EXCLUSIVE - Scream Queens 2 Set Visit Report, Pt 1 of 2

Exclusive interview & photos with Tim Sullivan, Joke Fincioen & Biagio Messina

By:stacilayne
Updated: 08-03-2010

When I was invited to the tour the set of VH1's Scream Queens as they wrapped season two's filming (the first episode of the show premieres tonight), I had not yet seen the series. As a horror fan, I'd heard a lot about it. As an avid viewer of reality TV, I really wanted to see it. As someone with no free time, I hadn't yet gotten around to it.

Well, guess what? I just got all caught up yesterday! I'm glad I did, because I found it to have an interesting and innovative format — I've got to hand it to Executive producers Joke Fincioen and Biagio Messina for showing how hard it is, actually, to act in a horror film… and yet make their show entertaining at the same time.

L to R: Joke, Staci, Tim & Biagio [all photos: John Sampson]

This year, Fincioen and Messina (a married couple in real life) have employed Tim Sullivan, helmer of the new cannibal-comedy 2001 Maniacs 2: Field of Screams, to act as the director of the scenarios the girls are put through throughout the course of the show. The trio was kind enough to give horror.com a guided tour of the massive warehouse set on the very final day of filming (in which a surprise guest appears! Can't say who, just yet…) and I noticed the place looked very lived-in, not only by the competitors (who *do* live there) but also by the crew and talent.

Tim Sullivan: There have been times on certain challenges when we’ll shoot all day- and then, sometimes, later that night, or the next day. These guys don't sleep. When you start with ten girls and you have to edit ten scenes…it's a lot of Pepsi Max.

There is an element of The Real World, because you have all the girls living together and monitored 24-7. As you can see, there's Fear Factor, because a lot of these challenges involved [things like] snakes and maggots, and stunts- fire, flying on wires- then there is definitely the American Idol aspect of it, because they're judged by [acting coach] John Homa, [actress] Jaime King and myself. Add the horror element, and it's a very unique show. It's the only reality show involving acting challenges that has ever gotten a second season.

Staci Wilson: That's impressive.

Biagio Messina: Honestly, I credit a lot of that to the horror genre. The reason we picked this sort of genre is, like… horror is one of the only places where an actress really has to play every emotion all the time. It's really tough- and I used to be an actor myself. I was a goofy show called King and the Cow, but I can tell you that from my acting days. When I had to audition, the hardest auditions that I ever went to [were] horror, because you walk in, and you have to be charming and try to charm the casting director- and then snap into fear, just like that, and I sucked at it. I'm done with acting.

Tim Sullivan: The title Scream Queens is a little misleading. [There] is more to it than to be able to have a deep set of pipes and just scream. These challenges really have run the gambit of emotions- from being in jeopardy and literally screaming and running, like Jamie Lee [Curtis] at the end of Halloween, to camp, sexiness, turning the table and being the killer- like a female Hannibal Lector- to something involving ghosts. There's been stuff that’s really broad and extreme, [and] stuff that's been very subtle, so, every week, they've gotten a chance to really take on what a “scream queen” is- and, consequently, I think the audience is going to think that this is what real acting is all about.

Biagio Messina: I think it's important to say that, yes, the girls this year are winning a role in Saw 3D, and, obviously, they won Saw last year- though Saw is really just one kind of horror movie. It was really important to say “look, if you want to have continued success in the genre, you have a lot of skills. It's really difficult. You better develop your comedic chops as well, you better be able to hit all your marks and hit all the technical sides, while still going to the deepest darkest places that actors ever have to go.”

Joke Fincioen: And you have to be able to do it with maggots!

Biagio Messina: It's true- we did maggots. One of the things that has emerged [from] a lot of these different challenges is that, on the one hand, you have to really be able to stay in the zone of the character and channel the emotions, but there is [also] a lot of intricate blocking that often goes on in horror films. We did something the other day- a two-minute continuous shot. [It] involved a girl going from walking home and just getting a phone call, to being chased by a killer in the park, to ending up in setting her on fire and fighting- all in one take. They had an obstacle course with marks. They had to still maintain a believability of it, but that's what it is- you look at movies like Texas Chainsaw- at the end of it- or Jaime being stalked by Michael at the end of Halloween, and it’s part of the thing.

Staci Wilson: So, who plays the villain in your little scenario? Do you have different actors coming in?

Tim Sullivan: We have some great guest stars. We have Trevor Wright, who was in 2001 Maniacs: the Field of Screams. He was also in Shelter. We had a great actor named Bru Miller, who's in Infestation. We had Heath Freeman, who was Bones and The Closer and he's in a movie called Skateland.

Biagio Messina: Last season we had Michael Rooker stop by. There were a lot of really cool actors wanting to do the show.

Joke Fincioen: Debbie Rochon came- she's already announced at Fangoria one of the challenges was that they did a photo spread for Fangoria- a celebrity spread recreating classic scenes of iconic horror. And Debbie was a celebrity judge on that, so that was really cool.

Tim has brought the girls all of this way. He's saying “ladies, it's not going to be like this in the real world. You're not going to have eight weeks to hang out with me,” but the ladies don't know yet.So Tim is going to basically scare the heck out of them.

Tim Sullivan: It's kind of sad. I feel like the parent sending the kid off to college. John, Jaime, and I- we do what we can. It's really like extreme boot camp for actors. It's Horror Acting 101. If they can do this, they can do anything. What is being asked of them is beyond whatever would really be asked of them in a real film, because they're often thrown into a situation where they’re given the script the night before they show up. We don't have rehearsal. We don't have time to sit and talk about the character. It's just, like… “there is your block. Oh, and, by the way, here's a wire,” and you get grown up in the air, “and here is an eighty pound python, and if it bites you, you might die. And here's the scene- okay, action.”

Biagio Messina: And they're doing it.

Joke Fincioen: That's what we learned the most in the last season- these girls were ready, and they were able, and they were thrilled to do it. This season, in every challenge, it's hard stuff in terms of the blocking, the stuff we asked them to deal with- everything. They delivered each and every week. It's very exciting.

Staci Wilson: How do you select the ladies?

Joke Fincioen: It was a nationwide search, and we get thousands of submissions.

Biagio Messina: We had a great group of girls that were agent-submitted last season.

Tim Sullivan: All of us are going to make sure that the girls really get something out of this.

Joke Fincioen: It's more of a Project Runway- as opposed to Rock of Love- approach. We got a ton more legitimate submissions this year. Some of them are making six figures a year acting, but it's commercial or industrial- they haven't had that big break. Some of them have done some independent film, but they have never been on a real Hollywood set before. We had a lot of girls that had either really raw talent, or who already had some experience.

Tim Sullivan: I didn't know any of this. I didn't know some of the girls were actually making that kind of money. What's interesting to me is that I don't even know their last names. I don't know anything about them.

Staci Wilson: Yeah, you're not really allowed to look them up.

Tim Sullivan: I think it's good, because they're coming to me like blank slates. Maybe one of these girls is a star on some sitcom that ran five years ago on UPN. I can't wait to actually see this show and get to know who these people really are.

Joke Fincioen: Yeah, judges don't see the reality of it.

Staci Wilson: I think somebody said something like “blind judging.”

Tim Sullivan: We don't interact with them. I am just judging them by what they bring to the set. Usually, what we do is let them do it once their way- see what they got- and then I'll redirect. A lot of what really impresses us is when they take what we have said and implement it. Being able to take a redirect is a very important thing to me in terms of actors and actresses that I want to work with.

Joke Fincioen: Something for the audience to see is someone take on the scene, and then Tim or James steps in. They say "hey, do this instead," and they do it, and it's so much better. They feel it- and they are like… “oh my God, I learned something.”

Tim Sullivan: It's cool for the audience, because we are here 100% for the contestants. Also, we have to be very cognizant that there is a home viewing audience- so we want to make sure that the direction I give them is palatable to an audience, so I'm talking in layman's terms. This is what a director does, and you see how the girls did it without direction and with direction.

Biagio Messina: It's a neat before and after. It's like a magic trick. He'll give them a couple of quick notes, and then all of a sudden it's like a different actress.

Joke Fincioen: It's fun to see the light bulbs go off.

Tim Sullivan: Thrilling. In the final challenge, John, Jaime and I were all there. Usually I just do the director’s challenge. We were all there watching on a monitor, and I felt like we were watching a football game. I was yelling “go get them, get them, get them, kick them.” You get so attached to these girls. It's so tough. It's like Oceans 11, where you get a kickoff Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, or George Clooney. They're all great.

Staci Wilson: Do you guys have a catch phrase for the goodbye?

Tim Sullivan: “You got the ax.” That's the other thing- the first season was phenomenal- this season is the first season on steroids. It's now been torn to pieces, because we had our last acting class yesterday. But this was dressed very differently, and the girls would come in here and workshop with John Homa. He trained everybody from Jennifer Love Hewitt, Kristen Dunst in Interview With the Vampire-

Biagio Messina: -yeah, he was her coach for Interview with the Vampire, and he even did an exercise this season that was based on some stuff that he did with her in Interview with the Vampire. So it was really, really neat.

Tim Sullivan: Every episode, we do some kind of scare. One of the cool things is that this magnet board was here, all season, but, basically, you can go behind that board. We've been playing with the magnets for weeks, and all of a sudden, the magnets were moving around, and they were screaming.

Biagio Messina: They do fun stuff- like there was a big bowl of gumballs and a fan came out and grabbed them. They had a midget in there.

Staci Wilson: Oh my gawd [a midget?]- how do you guys think of all this stuff?

Stay Tuned for part two of our interview, and a review of tonight's Scream Queens S2 kickoff! Check out a behind-the-scenes clip right here.

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EXCLUSIVE - Scream Queens 2 Set Visit Report, Pt 1 of 2