NBC’s horror anthology premiering June 5th
Once again, anthology horror faces an uphill battle.
If it’s not vying for the attention of theatrical studio execs afraid to revisit the days of Creepshow, Asylum, Tales from the Crypt, or hell, even Tales from the Hood, then short format frights are struggling for ratings against reality show market. On June 5th, Fear Itself, a 13-episode genre series fashioned for NBC, debuts promising enough gristle to satisfy those in the horror crowd cradling their bootleg DVDs of the entire Monsters and Tales from the Darkside series. The creators of Fear, however, face a challenge of their own. They’ve got to keep faces glued to the screen week after week during a summer season brimming with ball-bustin’ blockbusters at the nearby multiplex.
Shock caught up to some of the players involved in Fear Itself at NBC’s All American Summer press day in Pasadena. Those sitting in on the discussion: Industry Entertainment’s Keith Addis and Andrew Deane (serving as the show’s executive producers), director Breck Eisner and actors Brandon Routh (Superman Returns) and Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men).
ShockTillYouDrop.com: Keith, Andrew, how does this series separate itself from past anthology shows, especially Masters of Horror? And can you talk about the challenges of bringing something like this show to NBC?
Keith Addis: When we found our partners, our new partners at Lionsgate and NBC, we were anxious about this transition, as the filmmakers we work with on “Masters of Horror” had such absolute freedom when it came to the content issues. But 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 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.
Shock: Elisabeth, Brandon…can you talk about your characters and the episodes you’re in?
Elisabeth 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, 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.
Brandon Routh: First I’d like to say I love hearing – loved hearing what Keith said because I think what’s happening with, 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 – 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 – 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. And —
Deane: A little too planned.
Addis: A different plan.
Routh: They have their own plans. And so 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.
Shock: And what were your experiences like working with your respective directors, Mary Harron and Stuart Gordon?
Moss: Stuart was awesome. Stuart Gordon directed mine, and he sort of – he’s, I think – this is what he told me at least because 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 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. So, Stuart was kind of my only ally, although he was responsible for putting me in these situations. But he was great. He’s awesome.
Routh: And 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. 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, okay, 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. And we had a lot of work to do in the eight days we had to film that, you know, thing. And we got it done, and I’m excited.
Shock: Breck, how difficult, or easy, is it to work on a TV episode versus a feature film?
Breck Eisner: The episode I did was originally called “Red Snow.” And assuming that in Edmonton there would be a ton of snow was a false assumption.
Routh: [laughs] 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. 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. And so that’s the thing about television, 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. But for me, it’s…you’re given a box to work in, and the box in this case was eight days and mostly eight nights in most of the cases for everybody. You figure out ways to get it done. You know what you want. 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.
Shock: What’s Sacrifice about?
Eisner: It’s 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. And it’s a great, fun episode. Basically, it’s 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.
Shock: Keith, are you already discussing a second season should the first one hit it off big this summer?
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. As Breck was saying, 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.
Shock: For the actors, in terms of working in the short film medium – does that change your approach to the material or your own method of acting?
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…like Brandon was saying in one of our other interviews, you really have to 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 ten – with a crew that has not worked together before, with a different director, with a different cast. So the flow that you normally have from, I think, episodic or even a film after you’re shooting for …after a week of shooting, you really get into a flow of shooting on a film. Everyone has to kind of band together and create that cohesive unit much quicker. So it’s a very collaborative enterprise. Pushing the limit as far as the stories and the detail, you know, what’s happening, 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. So, putting a lot in there.
Shock: Which episode do you believe will cause the biggest stir?
Deane: 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.
Shock: 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.
Shock: Elisabeth, you got to work with Stephen Hart, who plays the Eater. What was your reaction the first time you saw him in character?
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…how tall is he? Like 7…
Deane: 7’2.”
Moss: He’s 7’2″. The man is huge, and he’s big too. 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 5’3,” and every single other actor is tall or big or both. So everybody is constantly towering over her in the whole thing. Plus it’s shot, like, from down here, and you’re looking up. It’s great. And he’s like Stuart in the sense that he’s actually really, really sweet, a really nice guy, really smart, and has this incredible sort of low voice. And the way he looks kind of completely is the opposite of how kind of nice he is. And he was great. I mean, I don’t know how you guys found him. There couldn’t have been a more perfect casting for that part.
Deane: He does or has worked in carnival side shows, swallowing glass and whatnot. So he’s the perfect guy.
Moss: So he does have a dark side.
For more details on the series, check out our last three major updates here, here and here!
Source: Ryan Rotten
