The Cave
An Interview With Cole Hauser

Cole Hauser had been the supporting character in most of his movies. Then came Paparazzi – his first starring role. Now, his second starring role is in The Cave. He’s part of an elite diving team hired to find out the secret of an ancient cave in Romania. The film also stars Morris Chestnut, Lena Headey, and Piper Perabo.

To shoot the film, the cast had to go through some intense training. That was not one of Cole’s favorite things:

Cole Hauser: “We had two weeks prior and really trained all the way to the last day. The thing with open water, just dive open circuit, you’re resort diving – that part is pretty basic, basically breathe normal and try to stay as comfortable as possible. The re-breather takes about six to seven years to actually understand how the computer works and the dilutent, if it breaks down, how do you fix it. Jill Heinrich and Wes Giles were cave divers there; they’ve done like a million dives. They were down there under water making sure our computers were working. But those things, you can kill yourself in four feet of water, you start hallucinating, and all of a sudden you just pop. It was pretty intense the three months we were there. They threw out the things like ‘don’t screw around, don’t play with anyone else’s stuff, don’t do any prankster sh*t – no, this is serious.’ Everyone took it relatively serious.”

Did anyone get hurt?

Cole Hauser: “I got a little messed up a few times, but it wasn’t from the water, it was from the wire work. I kind of had a three-day trial by fire training on that and that takes a long time on how to do it. We had the guys who did The Matrix, so they were great, but when you’re depending on someone else to pull you in a direction you’re going to fly over something and you need to move at the same time, it’s only human nature there’s going to be problems. I got flung into the wall a few times, thank goodness I had a helmet and pads, but I didn’t break anything, just bruises and bumps.”

And yet that idea of diving was what attracted Cole to the script:

Cole Hauser: “I think the immediate thing that jumped out was the cave diving. Cause I didn’t know people did this stuff, go 24 hours underwater, through caves and then come out, study plants and such. And then I thought what a cool idea for a sci-fi film. I’ve seen these movies, like Pitch Black and Alien, but never on Earth, so that was the first thing. Then, Jack is an interesting character which is fun to play as an actor; he goes through an enormous chance from a guy you want to be around to trust in a bad situation to making that change. Me and Bruce discussed about how that change should happen with prosthetics, or just let me act. That was a journey in itself, and we kind of found a happy medium and there are things they could have done to make it more ‘on the nose,’ but when you’re so involved in the story, what to cut out, you miss things like the story and character development but I have no control over that yet.”

Did it get claustrophobic at anytime?

Cole Hauser: “There was a little bit for me. It was in the scorpion cave; I had to shimmy my way through this hole. I looked at it and said I wouldn’t even be able to get my head through there and they said not to worry about it, ‘We measured it for you.’ I said to myself I better not gain any pounds. So I got into it and I got stuck and in the scene it worked, cause you would get stuck and you have to use your legs and arms to get through it. And then underwater I had to go through something, and it’s not even in the movie and I don’t know why. It’s one of the most freaky things you’ll ever see; it’s when Tyler goes through it to study the cave and I go in after him. I had to shock my re-breather to go down and again, I got stuck, but it was good cause I had rocks so I could pull away. It gave into the water and the notion of ‘holy sh*t, where’s the open circuit, is he going to get to his area.’ I thought it was a really neat way to open the movie cause you would have gotten the idea of how dangerous the job is and how you can die in about 30 seconds if you get in a bad spot.”

Was that supposed to be in the Yucatan?

Cole Hauser: “Yeah, it really gives you an immediate understanding of how dangerous it is to do this. And it really kicks off the film to say ‘wow, these guys are crazy.’ And they are, Wes and Jill really are. I’ve asked them why they do this and Wes said ‘Hey, I’m an water astronaut. We don’t know half of what’s down there,’ and then it kind of hit me. And then Jill’s answer was ‘I’ve always liked dark small places,’ and I was like ‘That’s interesting, what did you used to do, hide in closets?’ And she said ‘Yeah.’”

Was there something you enjoyed the most out of doing this?

Cole Hauser: “The whole process; this is only my second starring role and I’m learning how to talk to people, how to get my point across without sounding too harsh, and making sense. All the things that you learn as an actor and being the lead in a film, you have to do that.”

When we spoke with Lena Headey for The Brothers Grimm, she was able to talk a little about The Cave. She had different feelings about the doing the film:

Lena Headey: “That was crazy! It was three months in the water in Romania. After the first three days, I didn’t even want to put the wet suit on again. Bucharest is hell.”

The Cave is a fun movie with some action thrown in. Lena didn’t have any reserve before jumping in:

Lena Headey: “I never considered I’d be running around from a monster. And I read it and I thought ‘Why not’ because this is my job and why not try all kinds of genres. And I did it, and possibly will never do it again.”

The film was originally going to be shot in Mexico, but it was moved to Bucharest just before production started. Cole talked about shooting there:

Cole Hauser: “It was fun; Eastern Europe is different. I kind of had an idea when I shot Harts War in Prague, but this is kind of like the Tijuana of Europe. (laughing) Half the city is in rubble, and there are only a few clubs there that resemble anything you’re used to, but most of it is bars and pizzerias; I didn’t really leave the hotel much. Being in pretty much every scene in the film, I was tired from swimming. The physical stuff in this film was pretty tiring so I’d go home afterwards. On the weekends, me, Morris, and Eddie would go out and play Texas Hold ‘Em downstairs in the casino and that’s about it.”

Were there any sites people were telling you about?

Cole Hauser: “We went up to the Carpathian Mountains where Dracula is supposedly from. I don’t believe in any of that bullsh*t so we’re just walking around like ‘oooh!’ (lots of laughter) Eddie and his wife were there like ‘Wow, this is really cool!’ The building is cool, but don’t walk around thinking Dracula was walking around here.”

Cole had done many military films prior to Paparazzi and The Cave, but it’s what he enjoys:

Cole Hauser: “The thing with Tigerland was I was a soldier who just came back from Vietnam and was training soldiers who were going over there. Then in Harts War, I was playing a guy who was just a piece of sh*t, but a great character to play. And then in Tears of the Sun, I play a soldier who helps a Nigerian. So all the roles are different and I made a conscious decision to make them different in every way. As far as military movies, they were making a lot of them a few years ago and now not so much. My grandfather was a Marine, so I guess there is something there, but I think playing a soldier is one of the most honorable things in the world; I think they should keep making military movies because those people disserve to have their stories told.”

In most of your roles, there seems to be strength but also a little bit of menace; where does that come from?

Cole Hauser: “I think it’s the characters I play; I hate to use the word ‘bad guy’ cause I don’t think there is such a thing, but the most menacing people in the world are the people who you look into their eyes and can just say ‘I’m going to f*cking fill you’ and there’s no rage behind it. You’ve seen people look and say these things and have no remorse for saying it. Growing up, I used to hang out with a lot of bad asses; one guy in particular, who I base a lot on, he was a relatively small guy about 5’6”, kind of stocky, but one of the most menacing guys and it’s not because he was mean, he just had mean in his heart – just cold. He’s no longer alive, but I’ve said that’s the way to do it.”

It seems like you take some pride in that?

Cole Hauser: “Well, yeah, playing a bad guy, somebody who is a bad guy, you can do nothing wrong. Nobody can say ‘That’s not right!’ ‘What do you mean, that’s not right?’ So it’s great, and there aren’t too many people who can do it right, but when you find it, you know it’s intense. In playing a bad guy, you can’t really think of yourself as a bad guy.”

What’s next for Cole? Well, he’ll be working on The Break Up with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn:

Cole Hauser: “It’s a comedy so you’ll see me with some jokes and some ha-ha’s.”

Who do you play in that?

Cole Hauser: “I play his brother, who’s just a womanizer, like a fun womanizer, one who’s crazy in his own way. I had a blast, Jay [Lavender] and Jeremy [Garelick] wrote it for me and it was a great difference; I’ve never been on a set where it was like ‘go crazy, have fun with it.’ There’s no boundaries; I had fun with it.”

Is that something you enjoy; would you like to do another comedy?

Cole Hauser: “Oh yeah, absolutely. For me as an actor, I don’t want to be stuck in one place. I want to jump around, whether it’s sci-fi, action-adventure, thriller, or comedy, you just want to keep people on their toes and have them be like ‘I didn’t know Cole was funny. I knew he could do serious, but I didn’t know he could talk 100 miles an hour, he must be out of his mind and just go f*cking nuts.’ And that way, I had the opportunity to do that and it was a breath of fresh air, this is fun.”

You have to talk fast to be with Vince.

Cole Hauser: “Oh yeah, and I’m his brother so I get to make fun of him, so it’s fun.”

You can check out what lies beneath The Cave in theaters August 26th; it’s rated PG-13. The Break Up hits the big screen in February, 2006