"If they call my film Minecraft in Russia, I won't object"
When Osgood Perkins started out, he was just the son of Anthony Perkins, the Psycho maniac. But as soon as he moved from acting to directing, he immediately became — and has remained for ten years — one of the most influential representatives of the new wave of American horror. "Soul Collector" and "Monkey" have already gained cult status. Now Perkins presents a new work — the claustrophobic horror "Creeper" (in the original — "The Guardian"), where a house in the woods becomes a source of nightmares for a young woman, and her fiance arouses her various suspicions. Before the film was released in Russia, Izvestia talked about this work with Perkins himself and the lead actress, Emmy winner Tatiana Maslany.
"We found a way to make a movie in a legitimate way"
— Tatiana, this is not the first time you have starred with Perkins. And here you decided not only to play, but also to participate in the production. What unites you?
T.M.: I watched Oz's previous films, and they weren't just beautiful: there were a lot of things that I liked. And all these films have their own unique intonation. Then we talked with Oz, and I was completely blown away by the examples he gave, we instantly found a common language, talked a lot about what is dear and important to both of us in creativity. I immediately realized on an instinctive level that it would be a challenge, and at the same time it was a fun challenge. That we can do something big together. It was with this feeling that we started shooting the film.
In the end, everything went just extraordinary. We always found something in the moment and came up with it. It took only a second to make a decision about a particular scene, to find some new twist. In general, it's a pleasure. Perfect!
O.P.: Yes, I have exactly the same feeling! We had the unique privilege of making the film without anyone seeing us, you know? No one was sitting next to us, clutching a wad of money in his fist. And we could safely explore what we were interested in in this story. There are no barriers. And Tatiana is one of those people who endlessly find new dimensions, new aspects. She is full of spontaneity and improvisation, but at the same time she has excellent training, her improvisation is supported by her profession.
It's great to have someone working with you who's like, yes, we're doing it, what's next? And, of course, the mood. We laughed and joked, although the movie was quite serious, it would seem. But it was like we were playing it all, and we could afford it. Low budget means low risks, less nerves. You could shoot as much as you wanted. No, you could think about the scene and discuss it as much as you wanted, and then say, okay, guys, let's shoot something. When is this even possible?
— What inspired you the most? For example, when I watched it, I often thought of Roman Polanski's "Disgust." By the way, Tatiana, you played no worse than Catherine Deneuve in this film. Was she among the references?
O.P.: The film began with the fact that "let's make a movie." That's exactly how funny, provocative, and unprofessional it may sound. We really just wanted to make a movie. And we had the opportunity to do that. At that moment, no one was working because of the strike, but we found a way to make a movie legally. We could work as a Canadian studio and circumvent the trade union bans so that no one could tell us anything. Instead of lying down and slowly dying because of the striking scriptwriters, we just had to do something for the very fact of the work. That was the inspiration.
As soon as you start working on something, you often think, oh, this is how it is in that movie. But if later you get something like what Polanski did in "Disgust," it's because that movie just lives inside you, it's with you, it's part of your nature. It could be "Disgust" or "Rosemary's Baby" by Polanski, maybe "Three Women" by Robert Altman, "A Woman is not Herself" by Cassavetes. When you watch a movie like this, it just stays with you forever, it won't leave you anywhere. You can't say later that you forgot about those movies. But you don't even think that we're going to give a little bit of Catherine Deneuve in this scene right now, it's impossible in such a race. You're just inspired by something, but you don't notice it any more than you hear your own heartbeat.
T.M.: Oz says everything exactly! We didn't think at all about what we were going to do now, like over there or over there. But we were always talking about movies, thinking about movies, and Oz was planting movies in my head the way a gardener plants trees. In the evening, I went home and watched Bergman's The Hour of the Wolf or Hellraiser. Or "Picnic at Hanging Rock." These were not references, not quotes, it only expanded our understanding of the scene or some point that we were discussing. Like, "Oh, you can do that too, it turns out!" And we watched "The Shining", "A Woman out of Her Mind", all the films with Shelly Duvall over and over again. But all this is not to borrow something, but to expand our understanding of the boundaries of things.
— And which horror films do you personally like the most?
T.M.: I only started watching horror movies about six years ago, and that was at the suggestion of my husband, Brendan Hines, who is a big fan of horror films. We started with the 1989 body horror film Society. There was literally an orgy of bodies that devoured each other and became some kind of amorphous mass. I think there was a guy who was getting out of his own ass. I found it all very funny. I keep imagining how all these effects are created. How someone stands behind the camera and squeezes a stream of "blood" into the frame from a small bubble. I can just imagine the entire film crew at this moment.
I don't like it when someone is tortured in the frame. This is not a joke, there is nothing to laugh at. For me, this genre is valuable because it allows us to consider what we don't understand, don't see, don't know, something on the other side of the curtain. Our experience and our subconscious mind discover here infinite dimensions, infinite facets of things. There is something that we cannot recognize or touch. After all, some people see ghosts, and others don't. But in horror movies, we can get that experience. And it always attracts, teases, intrigues.
Again, not all of them. I don't want to look at bullying, at something that I don't like. I don't want "Fun games", you know? I don't want realism, because it's turning into a nightmare for me. I prefer "Eraser Head", "Hour of the Wolf". Films that suggest the existence of a deeper dimension, opening doors to new worlds. I love this kind of horror the most. Oh, I also remembered: "Suspiria" by Luca Guadagnino. But I do not know who and how can find this tape today, because it is buried somewhere in the wilds of Amazon and for some reason its algorithms do not index it. Too special, probably. And I think it's a great film, sensual, abstract, mystical. And I will watch it over and over again.
"All kinds of death don't feel good to me"
— Osgood, the atmosphere of your film, and not only that — the feeling of hopelessness, enclosed space, full of despair — how much does all this say about your personality? It's like you're sorting through all kinds of fears of death, cutting off the path to salvation. Is there anything you're afraid of? Maybe some kind of specific death?
O.P.: I don't really like all kinds of death, to be honest (laughs). I personally would not want to go through this. Being strangled or drowned is disgusting, being burned alive is very bad. I don't know, maybe we're making a movie to pretend that this has already happened to us, for example, that we were eaten by monsters in the basement, and thus cross this opportunity off the list for ourselves personally. This can't happen to us anymore. We've been through this.
— Osgood, how do you feel about the fact that in Russia the film will be called "Creeper"? We use this word to call monsters from Minecraft...
O.P.: They write to me all the time, one hundred messages a day: "Can we call this film of yours like this in our country? But can we use this image on the poster?" Listen, despite the fact that I am an American, I don't have this ridiculous confidence that I know everything in advance about the culture of any other country. Actually, I have no idea. If I were asked what about the name "Creeper" in Russia, then why the hell should I know if it suits them? I don't have such a colonial mindset, I can't be responsible for that.
The awareness of the audience around the world is rapidly declining, sometimes it does not respond to idioms or reads them in its own way. If the word creeper for Russians is only "Minecraft", but it will make them buy a movie ticket, then I'm sorry, Jason Momoa. I'm going to get those thirty cents, not you, I'm sorry. But seriously, I treat the choice of a rolling title as a manifestation of freedom of the press. Personally, I'm in favor, with both hands. If they want to call my movie "Minecraft", I won't object here either.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
