ole Hauser knows what it's like to hunt and be hunted by aliens. He played William Johns, a part of the marooned space team led by Richard Riddick (Vin Diesel) in Pitch Black. Now Hauser's leading the team as Jack, and this time the creature they're fighting is a mile down under the earth in The Cave.
Hauser has played his share of military men, (Tears of the Sun, Tigerland, Hart's War), co-starred in a few dramas (Good Will Hunting, Paparazzi) and taken on a few comedy roles (Dazed and Confused and the upcoming Break Up, as Vince Vaughn's brother). But this is the first time he's headlined a movie, so he took some great care in training and preparing to go underwater for the better part of three months.
The film is set in Romania, and that's where most of it was filmed. Hauser leads a team of cave explorers who include his brother (played by Eddie Cibrian), their young protégé (Piper Perabo), a macho bullheaded guy (Rick Ravanello) and a salty former military man (Morris Chestnut). They're joined by a sexy scientist (Lena Headey), a photographer (Daniel Dae Kim) and an older professor (Marcel Iures).
The movie was directed by first-timer Bruce Hunt and opened Aug. 26. In a small interview at Sony Studios two days before the film opens, he was rather candid with Science Fiction Weekly about some of the problems he still had with the movie.
So, Cole Hauser, what was it about this script that jumped out at you and made you want to do it?
Hauser: I would say that probably the immediate thing that jumped out at me when I read the script was the cave-diving part of it. I've never seen a movie about this. I didn't know that people did this stuff. I didn't know that they would go for 24 hours and find caves and get out and study plants and species and test water.
So that was really a shock to me, and then I was like, "What a cool idea for a sci-fi film." It's like I've never seen underwater like that. I've seen Pitch Black, and I've seen Aliens, and you're in outer space, but never on our own planet. So that was the first thing, and then I thought Jack is kind of an interesting guy in the sense that he's a leader, number one, which is just fun to play as an actor. And then he goes through an enormous change from the guy who you'd want to like and be around and trust.
Have you done any cave diving lately?
Hauser: No, sir. I've been on land, thank God. It's been nice. I'm more of a land animal myself. I was pretty wet to the bone the whole time. Towards the end of the film it was 98 degrees, and so getting in the water was the best thing possible. We'd have our wetsuits on, standing there and sweating, and they were like, "Get in the water." I'd be like, "Oh, thank God."
Did you get to talk to a lot of divers while working on this film? What did they say about what they do?
Hauser: Yeah. These guys are kind of crazy. I've asked them why, what is it, and they have many different answers. I think that the coolest one was like, "Hey. I'm Earth's astronaut." He was like, "We don't know half as much about Earth as we do about space." Another answer was, "I've always liked small, dark places." I thought that was interesting.
Some of the aliens were puppets and some were computer graphics. How did that work for you?
Hauser: Obviously in sci-fi there's a lot of pretending, more so than you actually ever get to work with something. The same goes for any movie that I've done with a creature. The thing is the other actors got a full-on kind of effect as far as being able to work with puppeteers when the creature kind of tries to attack them. The only thing that I really ever did was the CGI jump at the very end, where I tackle the guy, and that was it.
Did you at least get to see what the creature looked like, so you could imagine it?
Hauser: Oh, yeah. Before I left for Romania, Bruce [Hunt] and Andrew Mason dropped me into this bizarre place in the middle of the Valley someplace. They showed me the little kind of mole that [one of the characters] Briggs finds. I saw that. I got to see a lot of the beginning parts of the creature and the head and stuff like that. That company did Underworld.
You crawled around a lot in tight spaces. Did it ever get claustrophobic?
Hauser: There was one portion of it that was a little claustrophobic for me, and that was when I was going into the scorpion cave. I had to actually shimmy myself through this thing that when I looked at it I was like, "There's no way that I can even get my head through that. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it." They were like, "We measured you, and we measured this for you." I got up into it and I kind of got stuck. In the scene it actually works because you really would kind of get stuck for a second, and then you'd have to kind of get your elbows and arms and everything through it.
And then there was one other incident where I was under water and I actually had go through something, which is actually not in the movie and I don't know why. It's one of the most freaky things that you could ever see, and it's in the beginning of the film, when Tyler goes through to study the inside of the cave and see where it goes. I go in after him.
You seem to be disappointed that some scenes were cut out.
Hauser: Yeah, but I have no control over that. There'll be a director's cut for sure, and then all of those things will be on there.
It's [missing] a lot of the story. I don't care if it's sci-fi. Story starts and ends everything. A lot of the other characters, too, their character development was cut.
Piper Perabo and Lena Heady were the only two gals in a very male cast. How long did it take them to fit in with the boys?
Hauser: It took them a few minutes. There was a lot of testosterone on the set for sure. I think that Lena especially, it took her some time. But as soon as they started doing the rock climbing and the underwater caving, I mean, they were as good or better than any of us.
You've dabbled a lot in this genre. Have you ever been approached about doing a comic-book drama like Flash or Thor or something like that?
Hauser: I don't have another science-fiction project coming up, and I don't know much about comic books. I don't even know what you're talking about. I know who Spider-Man is, and Superman and your average Batman and things like that. So, no. I haven't been approached. There was something on Fantastic Four that they approached me for, but I didn't know enough about it and I wasn't interested in whatever the character was. They were like, "You'd be in some suit." I was like, "No." Then I went off and did The Cave. I went and put on a wetsuit to basically show off.
What was it like shooting in Romania? Did you learn about any of the local legends?
Hauser: I was in the area when we shot Hart's War, and so I had an idea of it. This is like the Tijuana of Europe [laughs]. Half of the city is in rubble.
There's no money there. There are one or two clubs that even kind of resemble anything that you're used to.
Morris [Chestnut] and Eddie [Cibrian], we'd all go play cards, Texas hold 'em, downstairs at the casino, and we went up to the Carpathian mountains, which is where Dracula is from, and I don't believe any of that b----t. So we got to Dracula's castle, and we were walking around it with Eddie, and Eddie was there with his wife and going, "Wow. This is really cool." Come on. "F--- you. It's cool? The building is cool, but don't act like Dracula used to walk around here with his fangs out." That's all s---.
[SPOILER ALERT]
One of the funny things with Morris Chestnut is that he is one of the survivors, and being the only African-American in the cast, that goes against the Wes Craven rules of scary movies. Was there ever a version where he didn't make it?
Hauser: No, but every black guy was happy that he made it. It was very clear from the beginning. And Morris, he really didn't do much water stuff at all. The last day they had this fat Romanian do the diving for him, and you couldn't tell if it was Morris or not. And [the director] Bruce was like, "Do you want to get in the water?" He was like, "No. I'm not getting in."
During the transformation of your character, how hard was it to wear those contact lenses?
Hauser: I hated them. I don't know why they haven't perfected the contact so that you can see out of them. There's like a glaze over you. It's like a haze, as if you were in a room full of smoke. And so all of the walking and the physical stuff that I had to do, thank God that I could take them out for certain things, but certain things you just couldn't, and if I had to step up and say something to someone, I mean, I slip on the rock, and it was embarrassing. Acting is like using your eyes, too, and not having your eyes was hard. So that was an interesting experience. And then you have smoke and fire and sand, and all of that stuff is getting into your eyes. It was definitely a bit of a pain in the ass, to say the least.
Is there a chance for a sequel of this? What happens to your character doesn't look too good by the end.
Hauser: I don't know. If it makes enough money they'll find a way. Maybe it's my brother, and he can't leave without me, and he goes down and there's Jack with beer in his hand. You never know. They'll find something.
If you weren't an actor, what would you be?
Hauser: I think that I'd be an astronaut. It's the ultimate exploration. There's always this infatuation that I've had with planes, and then there's always this thing about space and going out into the country. I'm always looking up at the stars. For me, I was always interested in astrology and stuff like that, and I always thought that it would be cool to be called an astronaut. I mean, you're the epitome of an explorer. Hey, I went to space camp and I loved it. I was so enthralled with the fact that they go outside of the planet and seeing Earth from that angle.
What advice would you give to younger actors?
Hauser: I'd say, do your homework. Doing Pitch Black was a real eye-opener of getting into and knowing your story, and you have to mentally get your head in a place where you would never really be. I'd just say work your heart out and prepare yourself, especially if you're doing it underwater. That's another beast.
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Also in this issue:
The cast and crew of The Brothers Grimm
