Interview: Alison Lohman Drag Me To Hell

Alison Lohman really gets put through hell in Sam Raimi’s highly anticipated new horror movie, Drag Me to Hell. Lohman plays Christine Brown, an ambitious L.A. loan officer with a charming boyfriend, professor Clay Dalton (Justin Long).  Life is good until the mysterious Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) arrives at the bank to beg for an extension on her home loan.

Should Christine follow her instincts and give the old woman a break?  Or should she deny the extension to impress her boss, Mr. Jacks (David Paymer), and get a leg up on a promotion?  Christine chooses the latter, dispossessing Mrs. Ganush of her home. 
   
In retaliation, the old woman places the curse of the Lamia upon Christine, transforming her life into a living nightmare.  Haunted by an evil spirit and misunderstood by a skeptical boyfriend, she seeks the aid of seer Rham Jas (Dileep Rao) to save her soul from eternal damnation.
 
To help the shattered Christine, the psychic sets her on a frantic course to reverse the spell and brings her to the only woman who can aid her, seer Shaun San Dena (Oscar-nominated actress Adriana Barraza).  As evil forces close in, Christine must face the unthinkable: How far will she go to break free of the curse?  

One of our most exciting and versatile young actresses, Alison Lohman first gained attention with her acclaimed performance as Astrid in White Oleander, in which she starred opposite Michelle Pfeiffer, Renée Zellweger and Robin Wright Penn. Her other film credits include starring opposite Nicolas Cage and Sam Rockwell in Ridley Scott’s Matchstick Men; opposite Ewan McGregor in Tim Burton’s Big Fish; opposite Giovanni Ribisi in The Big White; opposite Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth in Atom Egoyan’s Where the Truth Lies; opposite Tim McGraw in Michael Mayer’s Flicka; opposite Michael Pitt in Delirious; and opposite Benicio Del Toro and Halle Berry in Things We Lost in the Fire.  Lohman was most recently seen in Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf, in which she starred opposite Angelina Jolie, Robin Wright Penn and Sir Anthony Hopkins.

MoviesOnline had a fun chat with Alison Lohman about her new movie, Drag Me to Hell. Lohman turns in a terrific performance and we really appreciated her time. Here’s what she had to tell us:

Q: So, Allison why did you not give that old lady a break [laughter].

Alison:  I should have, but no.

Q: This isn't the type of film that you've done in the past. Was it wanting to work with Sam Raimi?

Alison:  Yeah, it was Sam. I thought working with Sam would be fun and, when he told me the story, it sounded like it was good and that he would inspire me doing a horror movie because I wasn't a big fan of them before.

Q: You are practically in every scene in this film.  Did you feel the stress of that?

Alison:  Not at all.  Just stress in terms of what I was having to go through every day and lack of sleep.

Q: Did working on Beowulf help you with working with all the effects in this?

Alison: This is completely different because I had all of my props and there was hardly any CGI so it was great for me.  I just put myself in the situation and I didn't have to hardly use my imagination.  Sam created it for me.

Q: How was shooting that scene in the parking garage?

Alison:  It was scary.  It lasted a while, that scene.  It was very intense.  I'd show up for work and Mrs. Ganush is strangling me at six in the morning.  It was difficult but we got through it.

Q: Did anyone get injured?

Alison: Yeah, we got bruises and cuts but nothing too intense.

Q: How much gook did you have to swallow?

Alison:  Lots.  Nothing outrageous.

Q: What was it?

Alison:  The maggots gook?  There's lots of different kinds of stuff. The maggots were pasta and the blood is just a sugary something. 

Q: What about the gook in the grave, the muddy stuff?

Alison:  Actually that was Calistoga spa mud.  I asked them for it, not because I'm a diva but because they were doing tests for mud on me to see if I was allergic because I'm allergic to a million things, and, with the chemical mud, my skin would actually break out and get really red.  But with Calistoga Spa mud, it actually worked.

Q: And you get a spa treatment!

Alison: Yeah. But, not really.

Q: In real life, would you give this old lady who has already had two loan extensions, another one?

Alison:  Knowing what my character had to go through, I'd probably give her the extension!

Q: Are there any scenes you remember shooting that didn't end up in the theatrical cut?

Alison:  Some scenes with my roommate. Actually, all the scenes with my roommate because I don't have a roommate. Can't remember any more.

Q: What was the hardest scene for you to shoot?

Alison: I think the last two weeks of filming because by then I was really tired and I would have to be wet from morning to night in mud.  It got to be pretty cold sometimes.

Q: Did they shoot this in order?

Alison: Sequential? They kind of did, yeah.

Q: How was the transition from playing a digital damsel in distress in Beowulf to being the action girl in this?

Alison:  Great!  I loved it.  I really liked that aspect of the character.  My character starts out submissive and kind of meek, this quiet girl from Missouri who grew up on a farm and she comes to L.A. to reinvent herself.  She has a new job, new boyfriend, then meets this woman.  I really liked that and then the transition into her becoming strong and empowered, taking charge to survive, I just really liked that.  Just the change in her is interesting to me.

Q: How did Sam, as a director, help you shape your performance or did he just let you go with it?

Alison: No, we talked about it before, about the subtleties of trying to make that happen but not too obvious.  I just wanted to be really real; not anything caricaturish.  Just trying to draw from my own experiences and then Sam, reminding me because, a lot of times, you get so caught up in it, you forget.

Q: What was it like working with Justin?  He's the world's best boyfriend in this.

Alison: He is.  I'm sure he is the world's best boyfriend.  He's so supportive and he's comic relief for me because I was having to go through so much that any dose of a sense of humor about anything was great. So, I loved Justin.  In this movie, for me, I thought of Justin just in the comedies he did and 'oh, he's so funny' but he's a dramatic actor.  He has so much range as an actor and depth that I don't think anybody hardly knows about.

Q: Are you PC or Mac? [referring to Justin's Mac commercials]

Alison:  I have a Mac.

Q: Did you and Sam discuss any classic horror films that might have inspired him for this one?

Alison:  That Sam ripped off? [laughter]

Q: No.  Did he mention anything that inspired him when he was preparing this one? There seems to be some general inspiration going on.

Alison:  Films that we would look at together?

Q: No. That he would just mention?

Alison: No. He didn't mention any of that. My character is innocent and we just kind of wanted to keep it [that way].  That's what we did.  We never talked about any of that.  I had a couple of films. Toward the end I sort of needed to have more inspiration so there's this movie called Don't Scare Jessica To Death and there's a scene in there in particular and I would just use that one scene. It was the only horror movie I'd seen, and I'd seen a lot researching this movie, that I felt was shocking and so real.  You know there's no monsters in the lake but I felt that there were.  I wanted to create that.  I wanted to be like that.  I wanted to be as real as possible.

Q: Knowing that horror films scare you, did anyone try to pull something on you on set? Pull a joke on you?

Alison: No. Every day was that.  Every day was one big joke like 'What? She's suckling on my chin?  You've got to be joking me!' [laughter]. So every day was something like that.

Q: Did you have to screen test for the role?

Alison:  No. It was a phone call that [Sam] made and he introduced the film to me. He told the story for three hours in depth, in detail and I was by myself at home, at night and I really felt that I was there with him.  And I thought, 'I could be inspired' because I wasn't really a big horror movie person and he ...there are certain people who can get me in that mood and he's one of them.

Q: Your next film is a thriller.  Can you comment on who you play in that?

Alison: Yes, it's a movie called Gamer and Gerard Butler and Amber Valleta are in it and it's set in a dystopian future where humans are playing humans, on a global scale, three video games and my character is Trace and I'm part of the resistance movement trying to get Gerard Butler back to his family. I ride a motorcycle and have dreadlocks, very different.

Q: Are you aware of the game it's based on?

Alison:  It is?  No, I don't think so.  I think Mark Neveldine and Bryan Taylor, the other director, I think they wrote it.

Q: Have you had any of those horrible "meet the boyfriend's parents" moments where things go terribly wrong?

Alison:  I have. I think I've blocked it out.  I've had two moments, I think, like that. Really, like 'what am I talking about right now?'

Q: Have you had some changes in your life since the Beowulf press conference?

Alison: Well, I get shy when there's a big group of people and I'm on a panel with really talented actors and I feel like 'why am I here again?' Oh, that press conference. That I'll never forget as long as I live.  I still blush to this day.  There was a question that I couldn't answer but I tried.  I mean that was 'the moment' for me.  That was with Anthony Hopkins and John Malkovich and everywhere I looked... I was like 'what am I doing here?  I don't know why I'm here'.  I didn't want to answer any questions because how could I possibly answer it better than the director who is sitting right here. I had a smaller part and I felt like I shouldn't have been on the panel.

Q: We didn't notice it.

Alison:  Oh, good.  Thank you.

Q: What do you look for in a project?

Alison: I don't really look for anything.  I don't come with any preconceived anything. I just read it and, if my agent says it's good or someone along the line...or directors or actors.. sometimes there are reasons why they're attached to it, because it's good.  I don't really think I find any kind of new piece that's like 'this is like a diamond in the rough'.  I don't have just that creative aspect of me.  I just like to act and I don't mind just being that.

Q: Is there an actor or director that you would like to work with?

Alison: Yes. I haven't kept up with the directors now but, at one point, Christine Jeffs, Lynne Ramsay, Spike Jonze, Baz Luhrman, just going off the top of my head.

Q: Can you talk about working with Adriana Barraza?

Alison: What I remember about Adriana was [hears noise outside] That's weird! It's the curse!.  No, what was really great about working with Adriana is I never felt that I had to act with her.  When I watched her being taken over by the Lamia I felt that.  I really, at times was like 'are you really okay? Is the devil in you'? She's so unbelievably talented and so believable that it didn't take much to be scared with her in the room.

Q: Where do you stand on the whole occult thing?  Are you into it at all?

Alison: A little bit.  I've had my fortune read a couple of times and those things did happen later.  I didn't know they would happen. And there were times in my life where I believe it and times where I don't.  Sometimes, I'll walk in a room and have no thought of anything supernatural at all and come in and think 'is somebody in here?' and there's nobody there but I still feel like there is a presence in the room.  So, I think 'humm, maybe there are spirits' because I feel it and there's no reason why I'd be thinking this. 

Q: Did anything strange happen during filming?

Alison: Many strange things happened. The first day of shooting, I had a juicer. I was juicing and the stick got stuck, and I pulled back and hit my forehead. I didn’t think I was bleeding, and then I went into the make-up trailer and they were like, 'Oh, my God!'  It was the first day of shooting, and I had blood dribbling down. And then, the week after, I fell down the stairs. I was just falling all the time. Sam thought I was a klutz, but I’m not. That was a little strange. That was different. And then, after the movie, I got shingles because I was exhausted. And then, after that, I broke my foot, and I’d never broken a bone in my life. Nothing hardly ever happens to me.
 
Q: Would you want to do a sequel for this?

Alison: I don't know. I don't think so.

“Drag Me to Hell” opens in theaters on May 29th.