Staci Layne Wilson reporting
Basically all I knew about actor Brian Austin Green before interviewing him on the set of ChromeSkull: Laid to Rest 2 at Almost Human F/X studios in L.A., was that he is married to Megan Fox. I also knew he had been on the 90210 reboot and was now a fairly new fixture on ABC's hit comedy/soap, Desperate Housewives. But I learned a few new things that day, such as the fact that he and costar Thomas Dekker are longtime friends, having worked together on the short-lived Terminator TV series. I also learned that Green is a major gearhead (he's celebrity-racer) and a car collector with an enthusiasm rivaling Jay Leno. We were told that he drove to the set in something different every single morning (that day's ride was his cherry jet-black 1966 Mustang Fastback).
Myself and two colleagues made up the small crew of interviewing journalists, yet Green, sitting in the makeup chair, getting ready for some carnage, seemed as ill at ease as J.D. Salinger at an Italian press conference. He's comes across as shy, and thoughtful (in interesting contrast to his wife, whom I've interviewed many times, who is decidedly bold, naughty, and in full embrace of the spotlight). He had some interesting things to say about working on this sequel slasher, which is absolutely unlike anything he has done before.
Q: As an actor, is this the darkest place you’ve gone?
Brian Austin Green: Yeah, I think the movie has lent itself to that.
Q: What was it about the project itself that drew your interest?
BAG: Rob, initially. When he and I were working on Sara Conner, I always said to him, ‘If you have something that you need me to come in and work on then I would love to.’ To be able to act in something like this, and have a character that goes through something, and starts somewhere and ends somewhere, and is dark and is crazy as he is, is fun. It’s kind of an actor’s dream to be able to do something like this, and get bloody and dirty and still be able to act.
Q: Who are most of your scenes with in this film?
BAG: I’ve done a lot of stuff by myself. I’ve worked with everyone, but I haven’t killed anyone yet. They’ve been using my double for everything. I have been working with Thomas a lot, which is fun.
Q: Thomas was talking about working with you, and how he’s seen an evolution in that. Can you expand on that a little bit?
BAG: That Thomas has seen an evolution in us? I don’t know, I think Thomas is giving me too much credit in what he has seen so far. I don’t know. I think that this has been fun. I love working with Thomas, and I loved working with him on the show. I sort of feel that this has been the exact opposite of what we did before, so it’s exciting and new, to go from a show where we were family and I’m taking care of him and I would kill anyone to protect him, to then be this guy, you know, with knives and a mask, trying to kill him throughout the film. It’s a much different experience that he’s had with me than what he had before. We are just acting.
Q: We were lucky enough to see the clip of you getting tattooed which was really just Nick’s back for the realism. Can you talk a bit about that scene where you are being very solitary and intense? Is that a turning point for your character?
BAG: It’s the point where in his mind, Chromeskull is done, and is never going to function in the capacity that he did before, and the difference between Preston in the original, is that Preston is sort of like a spoiled twelve year old. There’s a lot of money within this company, and he has the ability to sort of boss people around and do what he wants to do, but this is first sense of the real importance of power, and being able to step into the big boys shoes and do what dad does, and he gets greedy with that, and pushes more and more people within the company away, and ends up dying for it.
Q: Your big blood scene is today. Are you looking forward to that?
BAG: I’m actually just looking forward to see just how they do it. It’s exciting for me to be on a set like this, because you can’t believe just how they pull off some of the stuff how they do, and I’m so impressed with Rob and the company and what they’ve done here, and what they’ve done so far. The gags that I’ve seen, and the one I saw in the first one, were just really well done, so for that’s the most exciting part for me to see just how it all comes together. Sarah Conner was one of the first things that I ever really watched that I ever did, where I was excited to see how all of the things, things that don’t exist, come together. You are like any other fan. You are excited to see what it looks like, and what you thought it would look like on set, and how they gel. You hope that in dying brutally in a scene, that it meshes and that it happens.
Q: Knowing Rob as a horror and FX guy as well as a meticulous director, can you talk about the juxtaposition of the two?
BAG: He’s great. I was thinking about that the other day. It has to be difficult for someone in his position who normally would be sitting here doing what they (the effects artists) are doing, to leave it in the hands of everyone else and just be on set as a director and hope that what everyone else has done works the way he knows it can work. But he’s so thorough on set. He knows exactly what he wants, and is really helpful. He’s been an amazing director. I had no idea what to expect showing up. I’d never worked with him in that capacity before. He didn’t even do much makeup on me when we were doing Sarah Conner so I didn’t spend much time with him in that way, but he’s really good, and I think he’s getting what he wants. I hope I’m giving him what he wants. I hope I’m not disappointing him. I think that’s the biggest fear for me is that he put me in his movie, and I hope that it ends up being what he wanted, and that he’s not watching it saying, ‘I should have hired someone else instead of a friend.’ That’s always the biggest fear.
[end]
Be sure and read our full LAID TO REST 2 SET VISIT REPORT, with photos
