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Quint chats THE SQUARE and THE THING reboot/prequel with star Joel Edgerton!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a little chat I did with Joel Edgerton, one of the stars of THE SQUARE, a fine little slice of Aussie noir, and part of the Blue Tongue Films movement out of Australia that is kicking all sorts of ass right now.
From that group we’ve seen the great shorts SPIDER and I LOVE SARAH JANE and some fantastic festival features including two of my favorite from Sundance this year: HESHER and ANIMAL KINGDOM.
They do it old school down under and I love the feel of their work so far.
The interview opportunity came in a little bit last minute as the film is was already out on the coasts (NY/LA), but slowly expanding. I jumped at the chance to talk to Joel, though, because not only does he play a big part in the Aussie film boom, but he’s also starring in the upcoming remake/prequel of John Carpenter’s THE THING (itself a remake of Howard Hawks’ THE THING, which was an adaptation of John W. Campbell’s WHO GOES THERE? and my brain just imploded).
So, the final bit of the interview is all about THE THING, talking practical vs. CG and the approach of the filmmakers.
Enjoy the chat!
Quint: Hey, Joel.
Joel Edgerton: Hey, Eric.
Quint: Hey, how’s it going man?
Joel Edgerton: Really good. How are you?
Quint: I’m doing fantastic. Congratulations to you guys on the release of the movie finally. I got to see it last year at SXSW and I’m glad that it’s finally getting out there.
Joel Edgerton: Yeah, we are thrilled.
Quint: It’s really interesting to me, over the last year and a half or so I have seen this community, which obviously you are a big part of, coming out of Australia… All of the Blue Tongue Films people. I saw HESHER at Sundance and that was fantastic. I have loved the shorts that have come out, like SPIDER. THE LOVED ONES is great...
Joel Edgerton: Yeah, it’s been great. And ANIMAL KINGDOM!
Quint: Of course. ANIMAL KINGDON is fantastic. I saw that at Sundance, too.
Joel Edgerton: It just sort of felt like the beginning of this year it sort of all came together at the same time, but it’s great that all of those years of hard work are finally getting out there. There were a lot of really great things going on at the same time.
Quint: How did you guys all get together? I mean, I assume that many of you are family, many of you were friends, but have you guys been aiming to break into the business for a while or were you guys slowly drawn together?
Joel Edgerton: Well, its sort of happened in different ways, like Kieran [Dancy-Smith] and Nash and I… We all met back in 91’. Kieran and I were at drama school together and Nash and Tony Lynch were stunt drivers. We were both training as stunt drivers together. Then you know ten years later, we all got this project. We were renting an office right above David Michod who was editing a magazine called “Inside Film,” which was an independent film magazine. So we came into contact with him just geographically, and then Nash and him started getting along and sharing ideas and Luke Doolan came to us as a teenager who knew a lot about film and was really keen to get involved with editing.
So, Nash had Luke with him for many years and he practically learned his skills from hanging out in the Blue Tongue offices and ended up cutting THE SQUARE and ended up cutting ANIMAL KINGDOM.
Then, at some point he, me, and Drew Bailey wanted to make short films for a long time. He eventually got together to make this short. (Laughs) A couple of years later he was nominated for an Oscar for it.
So it’s just sort of a weird ragtag bunch of people and Spencer and Nash and I all met doing STAR WARS together in 2000, when Spencer was making his documentary THE MAKING OF STAR WARS.
Quint: I think it’s really interesting that you guys all seem to fall together on this giant production that kind of came through your backyard essentially, that you guys were obviously drawn to it. I don’t know what your childhood was like, but I can absolutely tell you mine was dominated by STAR WARS.
Joel Edgerton: Oh, totally. It was a big part of our childhood.
Quint: I love the tone of the work that you guys have been putting out. You look at something like THE SQUARE and ANIMAL KINGDOM, they both have very distinct genre tones that we don’t really get much these days in that they both feel like something you could see out of a certain period. THE SQUARE feels almost like a 70’s version of a noir and ANIMAL KINGDOM is just like an updated crime story, like a GODFATHER type crime story. You just don’t have movies that seem to work like that being made. The group that you guys have together, that kind of core creative team that seems to keep intermingling with each other, I think is one of the most exciting things out there in the film world right now.
Joel Edgerton: I’m glad.
Quint: So, let’s talk a little bit about THE SQUARE then. How you guys got it off of the ground and what your approach was to the character, because your character is somebody that could be… He’s a heavy of the story, but you know where he’s coming from. He’s not a one dimensional character and I have to imagine that was important to you approaching it as an actor, that he had motivations and that we understood where he was coming from even as the guy that the audience is supposed to be a little scared of.
Joel Edgerton: You know, I think this covers both my writing and my acting. I initially got my start in the film business as a lot of people do playing small parts and I always felt like there was a responsibility of the actor to bring extra dimensions to supporting characters when they are sometimes a little bit lacking in the script.
I once played a villain… well, supposedly the villain who is like a traitor in this film called NED KELLY with Orlando [Bloom] and I was supposed to be the guy that ratted out the gang. As an actor I want the audience to empathize with my character as well. I don’t want to just be some two dimensional, spineless guy.
I’m always trying to find the right dimensions for a character, so that it’s a better experience for the audience and for myself and so when I started writing, I did the same thing. Each character needs to be able to see it from other people’s point of view and your own point of view and therefore have an empathy.
Quint: Yeah.
Joel Edgerton: For me, when I played Billy in THE SQUARE, it was partly in the writing and partly in the performance. I don’t want to see him as a bad guy, I want to see him as a guy who is a low level criminal who actually is genuinely upset and scared when he realizes there may have been two big things that come up. That, therefore makes it feel like hopefully Ray is going to be in more danger as a result.
Quint: That’s the trick and I think you hit that quite well, because it came across when you said you approached him as the guy who is himself genuinely scared of the situation and scared of his position in life. It’s like that comes across very much in the character and I think that that’s an automatic empathy with the audience.
Joel Edgerton: Yeah. It also depends on what the movie is doing. I could be doing a morally black and white action movie… I would approach playing the villain in one of those movies (differently). Still, I would search for some kind of understanding from the audience because if the villain has a greater motivation than the hero, then you’ve got a good battle as opposed to a villain who is a mustache-twirling idiot. (laughs)
Quint: I’m sure that would be fun to play as well, to play somebody who is scene chewing, a Nicolas Cage type character, you know.
Joel Edgerton: Yeah. Oh that’d be fun. When I saw M:I3 way back when, I remember being so excited that Philip Seymour Hoffman was going to play a villain because I thought exactly that same thing. I thought “He’s such a great actor and he’s going to bring a dimension to it that is going to make it more frightening and more understanding.”
Quint: Those trailers are great, where it was just essentially that scene with him and Cruise in the chair and Hoffman was telling him what he was going to do to him.
Joel Edgerton: Oh man, yeah!
Quint: Okay, so what’s the release plan on the movie?
Joel Edgerton: So it’s done LA and New York. It was so awesome because we got a better per-screen average than DATE NIGHT which was the number one movie of the week. Unfortunately, we didn’t make $27 million…
Joel Edgerton: So we are going out on a few more screens, so we are expanding to Orange County. I think we’ve got more screens in New York, but this week we are releasing in four more cities and then we are releasing in another five the following week.
Quint: So it’s really a platform release, a slow expansion.
Joel Edgerton: Yeah.
Quint: Alright, well I would be remise and I’ve been trying to work out how to ask you any questions about THE THING because there’s always all of these double entendres. I keep writing it down going “Oh, how is your THING going to compare with John Carpenter’s or Kurt Russell’s?” It’s like “Oh wait, I can’t put it that way… He’s going to think I’m talking about his dick.”
Joel Edgerton: (laughs)
Quint: But yeah… I’m a massive fan of the original movie. I’m doing this interview with you in a room that has a framed original THE THING one sheet on the wall, so I have to bring it up. From my understanding you are playing kind of a heroic character in this one, right? So it’s a little bit of a change of pace from the recent run of THE SQUARE and ANIMAL KINGDOM and all of this stuff.
Joel Edgerton: Yeah. Well basically what I like to do is mix it up. God, I feel like I’m the luckiest guy in the world to be starring in a remake of THE THING and I’ve got just as much kind of nerves for approaching the part as you guys could imagine and you guys would, because I’m such a huge fan of the original movie, or Carpenter’s film. I haven’t seen the other film.
I think what’s going on here is a really cool take and I think what Matthijs [Van Heijningen Jr.] and the guys who scripted it and Universal has done is a really cool idea; rather than doing a remake to do a prequel of sorts that is going to tell the story of what happened to the Norwegian base. The story is pretty original and I think what I can tell you that the design is really kind of true to the original.
In the production offices here at Toronto they brought some on set photos, behind the scenes photos from the Carpenter film because… I don’t know if you know that when they shot the original, they had the American base built and then they built off the back of it the Norwegian base.
Quint: Oh yeah?
Joel Edgerton: You never saw the back of the American base in the film. So they actually built the two sets back to back. I think what’s going to be cool for the fans of the original film is that you are going to see the pieces of the puzzle come together that simply created the mystery in Carpenter’s film, you know, like the action and gore and the guy who slit his own throat with the cutthroat razor and all of that stuff. This film will stand-alone as it’s own entity, but it will also be a cool thing for anyone who loved the Carpenter film. “Oh, that’s how that happened!” and “That’s how that happened!”
Quint: Yeah, I love the idea of being able to pepper that stuff in and as long as it’s not too winky at the camera. If you look at INDIANA JONES 4, which I just recently re-watched to see if it got any better and it hasn’t, but I love the idea of being able to actually see an action set piece in the warehouse from RAIDERS and all of that stuff, but it went too far, maybe, lingering on the Ark. What’s really important to us and I’m speaking for me obviously, but also as a fan of Carpenter’s film is that it’s just a movie that feels in the same universe. It just has to feel authentic and if they are reverential of the original, but still wanting to tell their own story, I think that’s probably the best of both worlds.
Joel Edgerton: Yeah, and I think that’s what these guys are aiming for. They are certainly not treating it lightly, but at the same time they are moving forward with their own vision and their own take on it and I think what hopefully will be the result is the best of both worlds. I don’t know, just a tribute to what’s gone and a real excellent incorporation of where movies has come to in terms of technology.
Quint: Is there still a lot of practical effects work or is it going to be mostly CG?
Joel Edgerton: It’s going to be a combination of the two, but as for the balance I’m not really sure.
Quint: Well, I’m definitely open to it. Honestly, the fact that they cast you gives me a lot of hope in the project. When I heard the casting, I thought, not to kiss your ass, but I thought that was a pretty inspired bit to have you lead a new THING tale. They made a really interesting choice and they didn’t go… It’s not like “Oh and Zac Efron stars in THE THING prequel!” You know what I mean?
Joel Edgerton: Yeah, yeah.
Quint: I guess a lot of my confidence comes from you, so no pressure or anything.
Joel Edgerton: (Laughs) Thanks.
Quint: All right cool, man. I wish you guys luck with the continual release and hopefully we will be taking again whenever the big push for the next movie comes out.
Joel Edgerton: Yeah, we’ve got our film WARRIOR coming out at the end of the year, so I’d love to talk again around September.
Quint: Sure thing.
Joel Edgerton: All right cool man.
Quint: Cool. Thanks. Have a good day.
Joel Edgerton: Take it easy. Have a great day!
Quint: All right, bye.
There you go. Curious/scared/cautiously optimistic on THE THING. Mighty, mighty, mighty big shoes to fill on that one.
Hope you guys enjoyed the chat!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter
I think what’s going on here is a really cool take and I think what Matthijs [Van Heijningen Jr.] and the guys who scripted it and Universal has done is a really cool idea; rather than doing a remake to do a prequel of sorts that is going to tell the story of what happened to the Norwegian base. The story is pretty original and I think what I can tell you that the design is really kind of true to the original.
In the production offices here at Toronto they brought some on set photos, behind the scenes photos from the Carpenter film because… I don’t know if you know that when they shot the original, they had the American base built and then they built off the back of it the Norwegian base.
Hope you guys enjoyed the chat!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter
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+ Expand All
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I admit I am curious to see the end result.
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I thought I had that.
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Edgerton: "you are going to see the pieces of the puzzle come together that simply created the mystery in Carpenter’s film, you know, like the action and gore and the guy who slit his own throat with the cutthroat razor and all of that stuff." So basically, we know what happens to them, so there'll be no suspense in the film. Yay.
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... and all you have is gore, CGI, & cheap scares. Or bad acting/script, in the case of Annakin Skywalker. ;-)
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It will save them lots of money, and shame.
What a waste of time. Then again I guess they have no shame in order to even think of doing this. Idiots. -
u cunts
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Not looking forward to this redundant "prequel." The same thing that happened at US Outpost #31 obviously happened earlier at the Norweigan camp...that's why Carpenter didn't show it, because he didn't need to. It's the same story.
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if this affects how i view the thing i will punch whoever fucks this movie up in the face. at least you can put remakes in a different compartment in your head. i.e. the waste of time pointless shit compartment. otherwise filled with comments from aicn talkbacks
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you know everyone dies, so whats the fucking point, More thing Pseudo Shape Porn? Most likely CGI crap at that. Bring Carpenter and Bottin back and give us a real sequel. Start it off with a Rescue Mission that find the frozen corpses of MacReady and Childs. Thing up on the boat back to america. End it so another sequel can come out with a World Thing Invasion. Prequels suck!
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flick
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thing gets loose on a boat.
follow up sequel. The thing takes over the world. A small group of survivors try to stay alive.
Final film see's a last ditch effort to destroy the thing with the blob, some it was kept by the military after the 50's era attack. -
all these "reimaginings" whatever. the fact of the matter is the Thing alien is amazingly great and we only scratched the surface of what it can do. As far as the Alien or Predator "franchises" we pretty much know what we got there, right? What can we see thats dramatically new? "The Thing" opens up so much room for experimentation, as long as the folks involved arent retards I think there is unlimited potential. And god I love horror in the snow. Lets just hope we dont see "Thing Takes Manhattan".
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'The Square' is a great cure for insomnia.
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no it did not.
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sam i am
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Apr 29, 2010 8:30:25 PM CDT
I hope, like the Alien prequels, that The Thing reboot works
by wookie_weed
I really do hope they can make it work. I just get a bad vibe from the hot young American PhD student lead. She'll probably end up as a puddle of gore or as an icicle, this movie can't have a happy ending considering what happened in Carpenter's film, but it's a pie covered in meh-sauce for me. Superunknown85 hit the nail on the head -- we know what happened to the Norwegians, it's why Carpenter didn't tell that story.
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alleviating any pain incurred. only a little bit tho...like a crack hit
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that will make it original.oh wait..
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that practical will be used whenever possible. then it's wall to wall CG crap like Wolfman...
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get it.
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In 2004, John Carpenter said in an Empire Magazine interview[20] that he has a story idea for The Thing II, which centers around the two surviving characters, MacReady and Childs. However, Carpenter felt that due to the higher price associated with his fee, Universal Studios will not pursue his storyline. Carpenter indicated that he would be able to secure both Kurt Russell and Keith David for the sequel. In his story, Carpenter would explain the age difference between the two actors by having frostbite on their face due to the elements until rescued. The assumption of the sequel would rely on a radio signal being successfully transmitted by Windows before Blair destroyed the communications room. Thus, after the explosion of the base camp, the rescue team would arrive and find MacReady and Childs still alive. Carpenter has not disclosed any other details.
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good one
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YOU GUYS DON'T UNDERSTAAAAAAAAAAAAAND....THAT THING WANTED TO BE UUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!AH'LL KEEL YEW! [gunshots]
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They couldn't film them due to Russell and David being three decades older, but they make for fine reading (and the airbrushed John Higgins artwork on the first two-issue miniseries was awesome...they even used some of it for the anamorphic DVD reissue).
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I was wondering when the chief was gonna be able to fire off his little pop gun.
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Apr 29, 2010 9:59:06 PM CDT
Question: was Blair infected BEFORE he trashed the radio room...
by nasty in the pasty
...or was he stil human, and only turned when he was locked into the tool shed ("Funny things, I hear funny things out here")? I find myself going back and forth about that.
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C'mon, man.
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Apr 29, 2010 10:02:25 PM CDT
MacReady was a moron in tying everyone to the SAME couch
by nasty in the pasty
If his first flamethrower blast had worked when Palmer started Thinging out, then he would have roasted EVERYONE at once. He should have tied them to seperate chairs. And for that matter, why does Windows take a blood sample from Nauls, then use THE SAME SCALPEL to cut this own thumb?! For dudes so terrified of infection, just WIPING THE SCALPEL OFF ON HIS JEANS struck me as insanely stupid.
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The Edgerton brothers, that is. Great stuff. I mean really, really promising work. Yeah he was Owen Lars. I noticed his name on the credits of a music video I happened to be watching. Maybe it was Toni Colette's video? Not sure now, it was a while back. But I recognized the name from back when the Star Wars prequels were getting hyped. So I checked to see if they'd done any other videos and man, some great shorts.
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So....the Norwegians AND the Space Jockey are fucked? Can't wait for that platinum dunes DEEPSTAR SIX remake...
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Can anyone do anything original anymore? Seriously?!
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I can't see a good "origin" flick taking a classic 1980's flick and doing the 21st century retread.
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Look at it this way. You're a montster trying to either a) escape, b) infect the world or c) both. Why destroy the thing that will help you get closer to your goal?
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that we're all screaming at in that talkback.
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And how they are dealing with the language in the film. I would like to know. Fordi eg er norsk liksom?
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Quint is deluding himself if he thinks this is going to be any good.
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He has to be since everyone at the Norwegian camp were killed or commited suicide.
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I ain't goin with Windows. I ain't goin with him. I'll go with Childs.
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They're not Swedish, Mac, they're Norwegian.
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After this, they're doing a prequel to explain the origin story of the blonde game show contestent in the video Nauls and Palmer watch.
I hate loose ends like that. -
But he was creating a mini-flying saucer underneath the tool shed. Maybe he WANTED to get isolated from the group so he'd have the opportunity to make his escape vehicle (he even used bits and pieces scrounged from the demolished helicopters). If Blair was infected AFTER he was locked into the shed, that doesn't leave him a lot of time to start construction of the saucer.
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Apr 30, 2010 8:07:19 AM CDT
Which one a-you nasty-ass men left his dirty drawers...
by nasty in the pasty
...in the kitchen trash can?!
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I mean Joel Edgerton, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jonathan Walker, Kim Bubbs, from a director with no feature experience, and written by Ronald D. Moore and Eric (Nightmare on Elm Street remake) Heisserer...yeah, can't say I have any faith in this whatsoever really.
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or am I missing something? The Norwegians find a frozen alien, it comes back to life, kills all but 2, jumps into a dog and is chased by the remaingin 2 Norwegians in a helicopter to the American camp where they get shot...oops should I have said spoiler first?
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They are committing the #1 mistake, putting a vag into the story. They are committing the #2 mistake, Americans knowing about the Thing before the American camp comes into play. They are making the #3 mistake, making the extremely isolated, not so isolated. If outsiders can just be contacted on a whim then show up to investigate. 3 strikes your out!
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How the hell could they not interest Rob Bottin in this film? Or at least bring his ass on as a consultant!!! I mean, the guy created the core concept of the creature. And it would give us fans some confidence in this "Thing." They are fucking with the best sci-fi horror film ever here and they need to bring some creative continuity to the production. Fucking nervous on this one . . . don't want Capenter's film tainted by some bullshit CGI direct to DVD hack job.
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...fuck any one having to do with this "prequel".
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I love it as much as you guys do and I know it breaks your Fanboy hearts to say this, but: The vast majority of people who go to the Movies every Friday have no knowledge of the Carpenter film at all. Or a vague memory at best.So for them, most of the issues you guys are bringing up are non issues.They don't know all the backstory that was implied in Carpenter's film. For them, the Norwegian base is a new setting with new characters. They just want to see a good sci fi horror movie. And if this film is even moderately successful, more people will see it than saw the Carpenter film in theaters when it came out.I think in this case, the prequel is actually the classy route to take. They aren't trying to remake or reboot or replace Carpenter's film. They're tipping the hat and paying homage. They could have slapped a fake beard on some Tiger Beat pinup and cast a rapper in the Keith David role and done a straight remake or fake sequel if they wanted. Think how much worse that could have been.
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May 03, 2010 8:52:23 AM CDT
'It should be somebody a little more even tempered Childs'
by angry_spacboy
Ime not sure how good a Carpenter sequel would be, considering he hasnt done a decent film since the mid fucking eighties.
The inevitability that this remake/reboot/prequel turd was going to happen was apparent to me at least five years ago, so ime over getting too pissed off about this impending disaster of a film. And ofcourse there will be EFNY to come soon. For fucks sake, as much as i respect the man for his early films, which read like a list of some of the finest films of their time and type, Carpenter has sold his soul in allowing (and in some cases encouraging) these utterly pointless remakes.
Ironically, one of JC's lesser films, They Live, is actually a film worth remaking. It has a really good story concept, and although i suppose you could call it a cult film, it has certainly nowhere near the standards of quality or popularity that his already ealier films command. Ime sure this is the cue for fans of They Live to rain down abuse, but fuck off. Its not really that good. -
May 03, 2010 9:12:32 AM CDT
'It gets thawed out, wakes up, proberbly not in the best of mood
by angry_spacboy
Cast iron guarantee that the cgi effects on this turd wont come close to those in the origional. And that fucker is nearly thirty years old!
And also, cymbalta4thedevil, if like you say, 'They just want to see a good sci fi horror movie', then they can watch the fucking Carpenter one, its only one of the best sci fi horror movies ever fucking made. All remakes do is make decent old films more inaccessible to future film goers, who watch these remakes, instead of their vastly superior origionals.
Ime sorry, but anyone who thinks this film is anything but a huge mistake is fucking retarded. -
Also depressingly apparent was that there would be a lead female actor in this one, presumably because Carpenters was an all male cast, and casting a woman in this new one allows its creators to pat themselves on the back for adding a single origional element to the story. Wow. Fucking amazing. What a creative group. Fucks sake.
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