Director Jaume Collet-Serra Interview, ORPHAN

MoviesOnline sat down with director Jaume Collet-Serra and screenwriter David Leslie Johnson to talk about their new horror/suspense movie, “Orphan,” which stars Peter Sarsgaard, Vera Farmiga, Isabelle Fuhrman, CCH Pounder and Jimmy Bennett.

Born in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain in 1974, Collet-Serra moved to Los Angeles in the early 1990s to attend film school at Columbia College. He began his career as an editor. From there, he moved into directing music videos and then commercials for products. Collet-Serra’s stylized, surreal and often dark imagery quickly caught the eye of producer Joel Silver, who hired him to direct “House of Wax” in 2005. Then in 2007, Collet-Serra’s love for soccer took him back to Spain to shoot “Goal II: Living the Dream”

David Leslie Johnson began his career as a production assistant on Frank Darabont’s “The Shawshank Redemption,” which was filmed on location in Johnson’s hometown of Mansfield, Ohio at the historic Mansfield Reformatory where Johnson’s great-grandfather had been a prison guard. Johnson spent the next five years as Darabont’s assistant, using the opportunity to hone his craft as a screenwriter.

In 1999, Johnson wrote an adaptation of the classic “Doc Savage” pulp novels, and later worked with Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee, adapting an original idea of Lee’s into a two-hour teleplay. Johnson then wrote a four-hour miniseries sequel to John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” which brought him to the attention of Leonardo DiCaprio’s producing shingle, Appian Way, for whom he wrote “Orphan.”

Jaume Collet-Serra and David Leslie Johnson spoke at length about their recent collaboration. Here’s what they had to tell us:

Q: How hard was it to find Isabelle Fuhrman?

JAUME: It was a process, it was a long process. We were looking pretty much everywhere. It was open casting and I personally didn’t see every girl, but the casting director did. I don’t know the correct number of people that she saw, but when I saw Isabelle’s taped audition, I was really captivated. She really came in and owned the character. When I met her in person and she did it for me, I could really see – she was delivering the lines and I could see the wheels sort of turning inside her head, and that’s what I needed for the character. I needed somebody who was very smart and very believable, and she just owned it. She was just better than anybody else that I saw by far. We were very lucky.

Q: What about the casting of Vera Farmiga who has such a pivotal role as the mother?

JAUME: She was on a very short list of actresses that I thought could pull this off. She’s a fantastic actress. She has a great reputation in Hollywood. Every actor wants to work with her because she makes everyone that she’s with on screen [look] really good. So my only concern is that she had done Joshua right before and that she might turn the role down. But when I met her and I explained what I wanted to do with the movie, and she obviously quickly with the script understood that it was a completely different movie, and it was like a creative match made in heaven. We got along immediately in the first meeting and I felt that not only was she talented but she was very collaborative and I could really see that and we had an amazing time. I can’t wait to work with her again. I would put her in every movie.

Q: Can you talk about the genesis of the project?

DAVID: The project was developed internally at Apian Way, one of their executives, Alex Mace, wrote a 10-page treatment which was sort of their outline of the story and then they were looking for writers to adapt it, to sort of get fresh takes on it. They only gave me the first three pages which was sort of the premise, introduced the characters, the family dynamic, and it basically ended when Esther came home. And they were like, ‘Okay, so what happens next?’ And so, I took that and I knew more or less the kind of story they wanted to tell, and sort of came up with the ending and worked my way back towards their spot and pitched them my version of the story, and they hired me to write it. Then they gave me the rest of the treatment and I was able to – it was kind of nice in that I had been thinking similarly in terms of the idea of this child coming in and manipulating the family. We were both on the same page there, and my ending was completely different from what they had originally thought, but they loved it and that’s where it came from.

Q: You thought of the reveal that we are not supposed to give away?

DAVID: Exactly, yes.

Q: It was brilliant

JAUME: That makes the movie. That’s the reason why when I read it – when I read the script, there were two things that I liked about the script, one was the characters who were very well developed, very well-rounded characters, and you really felt for those people, and it felt very interesting that the back story of these characters come into play in a real way, it wasn’t just like something made up. Every aspect that you learn about the past comes later to hunt them down. And then obviously the ending was something very rare, obviously for me to read a script and I don’t know how it’s going to end.

Q: What are the challenges with today’s audience to make a scary movie?

JAUME: I like to treat the audience as intelligent people obviously, and I think that for me I’m always struggling to make the fears real so that people can relate to the fear. I think that’s what makes it scary. There are types of movies like House of Wax that I did. It was a different type of movie where it’s more about the shock, or how is it going to happen, maybe little jumps here and there, but that’s not really as scary as this movie where you actually really feel for the characters and you feel like you’re there, it’s very realistic. So I think it’s very hard to do that, because it’s about creating the characters.

Q: The opening scene pulled you right in and scared the crap out of you from the outset – was that in your original script? And secondly, did the fact that it was so graphic kind of let the audience know, heads-up, that this movie is going to be really intense?

DAVID: It’s definitely a yellow caution flag, because I wanted it to have a slow burn. I really love horror movies that build to something, instead of just constant shock all the way through. I wanted it to take the time to get to know these people before having horrible things happen to them. But, at the same time, you want to know right away what kind of movie you’re in, so when the horrible stuff starts happening you’re not blindsided by it.

Q: Did you have any trouble with the studio with the children, especially the 5 year old, shooting the gun, and can you talk about handling the children during the more disturbing scenes?

JAUME: I’m sure you’ll talk to Isabelle at some point, she’s obviously a very smart girl and we tried to make it in a way that it’s fun. Actually, if you break down every one of those scenes down to the core physical element of it, it’s just pure fun really. I have to say that for me when I was shooting the scene when the girl [Isabelle] was holding the gun to the other one’s face, as a person I felt disturbed, [but] the kids were laughing. It was so hard to shoot that scene because they were just cracking up. Like she would raise the gun and the other one would start (puts hands over mouth like giggling) laughing. So that shows the way that we were approaching the whole thing. In many ways, a lot of the hardest things that we’ve done she wasn’t even doing it. Everything you do on a close-up is obviously her. If she’s not in the close-up, it’s probably not her. It’s probably some other –

Q: You seemed like you knew where to turn left and veer right with this child killer movie.

DAVID: I’ve been a fan of the genre for – the sub-genre I guess, for a long time. The Bad Seed I saw in college and loved, and that was actually one of the reasons when they brought me the idea and said, ‘Here’s the set up,’ it was like, ‘Oh, okay, this is something I’d really like to take a crack at.’ Having been familiar with that sub-genre and seeing some of those movies, it was helpful in that I was able to – I think you’re able to play with expectations somewhat, because if people have seen movies that they think are similar, you can sort of lead them along that path possibly and then take a sharp turn that they don’t see coming because they thought they were a half an hour ahead of the movie and it turns out that they weren’t.

Q: But some people have expressed concern this film might give a bad name to adoption.

JAUME: Tell me when they see the movie. Obviously they haven’t seen the movie, so it’s like something that they have in their mind, especially thinking what they were saying. They have an idea of what the movie is and they’re projecting something and anticipating something. Yes, I think when they see the movie they might realize it’s not so much like that.

DAVID: I definitely see why they’re concerned. The process of adopting a child is very difficult, is very expensive and a lot of people are very insensitive to adopted families. People that are your friends will say to you, ‘Do you think they’ll want to find their real mother?’ Well, you’re the parent of this child, you’re the real mother. And that’s just a daily thing. So when they see something like this come on television, I think it’s very natural to be sensitive to it. On the other hand, that said, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. I don’t’ think the movie portrays adoption [negatively]. Right before I started writing this, my best friend has two adopted daughters, and before I even typed ‘Fade in’ I called him up and I was like, ‘Okay, here’s the premise of this movie, what do you think?’ And he came back to me very quickly and was like, ‘I don’t have a problem with it. I don’t see why this would damage adoption any more than The Bad Seed damaged procreation. And I got that e mail and I was like, ‘Oh, he’s right, that makes a lot of sense.’ That was basically good enough for me.

Q: With so many psychologically disturbing scenes in the movie, I wondered what your take is on the occasional stinger that you have to throw in there, like that noisy as hell bathroom cabinet. Do you feel like that’s a cheap shot or do you feel like you need those to kind of shake things up?

DAVID: I don’t know, it’s a horror movie and I think one of the things Jaume did was play with some of the things that you expect to see.

JAUME: Yeah, any of the sort of fake scares or little jumps are all in the beginning, I think the movie then evolves into something else and that’s just playful in the beginning to use those clichés to kind of keep some tension going, but when the movie gets real and serious, it’s all pays off in a psychological way and a much bigger way. It’s not like the climate of the movie is a mirrored cabinet like many other movies.

Q: One of the keys of the movie is Esther’s drawings, how did you get the artist?

JAUME: That was a great job by the production designer, Tom Meyer. He and I talked very early about what those pictures would look like. We needed to see basically a little girl who has potential to be an artist, because John and Kate are both very creative and they would like a kid that is special and creative like they are. So we designed the art in a way so later it pays off. It has all these elements.

“Orphan” opens in theaters on July 24th