Exclusive P2 Interview

2 weeks ago 30th Apr 15:11

How did you come up with the premise for P2?

Well actually a couple of friends of mine came up with the idea and brought it to me thinking it would be a great first movie. I had been looking for a subject, knowing that I hadn’t made a picture, yet and this seemed like the perfect project, and it turned out that it was.

I read it was based on a woman who was trapped and terrorised in a parking lot is that true?

Yes there is some validity to that it was based on a woman being attacked in Europe, in Paris, that is where they got the idea anyway.

How does the writing process work for you do you develop the story first or the characters?

The writing just depends on the story if it’s character driven and this story is obviously about a woman who is just trying to get out of a tight situation so it was mostly driven by plot.

I spent a couple of days with my co- writers Alexandre Aja and Grégory Levasseur we developed it within four or five days the idea for the movie, which way we were going to go, we tried to develop as many ideas for her to find a way out.

The over the next month and a half I wrote and developed the characters and sort of created the villain of the piece.

The setting does allow for such a wide scope in terms of plot what other ideas did you have before settling on the one that you that you have?

When you think about it, it’s funny that you should think about that because most people go oh it’s parking lot there aren’t many ideas, but you are right there were plenty of things that we could have done in a parking lot, and I’m talking about physical things that we could do and physical things that she could fight.

So we have a lot of ideas and we just reduced it down to the best one, and the most realistic one it was important for me that it was not going to be one of those movies where she went into the dark hallway in order to get out in a different way. I didn’t the audience screaming ‘No get out of there why are you so stupid?’ It was important that the female character be intelligent therefore believable and therefore scarier for women.

Visually the parking lot is rather a sparse setting so so much depended on the cast what was the process in fining your two leads?

I needed a guy that has range the way he is written, and I remember acting the part when we were rehearsing or writing, the character has a lot of range he is funny he is crazy you feel compassion for him, he evokes all these emotions and I needed an actor who could hit all those points very naturally. Wes Bentley is a great guy and a very talented actor.

And the girl she is a corporate climber she is intelligent, who acted intelligent, and maybe had an element of upper society if you will but at the same time when she was stripped down and abused by this guy it looks incredibly sexy and vulnerable so those are the elements that I looked for in her. Both of our actors hit the nail I thought.

You were looking then for a tough actress, and you found that in Rachel Nichols, how did she cope with the physical aspect of the shoot?

It was incredibly difficult for her it as very intense and she was bare foot for most of the time but she coped very well. But I think it helped her in portraying the fear and difficulty of her situation in the movie.

You really feel it I think now when you look at it and a lot of that she was going through, it was very hard.

How difficult was it directing in the bare surroundings, especially as a first time director?

Well everyone's been saying 'oh one location how did you make a movie?' And it turns out to be the complete opposite.I look forward now to doing a picture where I have multiple locations, I can come in cover it and be off the next day, as opposed to coming into this empty space and finding creative ways to shoot every single day.

It becomes a little difficult to try and be creative in the same environment day in day out. But it was a challenge you have to be on your bases it's very technical you have to have a good idea how things work to come up with creative shots in an environment like that.

It was a technical exercise for the whole crew the lighting guy had to come up with new ways of lighting a wall, and art direction may have had the job of making a wall on a staircase look interesting.

So it was a real basic exercise for the whole crew well everyone involved, including the actors, how far could you reach that emotional depth? How deep could you go within yourself to bring more and more to every scene to bring difference, to have range? A real technical exercise for everybody.

And where did principle photography take place was it on set or was there a studio involved?

It was a real parking lot. We shot at night because no parking lot wanted us to shoot during the day because they were all working

And although this is your directorial debut you wanted to be an actor is that correct?

I wanted to be involved in movies I started acting, because I'm extremely talented (laughs), and then did a lot of theatre. But I wanted to do plays that other people didn't want to do so I found myself producing and directing things that I wanted to do and then it kind of bites you, it catches you, you want things done a certain way and I wanted to tell stories that other people might not want to tell. And so it was more of my calling even though I probably prefer being in front of the camera more.

You have also written the script for Silent Night Deadly Night what is it about the horror genre that you like so much?

It's like comedy you can't escape it, it grips you it's universal everyone in the world gets scared. It's manipulative and it's exploitative but it's fun

And so many of the classic horror movies are being re-made do you agree with that, bringing the horror genre to a new generation?

Yeah I believe it's about bringing the stories to a new generation and using techniques that we have today, the different techniques that we have, so I'm not at tall against that. Every story has been told, almost every story, so I think that there are different ways of telling them and more interesting ways so why not.

Finally what's next for you?

Well there are a couple of things, and not really in the horror genre, there's a comedy and other period stuff. I want to try and do as many genres as I can and as many different stories, I will always be pushed by the stories, the next one will probably be very different.

P2 is released 2nd of May

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw

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