ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Haunted Mansion director Justin Simien about the Disney horror-comedy movie. The director discussed integrating his personal life experiences into the movie and working with legends like Danny DeVito. The film is now available to watch on Disney+ and to purchase on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K.
“Inspired by the classic theme park attraction, Haunted Mansion is about a woman and her son who enlist a motley crew of so-called spiritual experts to help rid their home of supernatural squatters,” says the film‘s logline.
Tyler Treese: What surprised me about the movie was the emotional journey we go on. Grief is very much at the forefront of this story. Ben and Travis are really grappling with that throughout, and it really builds to this really strong moment near the end emotionally. Can you speak to that element of grief and giving this very serious and universal theme to this movie that’s very spooky and fun for the family?
Justin Simien: That meaningful impact is why I said yes to the project. This is always the thing I feel first in the screenplay. It’s always something that kind of activates me the most as a director. I recognize myself in the main character, Ben. He’s this jaded introvert that really has a real people limit, you know? [Laughs].
Especially out there in the world, suspicious of children and suspicious of charismatic people. I identify with that, but underneath all of that is a guy who is … there’s a lot of grief there to process. I also identified with that. What I thought was so beautiful is that the answer for Ben was for him to befriend and be a father figure to a little kid who lost his father.
I’m also that little kid. I lost my dad at six, and I think something was probably … I’m not a licensed therapist, but I’ve been to therapy a lot. I think, probably, what was happening inside of my mind is that my adult self and my kid self were meeting up and talking and getting to know each other in a real sense through this movie. So that really was the thing that got me excited in the first place. That there’s this story of grief and found family upon which everything else was sort of hanging on.
That was really my throughline in the movie. Getting to, even just in a fantasy way, work out, “Wow, what if I had a been growing up,” or, “If I had a Travis now, what would that do for me? How would that change me or allow me to move through some difficult things?”
You couldn’t have asked for a better lead than LaKeith Stanfield. He’s just so great because, as you mentioned, he’s very funny and is also able to carry the emotional core of the film. He’s such a versatile actor. Can you tell me about him getting to show off all those different shades of the character in Haunted Mansion?
Yeah. He’s a leading man, man. He’s such a star, and I love that. I love a casting choice that’s just so obviously perfect, but we just haven’t seen that person like that before. I think Dear White People got me addicted to that kind of casting because Tyler James Williams, Tessa Thompson, and Teyonah Parris, these are people who had had roles and stuff before, but you just never really saw them in this particular context. Particularly Tessa and Tyler, who were child stars. I don’t know what that is. I just love that. I love the surprise of that. When you meet LaKeith, it’s so obvious.
He’s a leading man. He has that Johnny Depp thing where he is weird and interesting and intriguing and mysterious, but at the same time, he’s super calm and vulnerable and lets you in emotionally and no matter what’s happening on the outside, whatever he’s saying, you can feel it in the eyes. I don’t know, it was almost like, “Wow, I can’t believe no one’s done this already.” Like, “Great, I get to be the one to introduce him in this way.” He just couldn’t have been a better partner for this film. A really wonderful guy and wonderful actor — just really a wonderful experience with him.
You have such a great ensemble cast, but I have to ask specifically about Danny DeVito. That had to be such a thrill working with him since he’s such a legend. What stood out about getting to see his comedy chops in person as a director?
Well, he is a director. He’s a storyteller. Everyone had this aspect of them, but Danny, in particular, where he really understands how what he is doing supports a greater story, a greater narrative. He’s a very generous actor that way and he’s just the coolest person to be around. Honestly, he is one of those people where you just feel great being around him. [Laughs]. And he is so funny. He is super naughty and so delightful.
He would just hang out in between scenes, whether he was shooting or not, [and] he would just be on an apple box, and we’d just be shooting it and talking and trading stories. It was really nice to have that “big brother” kind of energy because he had been there. He’s helmed big studio pictures before and figured out how to find your way in. I cannot speak highly enough. We still keep in touch. I love him, I love his family, and just can’t ask for a better guy, really.
Speaking of the comedy side, Owen Wilson is so funny throughout this and is a constant highlight, as his timing is just second to none. What really stood out about seeing him get the show off his comedy chops here?
He is a consummate professional. He feels so easy, on camera and off camera. He is so dedicated, man. It is crazy. He’s a great mix of the things that you want in an actor and that I kind of think of in myself too. Maybe it’s because we’re both from Texas — that might be part of it, I’m not sure. But he can get really, really intense and really, really hyper-focused and wanting to get it right. But at the same time, he knows how to have fun, and in between takes, he’s on a bike sightseeing.
He’s both chill and intense, and it’s a nice balance. He takes what he does very seriously. Like you said, nobody does it better. It’s like watching a magic trick, what he does with dialogue, and how he translates what might otherwise be quite generic and makes it alive and idiosyncratic. It was really a miracle, watching it happen. I just felt so lucky to be a part of it.
Every single character in Haunted Mansion has layers to them. How was it, making sure everybody had their character moments? With such a cast, it’d be very easy to just focus on one or two standout performances, but everybody gets their time and has moments for the audience to really attach to them.
I mean, that’s the game. That’s the whole fun of it, you know? Going into this, I thought about and talked a lot about Clue, and I talked a lot about Ghostbusters, and that’s how those movies work. My first movie is an ensemble multi-protagonist film, and certainly, my series was. Those always just appealed to me. I grew up watching Star Trek, and there’s obviously there’s a captain, but then within that bigger ensemble, you get to figure out who you are and how you would interact, and who you relate to. Same thing with the X-Men comics I would read growing up. I’m just attracted to that. I don’t know … I can’t quite find myself in just one character. [Laughs].
I need a few different ones interacting before I can really start to feel like I know who I am in the story. So for me, that came pretty naturally. I know that Katie Dippold, who wrote the screenplay, certainly had that in mind. Especially when you start casting these really big actors in each role — you want to give them something to do. [Laughs]. And if they don’t have an arc and they don’t have subtext, they don’t have layers. Well, what’s the fun in that? So yeah, I think that’s where it comes from. It’s a pleasure to watch and make those kinds of stories.
There’s a really fun cameo with Winona Ryder. How did that all come about?
Because the screenplay was so funny and because the cast was already so exciting, we just kind of went for broke. Even for these little parts, let’s find some really great people. Winona was one of those folks. She’s obviously very busy, very in demand, and has got a lot of things going on, but to get Lydia, essentially, in our horror-comedy thing … I mean, you cannot do better than that, frankly. It was just … she was just so perfect in the role. So funny, so odd, so serious, so deadpan. I don’t know. I can’t tell you how we did it. We went out to her and she said yes, but it was such a get. It was such a get.
There’s the Eddie Murphy Haunted Mansion movie in the past, and there’s The Muppets Haunted Mansion. What was the challenge in staying true to the attraction as a base but not really going over ground that’s already been covered?
Again, some of that is done in the screenplay, but it’s also about … you’ve got to put the blinders on. You really can’t … of course, I’ve seen those iterations of the Haunted Mansion and really enough to just make sure that we aren’t covering the same ground, but once that’s been established, you’ve just got to put the blinders on and make the movie that’s in front of you and not really think about those things because you can’t control it anyway — how people will receive something.
You can’t determine the legacy of a thing while you’re making it. You just can’t. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know anybody that knows how to do that. So I’m glad to have the balance, but it was achieved by just really not looking to my left or right. [Laughs].
