Wyatt, you seem very dialed into the tone of this movie immediately, especially when we are in that nice shot of your face and you say, “We have a pool.” Where did you find this tone for yourself and this character?
Russell: Well, I always like it when horror films or genre films have a sense of humor. I think it’s relatively important, not every one of them, but even “The Shining” has a sense of humor. So we all talked about times where [we could] let off a little bit of steam and it’s not constantly playing this sense of dread and doom. To me, that doesn’t always make horror films fun. It’s like, you want to have little release valves pop so that when you get to the meaty stuff it becomes really scary. So I was toying with, “Okay, [I’ll] give you a funny one, give you a normal one, give you a different one in certain areas.” And so in that take, they kept one that was a little bit more tongue-in-cheek.
It worked because I thought, “Okay, I know exactly what movie we’re in here. We’re going to be scared, but we’re also going to have fun.” My next question is for you, Kerry. A lot of people in the industry get their start in horror and then they never want to talk about it when they become big successful Oscar nominees. But you are playing with horror now, after your Oscar nomination. What was your draw to the genre?
Condon: I’ve always liked doing things that everyone else doesn’t do. It’s kind of why I smoked for 20 years. [laughs] Everyone in L.A. is like, “Why is she smoking?” I was like, “Because you’re all not.” [laughs] So one of the reasons is because I hadn’t done it, and I’ve always wanted to be a character actress or an actress that could do comedy and drama and do all sorts of things. So I wanted to try it. I didn’t know if it would be something that would be my forte, but I was really interested in trying it and I really admired a lot of actors that had done it because it’s a lot harder than you think it is. It’s almost like they should give awards to people who do something that’s harder than an easier part. So what drew me to it was that I hadn’t done it and I wanted to try it and that I could show more range.
