Cast
Interviews : "The Village"
It's difficult to talk about M. Night Shyamalan's
tricky new thriller, "The
Village," without giving away the tricks. The writer/director's films ("The
Sixth Sense," "Unbreakable," "Signs") are famous for their twists, and
this one may be the twistiest yet. We can't in good faith tell you much
more about the movie than you see in its trailers . Basically, it's about
a remote farming community on the edge of the woods — the boundary
between the simple folk who live there and the mysterious, scary creatures
they fear. The rest, we leave to the cast and director to share, because
if they break the rules of "The Village," they only have themselves to
blame.
MTV:
How do you describe "The Village," without giving
away its secrets?
M. Night Shyamalan: It seems
like a normal community in 1897,
but yet they're doing very odd things.
The existence of the creatures, this
is just part of their daily life.
They go take a bath, they get the
food and follow these rules, because
[the rules] keep you safe from the
creatures. There is a truce: They
don't go into the woods, and the
creatures won't come into this valley,
where all this is. The safe color
[yellow] should be worn upon approaching
the forbidden lines — wear
this color and you'll be safe. Take
away the red and you'll be safer.
When you hear that bell, run for
cover, because they're really coming.
Sigourney Weaver:
I hope people try to
avoid reading reviews
and things like that
in case someone is mean
enough to give away a
secret, because I think
it is a great experience
to go into the theater
and have Night tell you
this story without your
knowing anything, so
if people try to tell
you, say, "No, I don't
want to know."
Bryce Dallas Howard:
Of course, it's valuable
to give everyone the
experience of coming
in there freshly and
not knowing anything
about it, so they can
enjoy the surprises and
twists and turns, but
I actually believe — and Night
said this before we started
filming — that
this movie is best on
its second viewing.
William Hurt: It isn't the story
twists that actually grab you. What
grabs you is something a lot deeper.
It says a lot about community, it says
a lot about fear, it says a lot about
how parents want to keep their children
loved and safe. How we are valiantly
trying to find lesser fears with which
to prevent greater ones, and how we
carry those scars with us and they
reinvent themselves, and we can actually
work through them in this amazing,
audacious way by continuing to accept
the ultimate risk, which is to create
your culture as you see fit.
MTV:
How did you come up with
the idea, and how essential
was the casting?
Shyamalan: I think
that ultimately this
became a kind of adult,
emotional version of "Little Red
Riding Hood" in a way.
It didn't start that
way, but it bloomed into
that, starting wanting
to make a movie in that
time period, and the
choice to do a female
lead [which became Howard's
role as Ivy].
Howard: I'm actually, fortunately, not carrying
the film; it's really Night who is carrying this
film, and it's his baby. But he seemed to have
a sort of crazy amount of faith in me, because
he saw me in a play and, without auditioning or
meeting me, just offered me the role. And if he's
going to be insane, he's going to be insane, so
I'll just do my best, you know?
Joaquin
Phoenix: One day, when we were
shooting "Signs," I said I always wished
that I could play a character who didn't
speak. I was tired of dialogue, I wanted
to see what it was like to use my physicality,
and once I got the script, I [said], "He
actually — he listened to me!" Every
single sentence means something.
MTV:
You did a lot of work to
prepare for these roles
... the boot camp, for
instance, where you had
to live like it was 1897.
Did that give you a new
respect for the hard work
of what is supposed to
be a simpler life? What
modern conveniences did
you miss?
Hurt: The only thing
I missed was more of it!
Wish we had been there
more. It was one week.
It was a great week, and
a lot of value in the film
shines because of that
week. We were able to build
and enhance the bonds,
which gave us the confidence
to drop show and go for
the heart of the matter.
Weaver: I think
we just had a good time.
Frankly, it's one thing to catch a sheep and
wrestle it down to the
ground if you're going
to do it once or twice,
and another thing to
become a shepherdess
for your whole life.
I think we had a tremendous
respect for the people who knew these crafts,
for instance, spinning,
all those old fairytales,
where you spin flax into
gold, it was one of the
hardest things we had
to learn. Luckily, I
did not have to spin
on camera — it
wouldn't have come out
right.
Howard: I just tried to do as much research
[on the blind] as I could. The first thing I went
to was the glazed-over look. And then I went to
the Lighthouse in New York City and met a lot of
blind people who were looking me in the eye, which
was really bizarre. Being in the town, Ivy is not
blind, and I had to play it that way.
Adrien Brody: I spent a lot time with
people who are similar to Noah. I don't just
consider him mentally handicapped, and I didn't
want to do anything in a cliché way; he's
a very complex character. He's an overly emotional,
overly sensitive human being with a very childlike
perspective, and it's hard to live in a community
that's close-knit and not fit in. Everyone is
affected by fear except him. He's excited about
things that might make people afraid, excited
about the creatures that might live in the woods.
MTV: Is it the fear of the unknown — twists
included — that make it so exciting?
Weaver: Sometimes seeing things is more
disturbing. When the wedding is interrupted and
we find all these [mutilated] animals, the sight
of the animals was so much more disturbing than
even reading it in the script — whoever
had done this to them, and why, [was] so bewildering.
Things like that come alive more for you in a
film. It's very affecting.
Shyamalan: People left the towns in the
1880s and 1890s because of industrialization, and
were fed up with the corruption and the filth and
everything starting to happen in the cities and
went to go do their own thing and moved to areas
that weren't inhabited, but what if something bad
happened? It's kind of exciting. There's just no
real way to completely protect someone. There's
just no way. You always are at risk. It's a scary
thing to admit. You can do everything you can,
but your loved ones will always be in jeopardy.
I have to keep doing things that scare me, and
this certainly scares me.
Above courtesy of mtv.com
|