00:00 I'm playing a person in the black phone who's utterly broken.
00:05 It's like somebody took a hammer to the computer of his brain.
00:09 I often like to say that I like to pretend I'm my character's lawyer
00:20 and just see everything through his point of view,
00:22 but I wouldn't want to be the grabber's lawyer,
00:24 because the grabber is not going to win anything.
00:26 There's something fascinating about somebody who is so evil and malevolent
00:32 and clearly so ashamed of themselves
00:35 that they don't even want to be seen in any capacity or witnessed.
00:40 And there's a sense about when you wear a mask,
00:43 it gives you a false sense of power,
00:45 that's like nobody can see the real you,
00:48 and that kind of gives you a freedom that is borderline insane on its own.
00:54 So I was in uncharted territory for myself as an actor.
00:58 I was fascinated.
01:00 The director, Scott Derrickson, had this idea that the mask should come in parts
01:06 and that when he really wants to communicate,
01:09 maybe he leaves the mouth part off,
01:11 and when he really wants to see, he leaves the eye part clear,
01:15 or is it just a form of intimidation?
01:17 But it allowed for us to use the mask in a strange way
01:22 to create a new kind of villain.
01:25 My favorite part of the mask is how it's basically the grabber's whole character.
01:31 It adds so much to it.
01:33 I feel like the best part of the grabber is the mystery,
01:35 how the mask switches out sometimes.
01:38 You can see his emotions, but you can't at the same time.
01:42 It's also like he's kind of trying to trick you or something.
01:45 So yeah, the mask is definitely super terrifying when you see it in person.
01:50 But you look at the great iconic villains--
01:53 Heath Ledger's Joker, Hannibal Lecter--
01:56 these are characters who don't have a back story.
01:59 You don't know why they are the way they are.
02:02 If the Dark Knight actually told us the truth about,
02:07 "How do you think I got these scars?"
02:09 "You want to know how I got these scars?"
02:12 If he actually told us the real story, he'd be way less menacing.
02:16 He'd be way less scary.
02:18 If there was a scene in Silence of the Lambs where we were told,
02:22 "This is why Hannibal Lecter eats people," he'd be less scary.
02:26 So I think that you have to have a real mystery
02:29 and trust the mystery of an abhorrently behaving character.
02:34 And so the key is make them interesting, fascinating in the present,
02:38 make them dangerous, horrific in the present,
02:41 but then be willing to not do the typical movie development thing
02:45 and try to explain why they are the way they are.
02:47 Let them be mysterious.
02:49 What was really cool was right behind the basement--
02:52 'cause the basement's on a soundstage--
02:54 there was this little platform,
02:56 and that's where they could actually talk to me on the phone.
02:58 So I heard them on the phone, which helped me a lot.
03:01 So that was really cool. It was a really cool mechanism.
03:04 So everything in those scenes were all real, which is pretty cool.
03:08 I know there's things on apps and there's programs
03:11 that you can use in editing to make things look like Super 8.
03:14 But nothing looks and feels like actual Super 8 film.
03:17 It's very grainy, and when you blow it up,
03:19 especially on the big screen, the grain is very peculiar.
03:22 The color, the way it captures color is different.
03:25 There's just something about it to me
03:27 that is the way it has always felt to me.
03:30 And this includes, like, the Super 8 films that I would find
03:34 that my grandfather shot,
03:36 that I would watch on the home projector when I was a kid.
03:39 They always feel a little creepy to me.
03:43 They just feel a little unnerving. They feel unsettling.
03:46 They feel like they've captured something
03:48 that maybe they weren't supposed to capture.
03:50 There's something about the aesthetic that's really unique.
03:52 So I became very fascinated with that on Sinister,
03:55 and then I felt like Gwen's dreams in The Black Phone,
03:59 in looking back on the lives and abductions of these different kids,
04:03 I thought it was a great medium to separate it
04:05 from the rest of the visual material of the movie.
04:08 [laughing]
04:11 [growling]
04:13 [screaming]
04:15 I had a dream about it.
04:17 [screaming]
04:19 Please let the dream be real.
04:21 [screaming]
04:22 During the table read, or all the table reads that we did,
04:25 we made sure to really talk about the intense scenes
04:28 that we were going to do.
04:30 And what was amazing about Scott is that
04:32 before every intense scene or difficult scene,
04:35 he would have a really good conversation with us.
04:38 Like, if we ever needed a break or to get water,
04:40 because there's a lot of screaming and crying and everything.
04:43 But I think with Finney and Gwen,
04:46 because their dad is an alcoholic,
04:48 so they've been through so much together,
04:50 and they really have to rely on each other throughout the film.
04:52 It's very different than other actors.
04:54 He's my favorite actor I've ever worked with.
04:56 And with most actors, you have to spend some real time
04:59 figuring out how to talk to them.
05:01 Actors are very emotional people.
05:03 They are big emotional engines,
05:05 and they all sort of need to be talked to in different ways.
05:08 And Ethan's not like that in the sense of
05:11 he's such a well-rounded artist.
05:13 He's a novelist in his own right.
05:16 He's a filmmaker. He's a producer.
05:19 He does all kinds of things.
05:22 And I found myself early on in Sinister
05:26 realizing I can just talk to this guy straight
05:29 without ever having to worry about
05:32 giving him an angle of understanding.
05:36 And I think we just understood each other.
05:38 We became very good friends. We stayed friends until now.
05:41 And when I gave him the script for The Black Phone,
05:45 I just said, "I think you could crush this, and this is why."
05:50 And he read it, and he agreed to do with it.
05:52 And I didn't give him a lot of direction on it.
05:54 He really understood that character
05:56 and really brought that character to the set
05:58 and just did what he did.
05:59 One of the things I like about working with young people
06:02 is they're not far removed from what acting is at its core,
06:05 which is just a sense of play.
06:07 I'm going to imagine I'm a demon from hell.
06:10 You are a young person,
06:12 and you can communicate with the dead from this phone.
06:15 Go!
06:16 You know? And you--
06:17 Right.
06:18 And he was so excited to be in a movie
06:21 and to, like, do these scenes.
06:24 I had some nervousness coming to set,
06:26 what's it going to be like to try to terrify this young person and everything?
06:30 But it might surprise people to know that it was really fun
06:34 because kids love a good scary story.
06:37 You know, they love it.
06:40 "I've been trapped in the dungeon for days."
06:43 And they get into it, and it's a little contagious.
06:46 And the whole thing of acting stops being pretentious or important
06:51 or anything but a sense of joy.
06:56 So even the darkest of emotions can be played with fun.
07:01 He is so incredible.
07:02 He is the nicest person ever.
07:04 He would just--
07:05 Even after a super hard scene and scary scene with him in the mask
07:09 and me in the basement,
07:11 and he was just talking to everybody on set with the mask on.
07:13 He's like a normal person.
07:15 He's having a good time, and they're just terrified for their life.
07:18 But yeah, he's such an incredible person,
07:20 and I'm so fortunate to be able to work with him.
07:22 (upbeat music)
07:24 (upbeat music)
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