Addis: When we found our partners, our new partners at Lionsgate and NBC, we were anxious about this transition. The filmmakers we work with on Masters of Horror had such absolute freedom when it came to the content issues. We were incredibly, pleasantly surprised when we discovered how many of the filmmakers we had worked with before and how many of the filmmakers we had wanted to work with before, but hadn't had the chance to, really embraced this idea. And [we] discovered very quickly that a lot of the devices that have been used for the last couple of years, particularly the very graphic, gruesome violence—the sexually graphic and salacious devices that had been used in a lot of successful horror films—were no longer available to them. And I think the notion of being much more imaginative about how they would entertain and terrify audiences in this medium turned out to be a great thing for the show. But it would be dishonest to say that we expected that to be the case. It was just a really pleasant surprise. The scenes that we saw so far look like you're pushing the limits of the genre very far for a network TV show. Do you feel like this show is pushing the limits, and will it continue if it works?

Deane: I don't think there's much like it on television.

Addis: The first cycle is a 13-episode summer cycle. And I'm sure NBC will respond to the success of the show, and we hope it's a perennial. It would be great to do over and over again. It's a lot of fun to do. It's a very challenging experience to make an anthology series. Every eight days you're making a completely different movie with a brand-new director, an entirely different cast. So the producers are constantly casting, designing, not only working on the show that's shooting, but the next two or three that are quickly coming down the pike. So we had a lot of fun doing it. We'd like to do more of them.Elisabeth Moss, could you talk about your character and the episode you're in called Eater?

Moss: Sure, I play Danni Bannerman, who is a tough sort of tomboy, goth girl, and she's also a rookie cop at this police station. And it's kind of the classic story of the girl and the serial killer, kind of meeting her match or not. And the serial killer, who is an Eater, is sort of self-explanatory. He comes to stay in the precinct on his way to a sort of high-security facility. And of course, there's a blizzard outside and-[laughter]-the whole thing. And, you know, chaos ensues. And it was great because she sort of is a huge horror fan and is very into that, reads all the magazines, does the whole thing. And she kind of becomes a part of her own story, which is not as fun as reading about it in a magazine or watching a movie. What about working with Stuart Gordon of Re-Animator?

Moss: Yeah, Stuart was awesome. Stuart Gordon directed mine, and he's obviously had a lot of experience in that genre. And you'll find that these directors and filmmakers who make these films that are absolutely terrifying and sometimes filled with horrible images are actually the sweetest, nicest guys and have families and are, you know, incredibly intelligent and well versed and literate. And Stuart is sort of the epitome of that. He's like a big teddy bear and so sweet. And we had a lot of fun, actually. It was great. He kind of became a buddy of mine while we were shooting, because it was basically just-in my storyline-it's a lot of just me. And if there are other people, they're either trying to kill me or not being helpful. [Laughter.] So Stuart was kind of my only ally, although he was, like, responsible for putting me in these situations. But he was great. He's awesome.Brandon Routh, what about your episode, called Community?

Routh: First I'd like to say I love hearing what Keith said because I think—at least in my episode—I know that instead of being able to rely on the gore or the sexual gratuity or those kind of things, the episodes are more imaginative. And that's the kind of stuff that I like to see. So I'm excited that this is going to be available for people. My episode, Community, deals with kind of the dark side of humanity and how people can be led. You know, people don't, a lot of times, want to make decisions on their own or live life for themselves. So they begin to follow other people and say, "Oh, this is how I should do it. I should be like this person. This is how my life should be, because these people are doing it," rather than thinking for themselves. So my character Bobby and his wife, who-my wife is played by Shiri Appleby, who does a great job—I want to call it a film; it's a mini movie—she, we want to have a family, so we need to find a house. So we go to a planned community, and it's not quite what we think it's going to be at first. It turns into something much more.

Deane: A little too planned.

Routh: A little too planned.

Addis: A different plan.

Routh: They have their own plans. And so, you know, my guy is just kind of a normal guy wanting to do the right thing by his family and create a safe environment, create a family.Can you talk about working with Mary Harron of American Psycho?

Routh: It was a great pleasure, great honor to work with Mary. I was a big fan of American Psycho after my second viewing. The first time, I didn't quite get it. [Laughter.] But years later, my movie-going experience and the way I look at movies changed. After being in movies and kind of growing up, I have a new and great feeling for that movie. And so, you know, when they said that she was directing the episode, I was like, "Yes, OK, I have to do it." Then dealing with the subject matter that the film does, she wanted to kind of, you know, really bring out the human elements of the script and not play on just the thrilling stuff or the horror aspect, because it's those human aspects and the relationship between the characters that really makes all that more powerful. The more you care about the characters and the more we are invested in them emotionally, the bigger the payoff or the thrill is. So I was very happy that that was her outlook on it. And she has a very specific view of what she wants to do, and she gets it done. We had a lot of work to do in the eight days we had to film that thing. And we got it done, and I'm excited.Breck Eisner, can you tell us about the episode you directed, called The Sacrifice? (At left: Mircea Monroe as Virginia in "Sacrifice.")

Eisner: Sure, the episode I did originally called Red Snow and [I was] assuming that in Edmonton there would be a ton of snow. [That] was a false assumption. [Laughter.]

Routh: We had snow for mine.

Eisner: Everybody else had snow. These guys were so tired of hearing me say, "Please let it snow. Please let it snow." It snowed before I got there and after I left. [Laughter.] But the good thing about it is we changed the title to Sacrifice, which was a better title. And Grant Rosenberg, who is another producer and writer on it, came up with the title. That's the thing about television, I mean, you roll with the punches that come, and they always come. You have eight days, and there's no more and hopefully no less, and so things evolve and change. If there's an episode about snow, you have no snow, so you figure out how to do it differently. If it's a film, you spend a hundred grand and you bring in the snow machines and you make the snow. That's one of the great things about doing something like this, is you've got to really roll with it. ... We didn't know exactly what the end was going to be, so we got there and put the actors in, and we knew the staging, we knew the elements of it and then as we saw what they were doing and from what we had shot before, it became clear how the show should end. And that's one of those things where, given the freedom of what we were doing, we had the freedom to do that. But for me, you're given a box to work in, and the box in this case was eight days and mostly nights, in most of the cases, for everybody. You figure out ways to get it done. You know what you want. You know how you've got to do it. You've got to come up with clever ways—you can't just shoot a traditional scene and expect to have enough time to do it. I think that opens you up to think things differently, to not go to your first instinct, but to try different ideas and different concepts and really come up with some really unique and special ways to execute scenes and stories. What is Sacrifice about?

Eisner: The episode is a very poppish episode. It's about guys with guns and beautiful women and vampires and women trying to feed these guys to the vampires. It's a great, fun episode, basically about these guys whose car breaks down, and they show up at this very strange, fort-type structure. They don't know what they're doing there. One by one they slowly start to disappear, and we learn that there is a creature there picking them off one by one with the aid of the women.Do you actors feel like the short-film medium is any different as far as the way you work?

Moss: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you have eight days to shoot a movie, basically. And as everyone knows, you don't shoot it in order. So when you're doing something that has such a definite arc from somebody who doesn't know that something's going to happen to them in the beginning to being completely terrified and running around, usually bleeding or something at the end, it's like you have to really watch your step and be very aware of where you are in the story. That's one of the most difficult things, is the different levels of fear. And it's not broad. It's very subtle, and you have to really keep track of how scared you are, which is not actually as easy as you would think. So for me, that was one of the most difficult things, is really just being on top of it and making sure the story was being told in the right order.

Routh: Yeah, and instead of shooting maybe four or five setups a day, you know, different shots, you're shooting eight to 10. So, with a crew that has not worked together before, with a different director, with a different cast, the flow that you normally have from episodic TV or even a film ... [is hard] when you only have eight days. Everyone has to kind of band together and create that cohesive unit much quicker, so it's a very collaborative enterprise [and we were] pushing the limit as far as the stories and the detail. I feel like my story is very involved. There's a lot happening. It's not a couple scenes, a couple days. It's a great kind of journey that you go on. Brandon, you've done both those films where you've taken months and months to work on it; and you both talked about the quickness of it. Do you prefer one or the other, or is there a middle ground in there that you think is better?

Routh: Well, I've done a large film, I've done independent, and I've done this. And, you know, I think there's a nice middle ground. There's something nice to being a little bit rushed sometimes, because then you're not thinking as much. But it's also nice because we as actors, or at least me, sometimes I can think too much about a scene. But I think it's nice to have a little more relaxed atmosphere. It kind of makes things a little bit easier. But that being said, I think we made an amazing episode, and everybody made it work and is making it work as they continue to do more episodes. And maybe the crew is getting more used to it, so it's just the actors have to go in and adapt. And generally speaking, we're pretty good at that. That's part of our job, is adapting and working together. Do you guys know which episode you think will cause the biggest stir amongst the fans of the genre? Which one do you think will be the most controversial?

Deane: Which will make the biggest stir? That's the great thing about this type of show is that what you respond to as a film fan, I might not. And for each person it's different. So it's really hard to say which one will create the biggest stir. I think many of them will create different stirs for different reasons. Regarding the anthology nature of it, besides the horror or fear factor that threads through every story, is there something else that is an element of each, be it redemption of the characters or something, that links all the stories?

Addis: We were just talking about this a moment ago. And though I don't think this idea is all-inclusive, there are two very powerful, pervasive themes, we think, when we look at it from a higher altitude. And one is the loss of control and how all of us have a primal fear of being in circumstances over daunting, life-or-death circumstances over which we have no control. And the other is the issue of the very thin membrane between sanity and insanity. I think those are two themes that weave themselves through the various episodes unintentionally. This wasn't a design of ours. But when we look at the show now from the perspective that we finally have. Having been in the middle of it for so many months, we start to see that those two ideas are pervasive throughout the show.

Deane: And hopefully they're all scary. [Laughter.]

Routh: Yeah, and I can speak to that. The loss of control is certainly something that happens; it's a theme in my episode. And, you know, it's very scary. It's almost sometimes more scary than, you know, a ghost, because we don't know how we're going to respond to that. I think that's what's interesting is we get to see how this certain character responds to a lack of control. Do they give in? Are they unable to respond, or do they fight for their life? How much do they care about their life and their existence? How much are they going to fight to change what their situation is? Kind of faced with those situations daily, but on a much smaller scale. Give an example of a time that everything was out of your control and how you overcame it.

Routh: First day you show up on set. Anytime you're in a movie or anything. Well, it's not beyond your control. It's all about thinking it's beyond your control. Really my belief is that nothing is out of my control. I have some kind of control in everything that I do. It may not be as much-I may not be able to change the world, but I can change some small aspect of it, which—But you're Superman!

Routh: Superman can. So the ultimate thing is if I can change everything as the character of Superman, then is that the right thing to do? We're getting into a different subject matter and philosophy, but it's interesting to think that in a horror/thriller genre you can learn something from it, but you can. And I think that's interesting. Some people will think of that, and some people just want to be entertained. So it's there if you want it. A lot of horror anthology shows have had a framing device or a host. Did you ever consider doing that for this?

Addis: It was discussed, but ultimately we decided it was a convention that had been used so many times that it felt stale.

Routh: I've been trying to pitch them for me to do it. [Laughter.]How much, if any, issue have you had with broadcast standards and practices?

Addis: Remarkably little, because we worked very closely with NBC and Lionsgate in the development of the projects with a real conscious eye to fitting inside those parameters as much as we could. And there's been some good-faith negotiation about issues because a lot of the issues are new for us and new for the network, because I'm not sure anything like this has ever been on television. But the partnership has been a great one, and I don't think either side feels that compromises were made that were counterproductive. Were there things you couldn't show on TV?

Addis: There's a school of thought that some people feel—I'm certainly one of them—that very often that which you can't see is much more terrifying than what you can see. Other people feel differently, and I think generally speaking, some of the things you can't see on NBC you will be able to see on the DVDs. What about times you've felt out of control, Elisabeth?

Moss: Well, I mean, I think—I agree with, actually, Brandon in the sense that I do-I am of that sort of philosophy of I do think that everything, to a certain extent, is under your control. And I think that if everything was completely under your control, life wouldn't be that much fun, that sort of point. But I think filmmaking tends to be a lot [of] specific things that are under your control, but there are things that-like you were saying, that are going to happen that you're never, ever going to be able to plan for, like it's not going to snow in Canada in March or whatever it is. You know what I mean? And those things you can never plan for. And I think that's what makes it fun and hard about what we do, is dealing with those things that come up that you didn't know were going to happen and making them work. And then when you have to make them work in the box of eight days, it becomes even more exciting. And that's one of the things I love about what we do is you never know who you're going to work with. You never know what they're going to be like. You never know what's going to happen. It makes it fun, you know. And, I've had certain relationships that I felt have been out of my control, but we won't go there. [Laughter.]Brandon, what's your real-life fear?

Routh: I don't really have one, and I'm sorry. [Laughter.] You know, I think what I did say before is I think things that are definitely scary or am fearful of, I suppose, would be loss of a loved one, because it's probably the worst thing that I can think of. Everything else is physical, and I feel like I can manipulate or change or beat it away or, you know, stop it with a stake or whatever, you know, that stuff. But it's the emotional stuff that really takes a challenge to get over it and deal with it.

Eisner: So you're saying stakes?

Routh: No. [Laughter.] I mean, I admit if a lion charged me, I would have a moment of fear, but I would do something.Did you two actors have to learn to do anything physically in terms of biting, kicking, punching, getting bitten, kicked, punched?

Moss: Getting eaten. [Laughter.] Yeah, for sure I did. My regular job is on Mad Men as a secretary, so this was very, very different. Yeah, I've never done much stunt stuff. I've never played a cop. So I had to learn all of that, which was so much fun. I had to do some stunt things. I had a great stunt person too. A stunt double did most of it, obviously. But I had to learn how to hold a gun and learn how to do cop things, like cover your back and how you would walk and things like that. And also got to do things just that are classic kind of scary-movie stuff, like walking, breathing, looking scared, those kind of classic moments I had to learn how to do because I'd never really done that before. That was really fun. ... It was fun to do that kind of thing. It's very different from the sort of slow burn of Mad Men.

Routh: I had to run. [Laughter.] Thankfully I knew how to do that. [Laughter.] But there was an added element of snow, so I had to run in snow, which may or may not have worked out so good sometimes. I fell once. It was funny. But yeah, just that. I think that's it. But it's still a very exciting episode watching me run. [Laughter.] Elisabeth, you got to work with Hart, who plays the Eater. Can you talk about the first time you saw him?

Deane: It was a lot easier to run when he's chasing you.

Moss: Yes, very true. He makes me move quite fast. The first time I saw him was actually in the lobby of the hotel at Edmonton. And I thought he was, like, a visiting rock star because he's very tall. He's 7 foot 2. The man is huge, and he's got this, like, incredibly interesting face and this black hair, long hair. So I thought he was, like, visiting on tour or something like that. I was like, "Oh, interesting, weird." And then I met him at rehearsal. And one of the great things about the episode and the casting is I'm 5 foot 3 and every single other actor is tall or big or both. So everybody is constantly towering over me, plus it's shot, like, from down here, and you're looking up. It's great.

Deane: He does or has worked in carnival side shows, swallowing glass and whatnot. So he's the perfect guy.

Moss: He does have a dark side.What did you learn from doing another SF anthology series this time around?

Addis: One of the things that Andrew and I were amazed to find out early on was how many of the filmmakers were absolutely incapable of seeing real blood. Guys who would use literally gallons and gallons of theater blood—

Deane: They just couldn't take it. Stuart [Gordon] passed out the last time one of his kids got a cut finger, literally fainted. And almost all of them can't handle any real physical violence at all. So it's this vicarious way for many of the filmmakers of dealing with their own demons that I think is one of the most interesting motivations they all have.