BOP Interview: Cabin in the Woods
By Ryan Mazie
April 12, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Written by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and the upcoming The Avengers) and Drew Goddard (frequent collaborator with Whedon), but directed by only the latter, The Cabin in the Woods is a surprisingly fun jaunt that escalates into a cameo-driven finish that will get any horror fan’s heart pumping.
Cabin stars Kristen Connolly and Fran Kranz (Dollhouse) offered some insight into their long-delayed film during a roundtable interview. The scariest thing about Cabin for Kranz was the possibility of not being a part of it. “I felt such a strong connection and ownership to the role which is rare, but as an actor, when that happens and you really believe that you are the right person for this role, it is difficult,” said the actor on fearing he wouldn’t get the part of stoner Marty, “I knew if I didn’t get it, it would haunt me for the rest of my life.”
On auditioning for the role
Fran Kranz: I auditioned for this like any other movie, which was weird, because I was working on [Whedon’s TV show] Dollhouse. … I saw the names of the people involved and it was bizarre, because Joss had never really mentioned me getting an audition. There was a day on the Dollhouse set when Drew [Goddard] came to talk to Joss … about potential shooting locations, potential lakes and cabins and woods, and one of them was the original Friday the 13th, Camp Crystal Lake. I started geeking out, because I am a big fan of those movies. “Ahh, you have got to film it there! That’s so cool!” Later on, Joss told me that he had Drew come to set to meet me, because they had already been thinking about me for the role. So I really just happened to luck out and come over and make an impression and show that I loved horror films. But I auditioned just like for anything else. It was bizarre, because I would go to work every day and see Joss and be like, “I just auditioned for the movie, what’s going on?” (Laughs.) It was the elephant in the room.
At one point we were having lunch and [Dollhouse star] Eliza Dushku was asking Joss how the movie was coming and he said, “We’re putting together a pretty second-rate cast.”
Kristen Connolly: That was mean.
FK: No, no, but at that point he had told me he wanted me for the role. But he was having fun with it.
KC: That’s so Joss, though; I could totally hear him saying that.
FK: It was great. Once it all worked out it was so fun. It was also nice to go back to work with him, because he is someone I want to work for forever. He is one of the best bosses you can possibly imagine.
KC: I did the same thing as everybody else, like Fran said. I auditioned in New York, then I flew to L.A. and I read with Fran. We read the final scene in the movie that I had absolutely no context for. All of the audition scenes that they gave us were fake. They were crazy. All of them were crazy. My scene was Dana and Kurt getting chased by pterodactyls and looking for these underground tunnels to hide in. I was like, “Jeez, tunnels, I don’t know?” (Laughs.) I was really working on it at home and was like, “This is insane! What is this?!”
FK: It was very mean, some of the things that they had to do considering that it wasn’t even in the script. Like in my scene, I was talking to these detectives, because my friend had just been decapitated by the Clickity-Clack Man in the parking lot of a bowling alley and I actually had to say, “The Clickity-Clack Man is coming! He is coming for us all!”
KC: This is just Joss and Drew messing with us.
Both cast in the film after the strange audition process, the two actors only fear now were the supernatural entities attacking them onscreen. “It was pretty rough,” said Connolly about shooting a scene where she is brutally thrashed around by one of the film’s undead assailants, “I really wanted to have some teeth knocked out and a broken nose … but Joss and Drew go, ‘No, no, you are the girl in a horror movie.’ You can have a cut here and here and there,” laughed Connolly. In the end, she did get one of her wishes, “They did let me cough up blood and throw out some teeth, ‘as long as they are teeth in the back.’”
With filming wrapped in 2009, set for a release date in February, 2010 (with a 3D sheen to it; the conversion idea was later axed), The Cabin in the Woods got an additional villain – MGM. Going bankrupt, the film was put in limbo before being acquired by Lionsgate.
On the film finally reaching audiences
FK: I love this movie so much. I love the script, the experience making it, the final product; it means so much to me, because it is the best role I have ever gotten. I had high hopes for it and really believe that maybe, hopefully, this can be a breakthrough role for me, being an unknown or whatever. It’s been on my mind (laughs). I have not left the movie, because I loved it so much. I remember it in detail unlike any other project I worked on. I never really lost faith, a lot of people doubted that it would come out since it was on a shelf, but I knew how good it was so I was always confident that it would be released. So it is very satisfying, no matter how long a movie takes to see the light of day. You can feel the buzz around it.
KC: It was so cool to watch it at South By Southwest, because it was just so crazy. It was like a rock show. People were cheering and laughing. There were times that, Anna [Hutchison, a co-star in the film] and I talked about this, where Fran would start a line and people would start laughing, and we were like, “No, no, no! Let him finish, it is funnier if you hear the whole thing!” But it was so cool that there was so much energy in that room and that people were so excited about it. It was an even sweeter feeling to have had all of this time go by and all of this, “Oh man, I hope this comes out and people like it,” and then to be in that room and to have people respond the way that they responded was just awesome. It was a truly extraordinary experience.
At South By Southwest, Whedon made a comment on how he packed almost every fear imaginable into The Cabin in the Woods. When asked about what type of horror film they would make about one of their fears, Connolly immediately thought of an answer. “The thing I am most afraid of is drowning or being buried alive, something you are suffocating, really terrifies me,” she said. She cites a non-horror movie for an example, “I couldn’t even watch Kill Bill 2, with the scene where she is in the coffin. I had to get up and leave the theater, because it was too intense for me.”
Kranz says his biggest fear is claustrophobia, “The Descent killed me. The monsters scared me, but I was far more uncomfortable with the dive down. I couldn’t handle that.”
Luckily Kranz doesn’t have to deal with confined spaces in his next film with Whedon, Much Ado About Nothing.
On Much Ado About Nothing and shooting it in 12 days
FK: [Joss] was on vacation from Avengers and he and his family were going to go to Italy, but instead he filmed Much Ado About Nothing at the last second. He does play readings at his house a lot. We sat in his backyard and read Midsummer Night’s Dream one time. I got an email from him and he said, “I’m thinking about doing Much Ado at my house, but I am going to film it this time. Are you interested?” And I always say yes to him. Then he said, “Would you do Claudio?” And I said, “Absolutely.” Then all of a sudden, people started contacting me about wardrobe and my social security (laughs). There was a grip truck at his house and all of a sudden we were making a movie. Granted, it was short and we burned through it, but it’s a movie. It’s a real thing. I can’t believe it. He’s so busy with Avengers that this is sort of his side passion project, but I do know there’s a cut and they are putting music down and he wants to take it to festivals.
For now, Whedon fans, horror lovers, and even people looking for a laugh, can venture out to The Cabin in the Woods, which opens in theaters this Friday. “To me it feels like a great ride at Disney,” said Connolly with an excited laugh, “It’s best if you don’t know what’s going to happen and when you’re finished with it, it’s like, ‘I want to see that again!’”