thrillers; the fact that we embraced the setting here helped make it more distinctive. It started out as a practical thing and it became a creative thing.         

FANG: You wrote your previous feature, DOT THE I, yourself. Is it easier for you to visually approach a script you have written, or one from another screenwriter?

PARKHILL: This is the first time I ever directed something I didn’t write. I found it easier, because I had more distance from it. I could feel from my point of view what worked, what didn’t work. I was able to be more objective. When you write something, for me anyway, it’s hard to be objective. Sometimes you need to bring in people to be objective for you. For this, I was detached in a good way, because I was able to stand back. The first draft I got from Sergio was fantastic. The things we ended up changing were small. I read the script the first time one September, and I shot it the following year. It was pretty fast.

This started 14 years ago; Sergio first did it as a short film. One thing he hates to hear is, “Oh, it’s like FREQUENCY!” He actually made his short before FREQUENCY. When that movie was released, he knew everyone was going to think he stole the idea from it. He had been working on the script for a long time.    

FANG: What are you working on now?

PARKHILL: I’m doing a few things as a writer, and a project as a director. Right now I’m writing a thriller about corruption in the London Olympics; it’s like MICHAEL CLAYTON meets CHARIOTS OF FIRE. It’s about a runner who uncovers this corruption going on, and in an INSIDER kind of way, his life is threatened. That’s not for me to direct. As a director, I’m doing a film called TWIST, which is a contemporary retelling of OLIVER TWIST set in London. It’s very different from THE CALLER. All these kids Fagin assembles are great at art heists. They’re kind of like little Spider-Men without the webbing. It’s a young OCEAN’S ELEVEN with the cast of SKINS. That could be a lot of fun!

Another thing is a supernatural thriller I’ve written, THE INHERITANCE, which is a companion piece to THE CALLER. But I’ll probably do TWIST first.

Originally published at Fangoria.com on August 26, 2011

In THE CALLER, Mary Kee (Rachelle Lefevre) has been receiving tormenting phone calls from a mysterious woman. Day and night, the calls never seem to end. Who is this stalker? Could Mary’s abusive ex-husband Steven (Ed Quinn) be setting her up, or has Mary completely lost her mind? Fango spoke with Quinn (a veteran of TV series like EUREKA and TRUE BLOOD) about his new supernatural thriller, currently in release from the Samuel Goldwyn Company.

FANGORIA: Tell us about your role in THE CALLER.

ED QUINN: THE CALLER is sort of a psychological thriller. I portray Steven, Mary Kee’s ex-husband. On the surface, he seems very abusive, very angry. It’s a very real sense of terror. There’s an aspect to the script that’s so psychological, it’s almost surreal in trying to figure out what’s happening. What’s genius about the screenplay Sergio Casci created is that audience members can open up to the psychological horror that’s taking place among the time-shifting and all of the scary moments. There’s a very real terror, the domestic violence and being a prisoner in your own home. Even if you haven’t experienced it, people can relate and understand it, so it adds another layer of fear.

FANG: Was it the psychological aspects that attracted you to the script?

QUINN: What attracted me was the smartness. Without giving away too much, audiences, as they’re watching the film or seeing it a second time, will see things that are different. On the surface level, it’s just a psychological thriller with all these crazy supernatural things happening, but there’s an entire cerebral aspect to the film. What I loved about it, as you watch it a second time, in my character’s case, watch how his clothing and demeanor changes. Pay close attention to when I’m wearing the wedding ring. I love the attention to detail. When I first got to Puerto Rico, [co-star] Stephen Moyer called me down to have coffee. We started talking about all these aspects of the script, all the events and time changes, Sergio and [director] Matthew Parkhill’s attention to detail. That’s what I loved about the screenplay. It’s very smart. It can be straight-ahead horror or it can be this psychological thriller. It’s this web where you have to pull together and extract all these ideas—a lot of duality.   

FANG: Steven might possibly be the cause behind Mary’s terrorizing phone calls, or he could be the red herring, a distraction from the real culprit. Though the audience doesn’t know what happened between them, Steven feels wronged by Mary. How did you approach the character within those scenes?

QUINN: I’ve played a few cool villains, and the key to a villain is you’re the hero of your own movie. Everybody else is making one movie. You’re making your own. I think the weak place to play someone like Steven, especially when dealing with domestic violence, is to play him out as angry and power-hungry. In domestic violence cases, they’re people who are frustrated, confused, embarrassed and hurt. I tried to layer a lot of that in. One, because I think it makes the character a little more scary. When he’s hurt or wronged, you’re more scared of him because he feels justified. It’s one thing if someone’s just mean or if they seem a little unhinged. There are some moments of physical altercation, but Mary Kee is another aspect. Is he exhausted after this long relationship with someone who’s bipolar or schizophrenic? When he comes home, she’s just gone nuts. He’s tired, at the end of his rope. Because we’re seeing it through her eyes, this guy is scary, he’s abusive and stalking her. Or is it, because they’re in a relationship and he knows her better than anyone else, and she is in a manic state? There are so many layers, there’s no exposition offered. But you can look at my performance and then look at the movie as a whole. You’ll start going, “Huh? What’s really going on here?”

I’ve played the bad guy, and it’s not fun. You have to do it in some films, but there isn’t a lot of justification in it, and it’s not very fulfilling. But with a role like this, you can offer a little bit of duality.          

FANG: Because of those moments of domestic violence, is it a challenge to play a flawed character whom an audience might see as unsympathetic and unlikable?

QUINN: It is when you go to bed at night. I’m being honest. I’ve done roles where I’ve just felt crummy for days after. It’s acting, it’s not real, but emotionally, you kind of go to this real place. You have to accept the fact that to tell a story, everybody has to do their jobs. Some jobs suck sometimes, but you gotta do the work. Which is why when you’re going to play that kind of character, it’s really nice when you can present a character who’s smart enough, where you can justify your actions. That’s the difference between a good and bad script. In a good script, the bad guy can justify his actions and it becomes so much more compelling. It’s a far bigger challenge for the protagonist, than the antagonist, has in justification. It’s more fun to play and it’s far more compelling for the audience, because the stakes are higher.        

FANG: In the scenes between Mary and Steven, just as you said, where you’re menacing, she comes across as vulnerable and even fragile. Tell us about working with Rachelle Lefevre in those scenes.    

QUINN: Rachelle’s an incredible actress, with a lot of range. She leaves herself open and so vulnerable in scenes, it’s very easy for me to be haunting. It’s a dance. When everyone plays their steps correctly, it’s beautiful to watch, or scary to watch in this case. Rachelle is not a timid little flower. She is a really smart, sexy, talented, tough girl. Yet she can look at the script, at a scene, and she knows where she needs to be emotionally and allow herself to be open. That’s why the audience follows her on this journey and roots for her, even as weird as it gets.       

FANG: On EUREKA, sometimes you were working in front of a greenscreen for the CG FX, but for THE CALLER, you filmed in Puerto Rico. Discuss shooting on location.

QUINN: I had the best time ever in Puerto Rico. I love the tropics. I’m a surfer. I couldn’t have been happier. It actually worked out amazingly well for me. I had just come from doing a movie where I was just freezing to death. Because of scheduling, they had to shoot Moyer out and shoot [Luis] Guzmán out. They had to take some days off to go back to London. I got to stay the whole time! I had the best time ever! No one enjoyed filming this movie more than me!          

The best part when you’re doing a television series is, you have a lot of sets. That’s the kind of world you create. When you’re on location doing a movie, it’s like an adventure. My favorite films are those huge productions like APOCALYPSE NOW, where they were filming in the Philippines for two years. All hell broke loose on that. Being in Puerto Rico, the color, the people, the sounds, all added to the texture of the film.

FANG: How was it working with director Parkhill?

QUINN: Almost every actor, when they do a film and it turns out well, they say wonderful things about the director. It goes so much deeper on this film, because of what Matthew had to go through. This film had a few bumps on the road that would have derailed most productions. Matthew was determined to see this film through and finish it, just to get the movie shot; it’s just incredible. But to do it so well, and do it under the pressure he was under, and to still never compromise, and his attention to detail… I’m just so happy. It sounds weird. I’m proud. To know what he went through and then to look up to see that movie, there’s nothing gratuitous. It all sets the mood, the pace. To pull this movie off under the circumstances he had, that’s a leader.  

FANG: In EUREKA, you played Nathan Stark with perfect comedic timing. In TRUE BLOOD, you were this strong and tough vampire, Stan. In THE CALLER, you’re this menacing figure as the antagonistic Steven. With such a wide variety of roles, how do you differentiate each character?

QUINN: It’s weird. To me, it really comes down to shopping for clothes. I’m a really big guy, and the clothes don’t fit. The sad thing is, because of my size and stature, a lot of roles don’t fit me; they just don’t. It’s heartbreaking and it’s frustrating, but every once in a while, one does. EUREKA was one of those situations. TRUE BLOOD was one of those situations. And this film was another where I walked in and it was a perfect fit, which rarely happens to me. I find myself fighting for most roles. Whatever reason, that one in a million that I’m up for, when they fit me, they’re just really easy. I could go back and forth from Nathan to Stan to Steven. It’s not difficult, yet it might be different genres, but to someone on the outside, “Wow! Look at that range!” For me, it’s like different clothes and a wardrobe perfectly made for me. I’m just so happy to go to work. The job can be pretty easy. I can tell when a job isn’t, and they tend to be not very good.     

FANG: What are you working on now?

QUINN: Right now, I’ve actually been doing a lot of writing. I have been working on coming in second place for very large films. It’s been a year of heartbreak—losing some really extraordinary projects at the 11th hour. It seems like at all times I’m up for astonishing projects and, like I said, ones that fit, but then art becomes commerce. I’ve been writing a lot, and I have big projects that are on the horizon, just waiting to fill out.

Originally published at Fangoria.com on August 26th, 2011

In the supernatural thriller THE CALLER (opening this Friday from Samuel Goldwyn Films), deeply troubled divorcee Mary Kee (Rachelle Lefevre) is tormented by sinister phone calls from a mysterious woman (Lorna Raver), but finds some solace in her growing relationship with a college teacher played by TRUE BLOOD’s Stephen Moyer. Fango spoke with Moyer about his role in THE CALLER, filming on location in Puerto Rico and his thoughts on being King Bill Compton in TRUE BLOOD, currently wrapping up its fourth season on HBO.  

FANGORIA: Tell us about your role in THE CALLER.

STEPHEN MOYER: I play this character named John Guidi, who teaches mechanical engineering. And he first meets Rachelle Lefevre’s character, Mary Kee, when she comes into his class by mistake. We learn that he’s single. He’s a fairly simple guy who’s been brought up in Puerto Rico. We don’t get to learn why he’s single or what happened to him, because the story is told from Rachelle’s point of view. He becomes sort of a big part in her life and what is going on for her. And he tries to help her work out what on Earth is going on!

FANG: What attracted you to Sergio Casci’s script? 

MOYER: It was very tight; there were no extraneous scenes. Everything leads on in a very beautiful way. I love old-fashioned filmmaking, and this is, in many ways, kind of an old-fashioned film. It’s done on film, not on digital. It’s shot without any special effects. It creates tension through the camera, performance, music and lighting. And it felt really great being a part of it. We had an incredible time. 

FANG: The characters, John and Mary, have an emotional arc where they are supportive and compassionate toward each other. How did you and Rachelle build this emotional bond, creating the chemistry between you?

MOYER: When we got together, we sat down with the director, Matthew Parkhill. We tried to make sure that everything we were doing had a reason to be there, that there was nothing extraneous; that it was organic. When I watched the film, I felt that you really believe the genesis of their relationship. You really believe she’s not ready for him, but she ultimately has nowhere else to turn. He’s the first kind presence for her in a long time. It’s like anything that you do with a director: Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing? What is my reason for being in this scene? For every scene we did, Rachelle and I would sit down with Matthew and talk about what we were trying to achieve with that scene. 

It’s a great shame Rachelle can’t be here for this interview. She’s working. She is phenomenal in this film. It’s an amazing performance. This will do wonders for her, because she’s brilliant in it.   

FANG: How was Parkhill as a director?

MOYER: Matthew thought a lot about the way he wanted to make the film look. One of the characters in the movie is Puerto Rico, San Juan. We’ve never really seen that in film. There’s an amazing scene in the cemetery. One expects Puerto Rico to be sunny, hot and beautiful, [but here] it’s gray, raining and wet. That kind of dank feeling he infuses is another character in the film. The telephone is another character. Every corner of the frame has something going on. We became good friends while working on it, and we’re planning to hopefully work together again. After seeing it, I’m going to force him to work with me again. He’s got a wonderful eye.

FANG: THE CALLER shot in 23 days. To make a movie that quickly, was it easier to work with a TV veteran like Parkhill?

MOYER: You know, it’s interesting, because 23 days is four and a half weeks, if you’re doing five-day weeks. And that’s fairly long these days. My wife [Anna Paquin] is in the middle of shooting a film that’s on an 18-day schedule. You just have to work hard. Budgets are not what they were; either you get no money or you get an extraordinary amount of money. You know, movies these days seem to be under $5 million or $100 million. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground anymore. Matthew, like any other director these days, is aware of his constraints, and he’s gotta work; he’s gotta make it happen quickly. Honestly, I happen to think that it’s a positive influence on actors and on a crew. You have no time to stop. You gotta keep driving away at it, and that can create really good work.  

FANG: In TRUE BLOOD, you are mostly working on soundstages. THE CALLER were filmed on location in Puerto Rico. Did the setting have an influence on your performance?

MOYER: I think so. The apartment block and that little area we were filming was very evocative. The way it was lit, I’m sure it’s not like that usually; it was quite spooky. It’s all about creating tension, obviously; that helps. We play around with the idea of heat a lot in the movie. Rachelle’s air-conditioning unit is broken down; it’s sticky. It’s about trying to create the idea of that heat for the audience as well. It gets the audience thinking, “My God, I’m feeling uncomfortable.” The clamminess is another character in the film. Ultimately, they built the apartment in a studio, so we did some interior work because it’s easier to do that, because of lighting and sound. But the stuff we did on the road gives the film an authentic visual style.           

FANG: Though your screen time is short in PRIEST, you create sympathy for the character of Owen Pace, right until his dying breath. In THE CALLER, John is a sympathetic, likable and good-natured gentleman. Is that quality difficult to convey to viewers?

MOYER: It is, because I’m horrible and so I have to work at being empathetic. It’s been an interesting two or three summers for me, because I’ve had big jobs that have fallen through because of budgetary stuff. And that happens; everyone goes through it. So what ultimately has ended up happening, I’ve gone into these films and done the odd bit here and there. That’s a lot of fun. You turn up and you have to concentrate. My work on THE CALLER was nine days. My work in PRIEST was four days. So it’s a lot of fun to be thinking about your character and then going in to hit it. I don’t necessarily think to myself, “I want to make this character sympathetic or empathetic.” You go in and you play what it is that you’ve been given to do.

In this instance, John is a gentle, kind soul. I was probably drawn to that. Even when you’re playing a vampire for most of your existence, Bill has this humanity to him. I was attracted to the fact that this guy is warm. We did play with the idea of making him nasty, so that the audience is constantly thinking. But the problem is, there’s so much going against Rachelle’s character. We give her this one thing, something warm to her, it makes it more realistic.          

FANG: In this season of TRUE BLOOD, the dynamic between Bill and Jessica has developed into more of a father/daughter relationship.

MOYER: I’m glad you picked up on the Jessica thing. That was really some of my favorite stuff this year. Deborah Ann Woll is wonderful, and to get to work with her…we really love each other. To be able to do anything with her always makes me happy. I’m really pleased to get to do that. She’s going to have a very long career. I love what they’ve done with Bill and her. In my head, at the end of season three, my feelings about it were that if I had one thing left, it was Jessica. Bill almost feels like he’s dying. He’s lost Sookie; he’s lost everything. But the one thing he’s got left is Jessica. Obviously, I don’t get to write the scenes. I don’t really get the choice on what to create. I was really glad when they put us together. I try to convey that he’s got this one connection, that sort of daughter connection. That’s been a lot of fun this year.

But also, at the same time, he’s been given this power, this importance. He doesn’t want to abuse it. He has to make some difficult decisions, like any politician does. That’s been a lot of fun too.          

FANG: What are you working on now?

MOYER: I am going home to London for a few days to do some press, then flying back to LA to do a film called EVIDENCE, which is another little thriller. It’s really good, a great script. And again, going in for a few days on that, in the beginning of September. I’m really excited about that. It’s with me and Radha Mitchell, who’s a friend of mine anyway. I haven’t worked with her in a while, so it’s going to be really nice to do that. I’m still waiting on a couple of other things, some offers in, but I’m waiting on other stuff before I make any decisions.