n the past six years, Joel Silver's Dark Castle production company has become one of the silver screen's most successful purveyors of modestly budgeted horror. Among these gems are movies like House on Haunted Hill, Thirteen Ghosts and Gothika; Silver no doubt hopes that his winning streak will continue with the forthcoming remake of Vincent Price's 3-D classic House of Wax, starring Elisha Cuthbert and Chad Michael Murray.
Cuthbert and Murray, two stars familiar with fleeting film fame but significant success of the small screen, hope to change their luck with this change of cinematic pace; Cuthbert's previous credits include the acclaimed Fox drama 24 and the teen comedy The Girl Next Door, while Murray bounced back and forth between shows like One Tree Hill and movies such as Cinderella Story.
The pair recently sat down to discuss their work on the upcoming horror movie and described the challenges not only of making monster-sized thrills believable to audiences familiar with their formulas but of continuing to find interesting work amid Hollywood's consistent concession to convention.
Elisha Cuthbert, what initially appealed to you about either the role or the film?
Cuthbert: It was a lot of things, all of those things put together. But the thing is, coming off of The Girl Next Door, it was important for me to make a movie that was either the opposite or completely different. I don't ever want to be doing the same sort of thing. I never want to be typecast, because I have way too much to give to be sort of, to always be the hot chick in the movie. As much as I love The Girl Next Door, it was its own movie, and it was time to make something different. And when Joel Silver approached me with this movie, I looked it over, I read it, I liked the idea, but above all I liked the character and what her sort of journey is in the film. She goes through a lot of things, with her brother, with the physicality of the film, and I think a lot of it rides on my shoulders, along with Chad. And the movie sort of flows because of our characters, and that's a challenging thing to take on. I mean, it's a big movie, it's a lot of crazy things that go on with my character, and it's all going to be real. I think those things were some of the main reasons.
After your years on 24, do you cringe at a scene where you are getting captured or kidnapped?
Cuthbert: [Laughs.] I wondered if people were going to go, "She's crazy, she's doing this again." But I think the difference between Kim Bauer and Carly is the fact that Kim was reactive, you know? She reacted to the situations she was in, whereas I think Carly's proactive in solving the situation, going and taking care of the situation she needs to take care of, which was a big enough difference for me to go, "You know what, it's not the same thing, this is a different situation." And she fights back, you know? That's what I love about it.
How did you develop the relationship between yourself and Chad?
Cuthbert: It was pretty instantaneous. I think a lot of the scenes we sort of went, "OK, at what point do we like each other?" You know? We had to sort of break it down and go through each step, or at least I did with the script, and go, "OK, we're OK here." My character's pretty much OK with him throughout the course of the film. I think he's the one with the issue, you know. But you have [to] make it play in the movie, and he's really good, so it was easy, it was really easy to kind of get that immediately.
There's a lot of brutality your character endures in this film.
Cuthbert: Yeah, exactly. The torture. Right, as much as it feels like a Scream, we've amped up the gore in this dramatically. It's punchier than any other sort of teen horror, you know? It's a lot of fun, but at the same time there's moments where you're like, "Oh my God. Oh jeez!" Which I think makes this film 2005, do you know what I mean? Action films were sort of here, and then they went here, and then it was like, "Oh my gosh, it's getting out of hand." And then all of the sudden horror is here, here, and it's getting really smart, and then now we're just gonna gross everyone out and have a good time with it.
It was important—I felt like that was my moment. I felt like that was where my character goes, "I am not a sissy, I am going to solve this situation, and it's gonna be enough to be satisfying for a resolve of a movie." I remember shooting that, and all the people there can testify. I was so sore the next day, because they were going to give me a fake bat and I said that there's no way, because the feeling and the motion of having a real bat changes everything.
I'm sure the actor appreciated that.
Cuthbert: Oh, he wasn't there. That was a dummy. I got to go crazy on a, you know, plastic thing. Obviously, it's intense when you see the reaction of his character and what he goes through, and that aggression. It's very gruesome, but at the same time I feel very satisfied by the fact that my character steps up to the plate as opposed to sitting in the back going, "Where do I step in, where do I step in?" [*****SPOILER WARNING*****] But I think that's a really great moment in the movie, along with Paris' death scene and all those things.
How tough or easy is it to embrace those horror conventions? How much of an effort did you make to subvert them?
Cuthbert: We have a lot of throwbacks to, I think, the classic ideas of what horror film was all about, I think, when we were younger. It's funny, I think, even the Drew Barrymore thing with Paris Hilton. Even though it's like two separate things, I think it's a tie-in to "This is what we love about horror films. Let's collaborate all of those things and then amp it up one more notch, and let's make a horror film." I think that's what it was all about. Even though I may have had my apprehensions about Paris or whatever it might have been, it all really made sense at the end of the day for this film, I think. It's a fun, commercial horror film that people, I think, are going to really have fun watching.
Was there as much of a creepiness factor on set with the wax figures and sets?
Cuthbert: I didn't as much as I did watching it. I thought, "Oh my gosh, it's gonna be no problem. I'm going to watch it and I'm going to be like, I did this, and I'm not going to get to enjoy it." And then all of a sudden I'm there, and I'm jumping like a loser. I was there, and I'm jumping at my own movies. This is, like, ridiculous. It felt scarier seeing it dark and in the theater and cut together, and put together finally and finished, than actually being there, because I think I was so focused on what I needed to do. It was very physically demanding, so I was constantly sort of trying to not get like sick or hurt or, you know, just trying to get it all together.
What was the most challenging scene for you to endure?
Cuthbert: There were a few moments in the movie that were really scary or difficult to do. I think the sequence where I'm getting tied up on the chair with the bindings and all that stuff. Even though that may be like a two-minute sequence, it took like three or four days to accomplish, so physically it was a very grueling time. We kind of did parts of it, came back to it, did parts of it, back and forth, back and forth, and then coming down the stairs, it was a lot of sequences that took part in making that. And then also, at the end of the film where we fall through the floor. Chad didn't have to do this, I did this. Two boards like this, and a lever was pulled, and the floor was taken out from underneath me, and I knew that this was about to happen, and then I realized, "Oh my God, this is the most frightening thing I've ever—" Like having the ground be gone underneath you in less than a second. The idea of it was like, "Yeah, I'll be fine." I was telling all the stunt guys, "I'll do it, I'm good, we're all good," and I get there, and I'm sitting there, and he's like "Five, four ..." And I'm like, "Oh my God." There were some really scary moments, but it was worth it because I think it turned out really, really nice. I think it looked really good.
Chad Michael Murray, when were you first approached to star in this, and what appealed to you about the project?
Murray: I couldn't give you a date, [but] Joel called my agent and said he wants to sit down and have a meeting, and I said rock and roll. I read the script and I thought to myself, "Can I do a horror [movie]?" I've seen horror movies my whole life, and I wanted to know if it was in my blood to be able to do it. So I sat down and Joel said, "Look, you've done a great job with everything else you've done, and we'd really love to have you as part of this film." So I mean, Joel Silver—I had to take that blessing.
Is this "bad guy" character the result of a calculated move to take on darker roles as an actor?
Murray: Yeah, I think definitely part of the evolutionary thing. I wanted to do something—the great thing about this is that you can sit down and watch this, especially if you've seen One Tree Hill, and you can watch One Tree Hill and this and you'll say "There is no piece of Lucas in this character." They are two totally different human beings, and I think that's what I was trying to prove with this, to myself and to my fan base and everybody—just that I'm here because I want to do my job, you know. It's important to me that I just creatively challenge myself on the up and up, and this just gave me the opportunity to express that to my people. And I think at the same time just grow, grow as an artist. I enjoyed it; it was a hell of a lot of fun.
You start off in the film as a tough guy and then soften over the course of the movie. How much did you bring to the character, and how much was already on the page?
Murray: There was definitely a tone of that when you read the script, but what I wanted to do was take the character and make him an enigma that you want to learn about even without the horror and the gore. And I think that's what the character of Nick is. He's interesting—he's the enigma of the story.
How was it working with Elisha? And how did you develop your on-screen fraternal relationship?
Murray: We didn't really have an opportunity to get to know each other that much prior to filming, but I have a lot of siblings, so I really had an opportunity to just go, "Look, I've done this before. I've got brothers and sisters, so I can do the brother-sister thing." They're not twins, but I think we had a lot in common just in our professional lives, in what we want to accomplish with ourselves and creatively do throughout our careers, that we were able to bond on that.
Were you on set when the fire broke out? Did you sustain any injuries?
Murray: No one was. I don't know—I was in the middle of a take. I was lying on the floor of one of the sets right around here, and next thing, I looked to the right and fire was shooting out of the ceiling. Everyone took off, but everyone was fine. Everybody got out, I mean, they did a great job of just getting everybody together. Our A.D. staff there was incredibly professional; they waited until the last moment to make sure everyone was out before they left, which is really heroic.
How tough or easy is it to soldier on past the horror-movie cliches when you're making a movie like this?
Murray: That is the one thing here is there's not a lot of that, especially for my character in particular, there's not a lot of "Oh, dude, what are you doing? Just leave!" No, there's not a lot of that. You know, we had reasons to stay—there was a reason we had to go into the house, there was a reason we had to do a lot of the things we had to do, because we had to find our friends, our family. So I think there wasn't a lot of that conventional "Oh no, why are you going into this dark room?" But it's frustrating. You'd have to ask Jared, because I didn't wander into rooms that I shouldn't have.
What kind of physical challenges that you faced on the movie?
Murray: Damn wax. God. It's not easy to get through, I'll tell you that much. There's one scene in particular, it's like a peanut butter bed, and it's kind of the climax of the movie, where I'm wrestling on the bed. Well, I think that the consistency wasn't thick enough, and we sunk right to the bottom, and the whole bed started coming apart and spreading all over the floor, and we're falling off the stage. It took like two or three guys to pull us out of the bed. We literally could not get out on our own. You couldn't sit up, you couldn't do anything, so you were just stuck, cemented in this stuff. But yeah, it was pretty physical, not to mention: Damn, you wanted a bath every day. I mean, we got home and were like, "Where's the shower?"
What kind of material did they use for the wax?
Murray: I mean, they used a lot of wax, obviously. They did use a lot of actual wax—I mean, our set was built of wax. The other stuff was some compound that I'm not really aware of, but you're not obviously going to lie in hot melting wax; that's probably not a good idea. They did use it on Jared, poor guy.
What scene did you find most challenging?
Murray: I don't know. I honestly don't know. I guess just the climax of the film in the house. That was probably the most challenging, the most physical and the most messy.
How much of the end scene involved CGI, and how much happened on set?
Murray: Well, we did a lot—I mean, the great thing is they really kind of visually stuck out for us, you know. I mean, the fire is real, and when we were on these sets, everything is wax. They're all laid out for you, and you're actually shooting in these facilities, and I think that was great. Green-screen stuff, that was actually my first time really, really working with a green screen, and it's weird. It's definitely weird. You just use your imagination and go with it, but I don't know—hopefully after time I'll be able to get better at it.
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