[tps_title]Part 4: A Director, a Dwarf, and a Zombie Slayer[/tps_title]
Now, depending on your personal preferences, I may have saved the best for last; the much mentioned Steven Quale and the two main stars, Richard Armitage and Sarah Wayne Callies. Or, as they’re known from their bigger works, the Dwarf and the Zombie Slayer.
Since we finished the last set of interviews with talk about romance, let’s start this round out the same way.
Q: I thought this was the perfect storm movie; the only thing missing was I wanted you two (Richard and Sarah) to get together.
Steve: Well, it’s interesting because we always felt that would be implied and we felt that if we hit you over the head with it, it might have taken a little bit of the truth away from the film. Because only in movies do people just meet each other and fall in love.
Rich: And the realness of it is, can you think of a moment in that movie where they could think about their own selfish emotions?
Sarah: I do think these are two people who’ll think quite a bit about each other, if for no other reason than this is the guy who saved my life, this is the woman who got me to my son. I kind of like that it didn’t end with a sort of Disney ending.
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Rich: They’re fused together by what’s happened to them.
Q: What’s the appeal to the realness of this movie?
Sarah: I think there’s something to say about the power of proxy. When we’re watching this footage, we’re watching our fellow Americans’ worst hours of their lives. It’s fascinating and we can’t look away. It’s voyeuristic and it’s intrusive. (Our characters) are not real people. This didn’t happen. So you can approach the movie by proxy. It’s the distance of being able to say it’s not real even though these exact circumstances do happen to people.
Rich: We watch these films because we live in the isolation of our own lives.
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These two, you guys. These two. It was like, every time they spoke, I was standing at the edge of the deepest sea and their voices we’re answering from the beyond. Oh, and there’s a golden sunset in there too.
Steve: For me, it’s not about the spectacle, but about the human element; watching how they interact with each other and learning what’s important with life, family, and friends.
At this time, the Career Tributes (God, I hope you’ve all read or seen The Hunger Games) had been ferociously asking questions. And poor little Peeta hadn’t yet been hardened enough to be so rude. But that’s alright, Katniss comes swooping in to save him.
Translation: And this is the part where Sarah stops the interview to point me out and ask for my question. Which was really touching because even though there were about three others who hadn’t gotten the chance to speak, I’d already been talked over about five times.
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Bless you, Sara Wayne Callies.
Me: You’ve played some really incredible mother figures with this, The Walking Dead, and your upcoming film (The Other Side of the Door). Is that something you’re specifically looking for in films?
Sarah: I started playing moms at the time I became a mom and what I love about Allyson is she’s such a strong woman. And, like me, she is constantly feeling guilt for not being with her family or feeling she’s compromising herself professionally. Every working mom I know is pulled between those two poles and I’d never gotten a chance to do that so I thought it was done really beautifully here.
Well Sarah, I think that answer was done beautifully.
And once Sarah had spoken up for me, other interviewers were getting spoken up for. #StandUpForInterviewers2014
Q: How’d you find the balance between professional footage and handheld shots?
Steve: Well, not to sound arrogant, but I like to call it a first person narrative film as opposed to a found footage narrative. And my motivation for that are these professional storm chasers who know how to handle a camera. So as a result we have cinematic angles.
And then we get back into that James Cameron name drop. It all has to do with Richard Armitage’s character taking away and then returning a knife to one of his sons (Nathan Kress).
Steve: A while back, Jim Cameron showed me the movie Titanic and at the very end of the movie, where the old woman throws a diamond, originally it was a group of half a dozen people and they had some comedy and all that and I felt it wasn’t as powerful. So I suggested, “What if you just had old Rose by herself?” So he reshot some stuff and that’s the end of Titanic. And when I showed him our film he really loved it but he said the knife is a great motif for Trey (the son) becoming a man that completes his journey.
So there you have it. Their friendship has come full circle. And people close to James Cameron call him Jim. You’re welcome.
That’s it. It’s a wrap. I assume right about now you’re all winding down from the high of spending time with these stars. Until next time, guys.
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