Elisha Cuthbert (Carly) and Joel Silver (producer) interview

Article by vichen posted 7 months ago

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Question: What appealed to you about the character of Carly?

Elisha Cuthbert: The character was most appealing at first because I was coming off of “The Girl Next Door,” which sort of was a great first film for me, but I wanted to do something extremely different.

And when Joel brought me “House of Wax,” I thought this is perfect because the genre is different, the idea is different, and the character is nothing like Danielle in “The Girl Next Door.” We kind of created Carly in the sense that she was a lot more tomboyish, not so particularly pretty – but pretty in her own way - and a little bit more together and driven. So that was sort of the basis of Carly. And I liked the idea of the brother figure, the boyfriend figure, and then sort of her own personality within this huge group of teenage kids coming together, which was kind of nice.

Question: What’s the appeal of William Castle’s work?

Joel Silver: I mean, I love what he did. When I was a kid I saw the movies and I remember one of my [production] designers, Mike Reva, actually saw “House on Haunted Hill” in the theater when the actual cardboard skeleton went on a string and for weeks he couldn’t function. But I just think they were the pure essence of what the horror movies could be. They didn’t have a lot of money. It was all about the ideas and about the promotion, which was a very important part of it too. And I just like horror pictures. I’m a big fan of horror movies. I love that genre and I like to always be involved in them. We started “Tales from the Crypt” in ’89 on HBO and did 93 ½ hours there. When Bob [Zemeckis] and I decided to continue on with Dark Castle, we really want to water this garden. We want to really work in this genre and try to do one or two every year. This is our fifth one – “House of Wax.” It is definitely the best. It is the best we did. It came out fantastic.

Question: What makes it the best? What sets it apart?

Joel Silver: I don’t know. Jaume [Serra] is really talented. This young guy is really good. We didn’t do kind of a ‘teen horror film’ at Dark Castle up to now. We didn’t do one. We didn’t want to replicate “Scream” or “I Saw What You Did.” We really wanted to stay away from that, but the studio really wanted us to try to work with “House of Wax.” They loved that title. And they have this notion of intellectual property there – at Warner Bros. – where they like to kind of work with their own material. They said, “Why don’t you try to do ‘House of Wax?’” And we heard like 60 concepts for the movie and they were all s**t. And when this one came along, it ended up being kind of a ‘young people in jeopardy’ story, but it worked for us. But we really wanted to… How do I say this nicely? We really wanted to fill it with actors who could really perform the roles. The only one who is a wild card is Paris [Hilton], and she really pulls it off.

Elisha Cuthbert: And I can agree to that.

Joel Silver: But Elisha and Chad [Michael Murray] are both, you know, really good. I showed the movie to the studio yesterday and they just were over the moon. I mean, they kept saying to me, “How tall is Elisha? Is she really [that tall]?” People say she’s short but she doesn’t look short because the movie is really impressive. Chad and Elisha are really awesome in the picture.

Question: In working with a celebrity figure like Paris Hilton, was that more difficult?

Elisha Cuthbert: I assumed it was going to be. We talked about it a little bit and she knows this, too, because I told her the story. I thought, “Oh my God, what’s going to happen? What are we going to do?” And she got there and I can’t say one bad thing about her. She was there on time, she did a great job. She looked good and she was a blast to hang out with and shoot the movie with. I can’t imagine anyone else being in the film except her for Paige.

Joel Silver: It has a unique structure. They really only have one or two sequences where they’re all together and then that’s it. They’re never together again. Look, Elisha anchors the picture. You’re with her and you stay with her. She’s the star of the movie and is incredible. And Chad, who plays her brother, which is a little unusual too for these kinds of pictures. They end up being together in the movie, but you’re following her in the picture.

Elisha Cuthbert: Yeah, I was. I mean, there [are] people that are really experts on the genre and they get it. I have just seen a few and like the idea of going into a movie theater and feeling like it’s going to take you somewhere and make you feel really scared. I liked the idea of it, but I had no idea how intense it was going to be to actually film it. I was going into it going, “Ahh, it will be another movie. It’ll be great.” Jaume was like, “Get ready for all these sequences.” I was like, “It’ll be fine. I can do this. I’ve dealt with ’24.’ I know how to do this stuff.” But I got there and had no idea it was so physically challenging and demanding. But it was great. It was really cool.

Question: Are the scares taken out of it while you’re actually working?

Elisha Cuthbert: You think they’re going to [be]. You think it’s going to diminish the scare for you because you’re there and you’re partaking in everything. You read the script and you know what’s happening. But then the cast got to see some of the stuff at the studio, and for it to be put together in a way that Jaume has created this sort of film, is not what I remember on the page. It’s so frightening. A lot of the kids in the movie are kind of separated. We do our own thing so I wasn’t there for shooting a lot of the stuff, and you jump. We all jumped. I remember thinking there was no way. I was like, “I’m going to go in there and I’m going to be so cool and prepared.” No, it was like hit the roof! All of us completely jumped. I had no idea. So yeah, you get just as frightened as everyone else.

Q: What were the high and low points of filming “House of Wax?”

Elisha Cuthbert: It was always high energy because the movie, once it hits a certain point in the first act, you’re gone. You’re totally into the film and there’s so many things boom, boom, boom, happening one after the other. So to kind of get in there and do some of my sequence stuff was really high energy. We had a lot of stunt stuff going on. We had a lot of things happening and fire and wax. Lots of crazy prosthetics and things, so that was the exciting part.

The low part was we had a little bit of a fire mishap on the set, which kind of was a high point because it was kind of cool, actually (laughing). I was like, “Wow, I get to witness this studio up in flames.” But it was a low point because we had to stop for about four or five days. It kind of put a little dent in it, but then we kept going, which was good.

Question: Joel, how did you keep everybody calm after the fire incident?

Joel Silver: Nobody got hurt so that’s the most important thing. We didn’t plan on the place burning down, but we took precautions in case something did happen. We had built two sets of the House of Wax set. We built one on one stage that was kind of a non-effects stage, where it was the full-on set. And then one was designed as the effects stage. It was elevated so that they could get underneath it. It was all designed and rigged for the fire gags. But you know, it just got out of hand. There was too much stuff.

Again, it’s the thing I always said on “The Matrix.” When Larry was saying to me, “I want the actors to come in for four months and train to be able to fight.” I said, “When you paint your house, you don’t hire an actor to be a painter. You hire a painter. Let’s hire stuntmen.” And Larry would say, “No. I want the actors to look like they can do what they’re doing.” It’s the same thing in this. You know what I mean? You don’t really want to use real fire. You are telling a story. You are making a movie about it. But fire is fire and it just got away from us.

Elisha Cuthbert: Once you put aside that no one got hurt, you got to realize that we were shooting this MTV series in conjunction with the actual shooting of the film and how brilliant it was for this episode (laughing). Because it was like all of a sudden people are going to be watching the show and go, “Oh my God!” They’re witnessing this huge stage get completely demolished. It’s like great television, too. So it was like perfect.

Question: You had an MTV crew shooting throughout the filming?

Elisha Cuthbert: Yeah, we still have them. They’re out there right now.

Joel Silver: We did a show which is called “Movie Life: House of Wax” which is kind of like… I don’t know. I think it’s the first time anyone has ever done this. But we chronicled the making of the movie for that kind of a reality show. There’s no contestant. There’s no prize component but they actually, I guess it’s almost like “The Real World.” All of the actors in one location in Australia.

Elisha Cuthbert: We’re all taken out of our lives and sort of put there, and we’re there to make a horror movie. At first I was thinking, “God, I hope it’s exciting,” because for us, it’s a lot of waiting around.

You’re waiting to go in there and do your thing and get out. I’m thinking, “What are they going to shoot?” And let me tell you, they got all kinds of stuff.

Joel Silver: You never know what’s going to happen. Example: the stage burning down. It’s Episode 3. But there’s five half hours. [Joel asks someone from the studio when it will start airing] Probably the first week in April, last week in March. It’s going to be five episodes of the show leading up to the release of the film.

Question: Is the MTV series a nod to the old William Castle marketing?

Joel Silver: Of course. We’ve always tried with these Dark Castle movies to be conscious of the kind of promotion/marketing things, because that’s what was a mainstay. That’s what Bill Castle always did. So I mean, we’re always looking for unusual stuff and we did one this time.

Question: Do you have a scene where you confront yourself in wax?

Elisha Cuthbert: Confront my character seeing herself as wax? No. But I confront myself in a lot of wax so… It’s interesting. We had many different substances that kind of replicated wax. We actually had wax. It was interesting and messy, but it was fun.

Joel Silver: There’s a scene in the show where they tell Jared [Padalecki] that he has to literally be sprayed with wax.

Elisha Cuthbert: And it’s real. And he came to me and he was like, “Do you know how hot this is going to be?” (Laughing) I’m like, “They’re going to fry you.” He was like, “Oh my God!”

Joel Silver: But they blew it on him in a way that it wasn’t.

Elisha Cuthbert: It wasn’t dangerous but you think about it and you’re like, “Whoa!” He had two replicas of himself in wax and they actually scared me at one point because I ran by one of his wax figures and it looks just like him, the facial hair and everything. There [are] people there applying each hair on his face and head, to replicate his actual structure. It’s incredible. Sitting there watching the women is crazy.

Question: Did you watch the original “House of Wax?”

Elisha Cuthbert: I didn’t watch it on purpose because I didn’t want it to sort of alter the idea, or put any ideas into my head about it. I’ve yet to see it. I know there’s an original before the Vincent Price [version], as well. But I’d like to check it out in 3-D. I heard it’s pretty crazy and fun. But I’m going to wait to see ours first and then dabble with the original.

Question: Did you ever consider shooting this in 3-D?

Joel Silver: We talked about it. The technology is not there yet and I don’t like the blue and red glasses. They’re pretty silly.

Question: James Cameron just did one.

Joel Silver: Yeah, I know. But it’s still… It’s hard. I don’t know if adults would sit [through it]. We would, but I don’t know if [other adults would]. I think kids would. That’s why the “Spy Kids” movies would work. I mean, we’ll get there sooner or later. But we’re thinking about actually putting the actual movie in 3-D on the DVD. We may actually include it with the glasses. We’re talking about that now because that might be cool to show our movie and then show the original one as well.

Question: What did director Jaume Serra bring to this movie?

Joel Silver: Jaume is a young Spanish filmmaker who had done a lot of commercials and music videos. And I like to work in that area with Dark Castle. We really work the scripts out so that we know where we’re going with them. It’s a fairly big entity because there’s a lot of special effects in these movies, so we just want somebody who can go in there and understands that kind of process with the special effects and at the same time, has a fresh take. We meet with a bunch of guys and we look at everybody and we make a decision.

Elisha Cuthbert: He has fantastic style. I saw his reel of commercials. He’s worked with Brad Pitt, Britney Spears, a lot of great, fun people, and his commercials are edgy and fast and they’re cut well.

The lighting is beautiful and he brought that to the movie. It’s very edgy and it’s stylish. I think that’s what sets it apart from a teen horror film because it’s edgy and it’s fun. It looks good. JOEL SILVER: It’s really different than you’d think. It isn’t really a teen horror. I mean, it really is good. It’s smart. It’s a smart film and the movie has different styles to it. It opens in almost a “Blair Witch”-kind of reality type story at the beginning. And then you get into the town, and we built this town in Australia. When you’re in the town, the style changes. It’s good. It’s a good movie. It came out really good.

Question: After three seasons on “24” and now this, what’s the secret to playing a cool damsel in distress?

Elisha Cuthbert: To keep everything as real as possible. When you get scripts in and you think, “Okay, I’ve never been in this situation before. How can I make this look real?” You just go through all those steps and I go through different ideas in my mind and write them down, and see which works better.

It’s difficult. But as long as I can make an audience feel something, I don’t care whether it’s a good thing or bad thing, just to feel something is important to me. And so if I can convey it as real as possible, that makes the most sense.

Question: What’s the biggest difference between Kim on “24” and Carly in “House of Wax?”

Elisha Cuthbert: It’s so funny. When you do television it’s a weird thing because you step into the wardrobe and you have a specific look, and Kim is such a particular person. It’s so easy for me to differentiate the difference between the movies and the television, even though I’m not doing it now. If I were to jump into it that again, it would be like [snaps her fingers] so easy. You’re lucky enough in television to always be at it, to always be doing it. It’s like you’re constantly that person, always, all the time. It gets to be like clockwork. But when you jump into a film, especially when the location’s in Australia, you’re set away from family, you get into a whole new mindset.

There [are] differences. She’s got brown hair, physical, a little bit more tomboyish. Kim was a little bit more girlie in a way, but tough at the same time. Just different ideas. She talks different, too.

Joel Silver: Looking at them both, Kim is very reactive I thought. And Carly is very proactive. That’s the biggest thing. Things that happen in “24” happen to her. And in “House of Wax,” she’s driving everything. She’s on her own.

Elisha Cuthbert: I make the decisions. Exactly. That’s great.

Question: Will you return to “24?”

Elisha Cuthbert: It’s up in the air right now. I mean, they’ve inquired about some stuff. I’ve got to see. I’ve got to read some things, but we’ll see. You never know. You can’t ever put anything aside. You’ve got to leave it open, or at least that’s what I’m doing.

Question: Is this “House of Wax” an homage to the 1953 film in any way besides the title?

Joel Silver: Maybe just in concept and idea. We took it further. In this story there is kind of a wax museum called the House of Wax, which is literally made of wax. So the entire building is wax.

Elisha Cuthbert: And it was, literally. It was very easy to melt.

Joel Silver: When we do that, we were conscious of the original movie. We watched it and there are some kind of shots that will kind of have a memory of that movie. But it’s a very different story and the effects are from right now, from today.

Question: What’s your favorite scene in "House of Wax?"

Elisha Cuthbert: I don’t want to give away anything… I can’t give away that one… There’s a lot of them. There’s a moment in the film where Chad’s character and my character finally come together and decide that we need to do something about the situation. And we sort of reunite because there’s a little turmoil off the top of the film. And I like that moment because it’s both of our characters realizing that we have to do something about this. And we do, and that’s a great moment for me.

Question: What’s the one scene in “House of Wax” that you felt needed to be in there because of the type of horror movie it is?

Joel Silver: It’s not that simplistic.

Question: The truly remarkable scenes… I mean, the end of the movie in the House of Wax is pretty fantastic. But there are scenes earlier in the picture. There’s a scene where this guy Super Glues her lips together, which is pretty outrageous. There’s pretty wild things that happen that are due directly with the House of Wax. “I’ve never seen that before,” you say.

Elisha Cuthbert: I was getting good at the sign language. There [were] moments in between where we had to keep rolling because they were actually glued together, and I couldn’t speak. I remember talking to the A.D. going [trying to move her lips but not prying them open]. It was crazy. It was fun.

Question: They really glued your lips together?

Elisha Cuthbert: Yeah. Well, not real Crazy Glue but you had to. I wanted them to glue them because at first we had this sort of ‘mock’ and I was going to act like they were glued. I said, “Let’s just do something with it.” I said to the special effects guy, “Is there any way we can seal them because I want to actually pull them and make it show that I’m trying my best to unlock them?” So we did it, and it’s wild. It looked good – it looked really good.

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Elisha Cuthbert (Carly) and Joel Silver (producer) interview

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