Even a master of horror needs a change of pace.
Director Wes Craven, famed for his A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream series, takes a break from slicing and dicing teens with his new thriller, Red-Eye. The story focuses on a manager of a prestigious hotel (The Notebook‘s Rachel McAdams) who is cornered on a fateful red-eye flight by a menacing young man (28 Days Later‘s Cillian Murphy). He tells her that if she doesn’t cooperate with him in an assassination plot, her father will be killed. There’s plenty of fast-paced, heart-thumping action–but there’s not a maniacal mass murderer in sight.
Hollywood.com had a chance to sit down with the well-spoken Craven, a true veteran in his field, as he recounted his experiences making what he calls his most favorite film to date.
Red-Eye is definitely fast-paced, just one thing after another. Was that intentional?
Wes Craven: “May have been the amphetamines I was taking. [Laughs]. Because this was such a chamber piece, I didn’t want it to become an intellectual thing. Or become a stage play with them just sitting there [in the plane]. I just felt like I had to keep the pace going all the time. If you have a moment to think about it as a victim, then you have a moment to plan, but if someone is in your face all the time, that makes a difference. I was also just ruthless in the editing room. Pared everything down to its absolute essence. Interestingly, I didn’t cut any scenes, but everything in the scenes, every piece of dialogue, were cut down. Thirty years of experience on pacing.”
The film is also very contained. How challenging was it to achieve that claustrophobic feel?
Craven: “That was part of the attraction, that it was such a chamber piece. I had a musician friend once tell me that it’s not in the orchestra that you get the true test of the musicians but in the little trios and quintets where you really get to see if they’ve got the stuff. And the composer. So, I liked that about [Red-Eye]. That is was a thriller but also a great acting piece. I chose an airplane that was just big enough to film in but small enough to feel confined. I was also very alert to anything, even subconsciously, that would inform the viewer of the lack of space.”
You certainly created a very real portrait of air travel these days. Have you any of your own horror stories?
Craven: “Oh, I have plenty. We were shooting in Haiti, for instance, in Port au Prince when it was starting to come apart at the seams. We had to get out of there fast. So we had to crowd everyone in [a plane], all the equipment, everything. And we’re asking, ‘This thing isn’t overloaded, is it?’ They’re like, ‘No, no, it’s OK,’ taking $100 bills. So at the last second, my producer was like, ‘This ain’t taking off, we got to get people off!’ A few were willing to wait for a second flight, we got equipment off, but it still just barely managed to takeoff. Another time at [London’s] Heathrow [airport], on a press junket, the plane was taxiing for take off when the plane just stops. Stewardess starts screaming, ‘Everyone, off, off! Forget your baggage, GO!’ Fifteen seconds later, I find myself jumping down the ramp, three stories. And then on the ground, they’re screaming, ‘RUN! RUN!’ We all stop about 300 yards away and turn around to look at this big 747, just sitting there. Waiting for it to blow up. Found out it was an angry boyfriend, getting back at his girlfriend who worked for Virgin Air.”
How much liberty did you take with the script?
Craven: “I had my way with it. I’m the kind of director, at any given moment, an idea occurs to me, I’ll just do it. I tried to keep the humanity thing going, with the different characters on the plane. Also that tonality of a post-9/11 world, not only terrorism but the feeling of the system kind of creeping and groaning. It’s not the good old days anymore. And I wanted to have that context very subtly but strongly reflected in the film.”
Is that why you have a Homeland Security politician be the target for assassination?
Craven: “Originally, [the character] was described as just a powerful business man. I actually found that appealing. A businessman can be as military as any politician. But after three test screenings, that was the one big note: who was this guy? So we came up with the Homeland Security angle. And I thought it was OK, being just this side of a political thriller. ‘Cause I don’t think this is really a political thriller.”
From romantic ingénue to an action hero, Rachel McAdams is really turning into a versatile actress. Was it hard for her to do the fight sequence with bad guy Cillian Murphy?
Craven: “I talked to Rachel and learned that she had been a championship figure skater. All through high school, so I knew she had those chops. She was so coordinated. I told her, ‘Look, you’re an animal. You are flowing, ready to knock this guy’s head off. You have all the fear but you know how to get him physically. It’s Cillian’s responsibility to get out of the way. You just try to kill him.’ Of course, we had the stunt people there, but we did the sequence in just a couple of takes.”
How was it working with the very Irish Murphy? Was he reticent at all about being such a bastard?
Craven: “The true story is I didn’t necessarily want Cillian Murphy. I was aware of him, I’d seen 28 Days Later, and I really liked him. But he didn’t enter my radar at all. He felt so ethnically Irish and European. Meanwhile, I hear that Cillian is interested in the part. He wants to talk to me and prove he’s the one for the role. So I have a conversation with guy, who is speaking to me in the thickest Irish brogue you can imagine. I got off the phone and said, ‘Listen, he’s really passionate about this, but I don’t think so.’ Then two days later, I hear ‘Cillian Murphy is on an airplane to come meet you. At LAX. He wants to have lunch with you.’ F**k! So my producer and I went to LAX, there’s a restaurant there. And Cillian comes bounding into the room, from just getting off an airplane. First thing I see are these gigantic blue eyes, a shade I’ve never seen before. He’s very charming, so I thought, ‘OK, she could fall for this guy,’ but then as we talked more, I could see glimpses of this character in him and thought, ‘Holy s**t!’ I could believe it.”
How about Murphy tackling the American accent?
Craven: “Well, I said to him, ‘Do you think you can do this in five weeks?’ And he’s like, ‘Absolutely, I swear to God!’ But it was tough going at first. The accent thing hindered him; he was slow and very mannered, speaking phonetically. So I told him to forget about the American accent because, after I thought about it, there really wasn’t a reason why the character couldn’t be Irish. That was on a Friday. He came in the next Monday and just nailed the accent. He told me later that he was so preoccupied with doing [the accent] that when he suddenly didn’t have to do it, it just came to him. Took the pressure off.”
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What’s the best piece of advice you can give your actors?
Craven: “Trust me. I think that’s the best piece of advice I can give. I had to do it with Rachel. She came to me with a lot of ‘I’m not too sure this character would do this stuff…’ But I took her aside and said, ‘Look, I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve never made anyone look bad. Trust me, because otherwise we are going to be here all year. And we don’t have all year. Trust me.’ Sometimes you have to push an actor further than they think they should go. Rachel came up to me after the premiere and said, ‘I get it now.'”
You’ve had troubles in the past working with studios. Any problems this time?
Craven: “Well, thankfully [Red-Eye] was never like Cursed, which was very aptly named, and I’ll leave it at that. A big part of directing is being strong in certain circumstances and taking the gamble and hope you don’t get fired. [The studio] just wants to know you’re passionate and you know what you’re doing.”
Because you are Wes Craven, after all.
Craven: “It’s amazing how little currency that has when you’re actually shooting. Because I’m fighting the perception I might be too old and might not know what I’m doing. [Red-Eye] is the first film I’ve made in four years. I mean, I feel like I might not be able to pull it off before I start making any of my movies. I think the best successes I’ve had is when I’ve been unable to sleep for three minutes before I start because I’m convinced I’ll fail. I’ve learned to recognize this and know it’s a lie, but it’s something I have to face.”
Of all the films you’ve made, which has been your favorite?
Craven: “I think Red-Eye is. It’s closest to the kind of movie I would have made had I not gone down the horror trail. And I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy making those movies but I would have preferred to have done a wider variety of things. But with [Red-Eye], everything just seemed to flow together in a really cool way. I think the actors are terrific, the cinematography is great. Everybody just clicked and we were going 90 miles per hour all the time and felt good about it.”
From A Nightmare on Elm Street to now, what’s one thing you’ve learned about this crazy industry?
Craven: “You’ve got to be really strong, resilient. Have tremendous stamina. And really just trust yourself, be ready to go to the mat with what you believe. It’s stupid not to listen to people and be considerate, but it’s suicide to listen to people and follow their idea if you don’t agree with it. That’s where you start to die–and sometimes very quickly.”
Red-Eye opens in theaters Aug. 19.
