Comic Con Interview: Stephen King's The Mist

By George 'El Guapo' Roush on July 28, 2007

In one of my earlier reports I talked about the upcoming Stephen King short story The Mist. The cast and crew sat down with the journos and discussed the film. Introductions are first so you don’t get lost in the mess of egos present.

Burrell:  Visual Effects Supervisor for CaféFX.

Nicotero:  KNB EFX creature design and make-up effects.

Jane: I'm Thomas Jane, I play David in the movie.  Laurie Holden, the invisible, she'll be right back.  She plays Amanda in the movie.

Darabont:  I'm Frank Darabont, I wrote it and directed it.

Harden:  Marcia Gay Harden, I play Mrs. Carmody, the evil one.

Laurie Holden was also there as well.

Question:  Can you talk about the history of the project and how you first became involved.  We all know you are Stephen King fan, you have done Stephen King films before, but why this particular story?

Darabont:  I have loved this story since 1980, when I first read it in 'Dark Forces' anthology, edited by Kirby McCauley. I think it was published again in 'Skeleton Crew' two years later.  I have always love that I was willing to do it, in fact I remember sitting one night on the set of 'Nightmare on Elm Street III' which was my first writing credit and Chuck Russell, who was directing it…

Jane:  And starring my wife!

Darabont:  Starring his wife, Patricia [Arquette] who was 17 at the time maybe.  And Everett did Freddy's make-up.  Wow.  This is all a whole confluence of stuff right here.  I remember thinking wow, my writing career seems to have started.  I would like to start thinking about a directing possibility.  I want to get in touch with Stephen King and find out if he would give me the rights to something.  I was weighing one night, 'Shawshank Redemption' or 'The Mist'.  I decided to go for 'Shawshank' and it turned me into a much classier guy than I had ever intended to be.  I never let go of the idea of making this movie because of it's, I don't know, something about good intense pressure cooker ensembles that I really love.  This particular one is pretty unique.  It finally came back around and it finally came time to do it.

Question:  Can you talk about what it took to pull off the special effects for this?

Burrell:  [Laughs] I am still trying to pull them off.

Darabont:  No, you are pulling them off brilliantly, just before I hand it off to you, because that really is a question for you.  It was a very interesting experience for me and I gather for the cast as well, to play a lot of scenes with things that weren't actually there.  I think it was kind of a first time for me directing scenes like that.  Ok, pretend that the thing is swooping and the thing is chewing.

Harden:  I felt like we were really lucky because Greg, who is amazing and Everett, they brought out these puppets.  They showed us how the mouths worked and how the eyes worked.  So, we really had a very good reference point so when they took the puppets away and we were looking at dots and pretending to see the monsters, we really knew the size of them and how ferocious they were and if they had 8 legs or how many.  That was a real gift, the fact that we had the puppets there on set.  That is very rare, usually it's like 'Okay, monster comes in, and scream.' So it was wonderful having you there, it helped all of our performances.

Nicotero:  I was reminding Frank at one point, our first meeting on this movie was about 12 years ago, when he was just initially getting ready to do it.  It was sort of like 'I might do 'The Mist' next, I might do this next.'  So, we did a whole bunch of sketches and drawings and I went over to his house one morning.  I showed him a bunch of creature designs, it was all very preliminary, but we've been friends for a long, long time.  So then he called in October and said 'Okay, we got a green light for 'The Mist' we have to start thinking about creature designs.' Everybody knows that if you want to come up with creatures they are not going to come up over night.  It's not going to be the first one out of the gate.  We started sketching stuff and we went up to CafeFX and had a lot, a lot of round table meetings about developing the creatures, developing how the stuff worked, and it was a great, great experience.  Frank had specific ideas about what he wanted to do and Everett and my history made it a really good team to say, okay we can handle that and visual effects can do this.  By building all the puppet stuff, of course the fun thing for us is every time someone comes to set.  They all come to the creature effects room and everybody wants to play.  They start pulling cables and the first time someone's wife or husband and kids come in they go right to the effects room. 

Burrell:  People started puppeteering the creatures.

Harden:  Like mine. [Laughs]

Nicotero:  Everybody's did.  But I have to give a tremendous amount of credit to Everett because I think him and his team at CafeFX have gone above and beyond even what I had hope the creature work would look like.  Once we wrap the film, I am done.  I've built the creatures and we shoot them, then they go into the 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' crate in the back of KNB and then it is all there way.  It's amazing stuff, what I've seen.  I am blown away so I can't imagine what people that have no idea what is coming up are going to do.

Burrell:  I was going to bring a spider.  Did you bring a spider?

Nicotero: We were going to bring a spider but wouldn't fit in a car. 

Holden:  You should have sat it on the trunk of the car.

Darabont:   That sucks that you didn't bring the spider.  I wanted you to see my project. [Laughs]  That is hilarious.

Question:  Frank, I was wondering if you had intended all along in the sort of hand held documentary feel to it?  I know you have wanted to do this project for awhile.  Did that come about after you did 'The Shield' like 'Hm, think about this.'

Darabont:  It's actually, I think if anything, it's my desire to go into a more fluid ragged documentary direction with this movie.  It is probably what drew me to 'The Shield' in the first place.  I thought 'Well, I don't really have this kind of experience as a director.  I am a big believer in learning.  Even if that means there is a baby step or two.  I believe in that kind of preparation so I was lucky enough to do a couple of things for television last year.  It was really, in my mind, it was always getting into character for 'The Mist'.  I want to learn something new that I can then apply to this feature.  What I learned was so thrilling that I took the cinematographer and the camera operators and the editor and the script supervisor from 'The Shield' and asked them to join us on this.  I dialed in so quickly to it and those folks were so dialed into it already that it just created a wonderful way to do something completely different.  Something I had never done before.  It was really a thrill.

Question:  Would you say that is how you modernized what is pretty much the traditional monster movie?  It's a film that is kind of arriving in a certain climate that is loaded with extreme violence and realistic violence.  This is a very kind of 50's throw back almost, in concept.

Darabont:  It might be on the surface of it, but to me it’s a throw back to Shakespeare.  Its people at each other, it's not so much about the unbelievably cool creatures that we've got working in this thing.  It's not really about that, it's about…

Harden:  Fear.

Darabont:  It's about fear.  What does fear compel people to do?  Especially when you throw people into the dark and scare the shit out of them, as his character says at one point, and you take all the rules away.  Then what?  How primitive do people get?  It's 'Lord of the Flies' that happens to have some cool monsters in it.

Harden:  I thought it was as much about the question of what is out there.  That fear, that not knowing, as the fact of what is out there.  So, there is this interesting balance.  You see the horrible thing but not all of it, you see the tentacle, but not all of it.  Then you are back in the room and the adrenaline and the sweat and singe builds up, and people behave in horrible ways.  Then something else happens and one of those things gets in.  Without the human balance it would be shot after shot of [screams].  [Laughs] Which is to me, not near as interesting as, like he said 'The Lord of the Flies'.  How do people behave.  That was the front of it and Frank was like, I want to say he was the director, but he really wasn't.  He was like a conductor, or better, he's the ring master.  Holding this ground cigarette constantly, this skinny ground cigarette in his hand, standing over behind the bay of monitors, watching it, and yelling during a scene.  Seeing someone get excited and saying 'Yeah! Yeah!' loud.  Then 'Quiet the fuck down. What do I have to do?'  And the extras, how many extras were there every day?

Darabont:  Anywhere from, depending on the day, from 50 to 80.

Harden:  And 5 of them were 700 years old.  They stood.  They were so sweet, they stood without complaint at all, never.  Completely acting and being a part of it, so it wasn't just your camera or this, it was really like a ring master.  It was very exciting.

Darabont:  It was really different.  I've gotten louder as I've gone. I had a microphone and speakers all over the store.  'Okay, duck.  See, he's screaming, shit there's a fucking thing swooping.  Oh my God, run!  Ahh!'  I was narrating through the whole thing. I used to direct very quietly.  I used to whisper in actors ears.

Harden:  Its not like a scream, not like that thing that got on the internet, it wasn't that. 

Darabont:  No, I've turned into Dick Donner. [Laughs]

Harden:  You didn't have to question it, or what is he thinking, it was just 'Do this and do it now!'

Holden:  Frank is like a kid in a candy store.  He's so excited about what he does and I know that Constantine who is making the documentary, I know that you have caught Frank behind the monitor like a little kid.  'And the bird comes in and…' you were like a 5 year old, so excited.  Everyone just wanted to see him smile and so happy because you are so in love with this project and believe in everybody so much. 

Darabont:  It was a great experience.

Harden:  It was a wonderful thing to be a part of.

Nicotero:  One for Thomas and …

Harden:  You had one already.  [Laughs]

Question:  Could Thomas and Laurie talk a little bit about your characters and you are married, I haven't read the story, I know I'm the only one in the room who hasn't read it…

Jane:  We're married, yeah.

Question:  And you have a son?

Holden:  Not to each other.

Question:  Oh, not to each other.

Jane:  This is even better. [Laughs]

Question:  Can you tell us more about that?

Jane:  Well, in the book we make love up in the manager's office.  Which is just, only in the Stephen King book, you know?  Trying everything he can to get wife to his wife and his kid.  And while his kid is sleeping he is up there schtooping Amanda in the managers office.  It's like what happens to you in times of stress and fear and duress.  You never know if you are going to make it out of there alive, and for some reason in the book you are with the hero.  You are right there with him, but never in a movie.  You would be like 'That guy needs to die.' [Laughs] And he would.

Darabont:  I am so not getting away with that on screen.  Not even trying.

Holden:  I am married to somebody else in the film, and I am one of the leaders on the good side of the isle.  There is a bad side of the isle and a good side of the isle, depending on who you speak to of course, Marcia.  But we are more like surrogates to each other.  There is more of a kind, emotional relationship, as opposed to a sexual romantic one.  A good support system for one another.

Jane:  We kind of form a little family, a little surrogate family.  My son, I become the father, and she becomes the mother to the son.  We become a little unit as we're trying to get through this nightmare together.  It's really fascinating how people…

Harden:  As people did in the down, think about Katrina and what was going on in the downs and it was incredible who helped who.  Who was sent to who, where was violence?  They have just been through something not as apocalyptic or scientific, but through something that is painful.

Darabont:  How many rapes happened in the dome while people were trapped in that dome?  It was a disgusting number of rapes that were happening.  Even a couple of murders I think.  It's amazing how quickly people turn into animals.

Holden:  Or not always animals, I don't think that everybody in this turns into an animal.  I think it’s a morality tale of what happens to people under dire circumstances, fear.  Some people rise to the occasion, some people become leaders, like your character, and some become mothers like my character.  Some people become religious crusaders like Mrs. Carmody. 

Jane:  She's a leader.

Holden:  She definitely is a leader…

Harden:  But I'm a divisive leader and that is the question.  I'm a divisive leader where he is trying to be a unified leader.  That is the interesting thing.  One leader hurts community and hurts the potential for survival.  The other one doesn't.

Darabont:  I find it really fascinating and I am hoping who sees the movie points this out.  Every decision that David makes turns out to be a disaster.  By trying to do the right thing, every time.

Jane:  Smart, logical, reasonable thing to do and every single turn, it turns out to be a complete and utter failure.  I love that about the movie and the story, the character.  What it says about trying to do the right thing. He's like the guy that lives next door to you, it's not Indiana Jones or anything.  He just happens to be a painter that lives, he's your neighbor, and he's your friend that you see getting your mail and that kind of stuff.  That is what is great about all the characters in the movie.  There were 47 principles I think and 70 extras, I remember one day Frank was like 'Man, I got so many people in this market.  We must be crazy.'  It's not like one room with a couple of people.  It is an entire supermarket with different stories and different interactions all through the entire market.  You follow the storyline of each one of them.  It's as if everybody in this room got sealed in and how you would deal with it, people find their niche.  The interesting thing about David's character that I even watching him act, I thought 'Yeah, that guy would be your neighbor.' And you watch him rise and try the best that he can.  He doesn't know all the answers but he does what he thinks is best. 

Harden:  There is not a lot of 'Made my day.' And 'Die Hard' not a lot of those kinds of lines either.  In fact the people who have some of the most typical of that are Frances Sternhagen. 'I've got a lot of peas.' [Laughs]

Darabont:  And by the way, David happens to paint a lot like Drew who is a very talented painter.

Question:  How has this experience of directing this film based on the Stephen King novel compare to your experience directing the other two films?  'Shawshank Redemption' and 'Green Mile'?

Darabont:  Night and day different.  I chose to make it night and day different.  Really the tonality of this particular story and movie wanted to be different.  It didn't want to have that precision, for lack of a better word.  No, actually it's a really good word.  It's a precise word.  There is enormous precision in the films I've made in the past.  Very clearly thought out and you could see that the kid who grew up watching Stanley Kubrick movies, made those films.  There was this tremendous control and that becomes its own shackle after a while. You think, okay screw that.  I've played Beethoven's 9th with a symphony orchestra, let's go play some pianos.  Let's go grab an instrument and if we miss some notes then that’s actually part of the point of it.  It was a completely different 180 experience for me.  For me probably the most satisfying thing I've ever done.  Win, lose, or draw.  If it's a hit, if it’s a flop, it’s the movie where I actually learned to love directing.  Truly.  I never did before.  I found it enormously satisfying and rewarding in a lot of ways, but I never enjoyed it.  There was tremendous pressure I was putting on myself to try and achieve some [?] notion of perfection.  Fuck perfection, let's have fun.  Let's get in there and roll around in the mud.  Sometimes that is fantastic and it feels tremendously vital to me.  Some of my favorite movies have done that when they have been done well and intelligently.  You let it happen instead of make it happen.  It's maybe a fine distinction between the two, but it’s the difference between night and day really.  And I dragged all these folks along for the ride and it was different for them too. 

Harden:  Emotion is messy and fear is messy.  All of that is a really messy thing to go through.  Sometimes film is too precise, but sometimes we don't get that same visceral feeling. You know when you watch on the new the person who has just experienced the loss of their house in a fire?  You can see the fire in the background and the person says 'I lost everything I had.' And you are sobbing because it was so raw and it wasn't set up like 'Push in a little bit.' It was that kind of thing where you allow it to explode in a way. 

Holden:  I think it's the rawest a lot of us have ever been.  This is renegade film making at its best.

Darabont:  The style fit the story, the style fit the subject.  Yeah, you can't do that all the time.  Some things will require that kind of precision and that kind of painterly approach.  Like 'Okay, let me fake up months in advance how I want to shoot something.' Versus 'Let's find it at the moment we are actually doing it.'  It depends on the movie.  The movie will demand its own tone from all of us in all our respective areas.  This one really just lent itself to this.  It was great, it was like mud wrestling and throwing bricks.  Fabulous.

Source:Latino Review

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