Is it a case of classic tale, classic movie?
Saturday, April 11
Warm Bodies: Nicholas Hoult interview
Nicholas Hoult (Skins, X-Men: First Class) tells us what it’s like to play a hot zombie in unusual love story Warm Bodies, and how eating brains isn’t gory if it’s well shot…
How would you describe the character of R?
The most compelling thing about R is his need to connect. He wants to connect with the other zombies in the airport, even though they’ve got nothing to really say to him and can’t even say their names. He wants to connect with Julie and to feel alive. That’s one of the most human instincts ever – to want to feel a part of something and to connect with another human.”
What made this part stand out for you?
The idea of this zombie who I have to try to make an audience care about and root for, that was interesting to me. In the script, he was very funny and eloquent in his voiceover, so there was a charm about him and a humour as well.
Was it challenging to play a character who barely speaks?
A lot of the time I had to communicate just through movement, my eyes, the things I do, or the records R plays for Julie. The idea of not being able to say what you’re thinking was something that was exciting for me. It makes you think in a slightly different way than you normally would.
Director Jonathan Levine said the first on-screen conversations between R and Rob Corrdry’s M saw you both crack up, but by the fifth take you were both properly groaning…
There were moments where we’d both zone out in each other’s eyes. It was just very weird stuff.
You eat another person’s brains in the film. Is that going to gross out the audiences who come looking for a love story?
That’s a slightly violent moment in the film, where R is cracking Perry’s head open, but it’s shot very beautifully. The way Javier Aguirresarobe framed and lit everything, it just looks fantastic – even the more gruesome aspects, there’s still something very cinematic about them.
Did it gross you out?
Eating brains is fun! They made the brains out of kind of a cold, wet sponge. The idea Jonathan came up with is that because these brains are memories it’s like being alive again, it’s kind of like a drug to the zombies.
A lot of R’s thoughts are revealed via voiceover in the film. Did you have to keep that in mind while acting?
Sometimes the script supervisor read out the voiceover on set so I could hear what the character was meant to be thinking during the scene. It helps with the timing of the scene to make everything link together.
Warm Bodies, which stars Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Rob Cordry, Dave Franco and Analeigh Tipton, opens in cinemas on 1 February in the US and 8 February in the UK.
MUST WATCH:
Warm Bodies: first four minutes with Nicholas Hoult’s zombie [VIDEO]
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Warm Bodies: Jonathan Levine interview
Warm Bodies: Jonathan Levine interview
Jonathan Levine (50/50, The Wackness), scriptwriter and director of zombie romantic comedy Warm Bodies, talks humanity, musical shorthand and breaking zombie conventions…
You were initially resistant to doing a movie based on a young‐adult novel. What changed your mind? I identified with the main character, and the book Isaac Marion wrote really allowed for these incredible directorial flourishes and aggressive style. I was excited about the opportunity to push the envelope visually. And it was a great character piece, as well. It’s an adventure, it’s a romance, it’s got comedic elements, and it’s got horror elements.
Were you worried it would be hard to create a believable relationship between a zombie and a living girl?
The arc of their relationship was the most important thing to me to get right directorially – the push and pull of guys and girls, the way relationships start and people are nervous at first, maybe even repulsed, and then come together.
Zombie films often speak to the audience about humanity. Is that true of Warm Bodies?
The salient theme at the heart of it is that people have forgotten what it means to be human and, through the interaction of these two characters, other people re‐learn what it means to be human. Not just the zombies, but the humans, too.
What made you cast Dave Franco (21 Jump Street, Superbad) as the boy who gets his brains eaten?
He has to make a very big impact in a very short time and he really does it. He’s so charming and likeable, and so talented, that he sticks with you throughout the movie.
The most zombie-like zombies, the Boneys, were created using CGI based on the movements of stunt performers in motion‐capture suits. How was your first time using that kind of technology?
The great thing about CG is, not only can you create these characters, but you can do things stylistically that I feel like some people aren’t taking advantage of remotely enough. When we go into R’s dreams, for example, we do surreal transitions. At the very beginning of the movie, about the first 10 minutes, there’s a lot of really interesting, stylish CG that is used to tell the story in a way that people haven’t seen before. I’ve never previously had it as a tool in my arsenal. It allows for the editorial process to be as creative as the production process.
Aside from R’s relationship with Julie, he also has a lot of screen time with his best friend, M…
M, in many ways, is the heart of the movie. R’s change sparks everything, but M’s change is representative of everyone else.
Was it a challenge to have the zombie characters communicate?
They’re able to have conversations based on short, one‐word things and to interpret each other’s groans. That led to a lot of on‐set laughs. We were shooting this scene at the very beginning of the movie and it’s basically just two guys groaning at each other. The guys kept cracking up. By the time we got to take five, they were literally groaning and having conversations with each other.
There’s an interesting use of music in the film, too…
R’s use of records to communicate with Julie was a clever feature of Marion’s novel that helped draw me to the project. Music really does help set tone. It’s another way to have a shorthand with the audience. Music is, in a big way, how I access the world in a movie and the characters. It’s really nice that it was already written into the story.
This film has less gore and physical disintegration than many other examples from the zombie genre. Was that intentional?
I don’t even look at it, really, as a zombie movie. I look at it as a monster movie that turns into a love story. We’re working within the zombie mythology, but we’re using that mythology as a means to an end, as shorthand for something else.
Apparently your inspiration came from Depression‐era photos and images of coal miners, instead of traditional zombie movie references…
We wanted to make a movie that appealed to all ages, so we couldn’t necessarily get involved in some of the fun stuff that other zombie movies do. The process of designing the looks of both the zombies and the Boneys was a lengthy one that started early in pre‐production. We had people doing sketches, artists taking a picture of Nick Hoult from Skins or X‐Men, and tweaking and playing with it. It would be back and forth internally, and then we would take it to the studio and do make-up tests.
Are you worried horror purists might disapprove of the way the film plays with zombie‐movie conventions?
I have a great knowledge and love of films like 28 Days Later, Shaun Of The Dead, Day Of The Dead and Return Of The Living Dead. But one of the great things about making movies is you can use genre and mythology to tell different kinds of stories.
Warm Bodies, which stars Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Rob Cordry, Dave Franco and Analeigh Tipton, opens in cinemas on 1 February in the US and 8 February in the UK.
MUST WATCH:
Warm Bodies: first four minutes with Nicholas Hoult’s zombie [VIDEO]
MUST READ:
Warm Bodies: Nicholas Hoult interview
Midnight Son: Review
Sun-dodging, sex and sanguination in a moody vamp horror from the director of The Blair Witch Project…
Whatever happened to movie monsters the good guys love to kill? Creatures of the night used to bring whole communities together, carrying torches and waving pitchforks, yet there’s no such nimby attitude these days. Whereas women used to run screaming from vampires, they are now more likely to jump on anything without a pulse. Perhaps this is the true, lasting legacy of Twilight, a series of films that saw its female lead debate whether to date a werewolf or a bloodsucker. It was restaurant silver service rather than silver bullets, steak tartine rather than stake through the heart. With zombie love story Warm Bodies on the way, things are only going to get worse.
It’s therefore disarming to find out that Midnight Son was shot in 2007 – a year before Twilight’s release – with principle photography taking place over 22 nights in Los Angeles and a few scenes being added years later. Had Scott Leberecht’s (The Blair Witch Project) film been released six years ago, its decision to ask the audience to feel sympathy for someone who stalks the night(shift) would have seemed much fresher.
The story follows Jacob (Zak Kilberg), an overnight security guard who had a normal childhood until a rare skin condition forced him to seek shelter during daylight. A joke from his junkie girlfriend Mary (Maya Parish) and a sudden change in his health – where no amount of eating can satisfy his hunger – has him renting vampire flicks and checking out his teeth in the mirror to see if he might be on the change.
Midnight Son uses its low budget to great effect. Vérité-style camerawork gives it a raw – if not quite bleeding – edge, witnessed in the handheld back and forth of a street conversation or the extreme close-ups of its insatiable lead character. Kilberg is RPattz without the sparkle, all tortured looks and glaring appetites.
Writer/director/producer Leberecht’s artistic input, meanwhile, even extends to the painted pictures of sunrises and sunsets Jacob obsessively crafts. Moody, mean and with a glimpse of LA’s darker side, it’s just a shame his film didn’t see sunlight for so long.
VERDICT: 8/10
Midnight Son opens in cinemas in key UK cities on 11 January 2013.
- Like this movie? Check out the season eight Supernatural episode Bitten to see an awesome found footage take on what it’s like to become a werewolf.
Warm Bodies: first four minutes with Nicholas Hoult’s zombie [VIDEO]
If you watch The Walking Dead and have lost your sympathy for the biters, prepare to have some of it restored by Nicholas Hoult‘s R.
A victim of the zombie apocalypse, he’s wandering the world in search of a connection. Having read Isaac Marion’s novel, we know he tries to find it in this zom-rom-com with love interest Julie (Teresa Palmer).
The first four minutes of the film have appeared online and serve as a great introduction to this very unusual love story.
Warm Bodies, which stars Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Rob Cordry, Dave Franco and Analeigh Tipton, opens in cinemas on 1 February in the US and 8 February in the UK.
MUST READ:
Warm Bodies: Jonathan Levine interview
Warm Bodies: Nicholas Hoult interview