Interview with the Cast & Director of “The Fog” Remake 2005 (Pt 2)

Continued from Part One.

WAINWRIGHT: I was talking to a friend of mine. And he said, 'Oh, "The Fog!" ' And I said, 'Yeah.' He said, "I've always felt that was an excellent half a movie.'

And I kind of like —I nodded, because I didn't want to look stupid and not get what this profoundly intellectual statement was. And it sort of buzzed around my head for a long time. And I think that one of the things that you want to know more about at the end of the movie is, who are these guys?

What really happened? What was this ship that went —all of those things that you're sort of tantalized with and hinted about. And by the end of the movie, it ends in this very sort of bizarre way with Adrienne Barbeau just going, 'Well, something weird happened last night, and it could happen again any time. Over and out.'

And I think that —I don't think we're going to give you any more answers in this movie, but we're going to get a lot more into that whole strange event in the past and how it affected the lives, and how basically how the island got cursed.

Q: How do you portray the —the story of what happened in the past? Is it just through character resuscitation or is there a flashback scene, or anything like that?

WAINWRIGHT: Westside Story. We just thought —no, I'm kidding. Yes, there's a flashback to that whole event.

GRACE: A big book opens up.

WAINWRIGHT: Exactly. The words come alive, they dance across the page.

GRACE: The pictures start to move.

WAINWRIGHT: Yeah. But it's also —as I said, you know, the elements from that past that literally start being washed up into the —into the present. So weird things start appearing. I feel like, 'That's odd. What's this?' And these things, more and more appears until it gets very strange. And then you begin to realize that these two worlds are colliding.

Q: Just following up on that for the actors. When was the first time you guys actually know something's going wrong in your town?

WELLING: When all the lights are out.

GRACE: Really?

WELLING: I think that's it. Where we come out. We come out of the —

GRACE: Because by then —

WAINWRIGHT: By then, you've seen Spooner on the Seagrass.

WELLING: Yeah, but I just know that something's wrong with Spooner.

GRACE: Well, I think a few of us have a few, almost kind of premonitions.

BLAIR: Yeah, like the lighthouse with the burning brush. Not a burning bush, as Moses had.

GRACE: But a few people were close to dying early on, so it's a pretty big red flag there for me. It's my character going, 'Oh, yeah. My friends are dying.'

Q: Rupert, I'd like to know what some of your favorite ghost movies are, and what some of your personal favorite supernatural haunting type movies are.

WAINWRIGHT: I like "The Ring" a lot. I think that was kind of an interesting —you know —

GRACE: "Stigmata," "Stigmata," "Stigmata."

WAINWRIGHT: It is a ghost movie, actually.

Q: Really? I don’t remember that part of it.

WAINWRIGHT: It's very specifically a ghost story. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things you don't realize it is until the end. But the entire movie is about a ghost who has a secret who wants to get that secret out and kind of can't.

I think "The Ring" was good. What I liked about "The Ring" is —you know —it's not cold —you know —revenge story of the little girl who got pushed down the well.

GRACE: Should be. It's a good title.

WAINWRIGHT: We're working on that. Sometimes we shoot a little extra footage. I don't remember those lines, but we're making it right now. You'll be really proud of him.

WELLING: I've got to write that down.

WAINWRIGHT: So —you know —you're fooling around with this videotape and then, there's the image, and what the fuck is that about? So it takes its time to —you're intrigued, you're hooked. You're like, 'What is going on?' 'Why are all these strange things happening?'

I mean, I hope that this kind of —we can sort of dance in that kind of area with this, with sort of the strangeness of "The Fog" being interesting in and of itself before you start to investigate. Before you start to really find out the answers of what causes it to be like that.

Q: Are you saying that with CGI and the fog, are you planning on having the fog actually shape into different things, or is it still going to be a naturalistic type of fog?

WELLING: There —it's not all CGI fog. We did a sequence where we're in the truck and this cloud of fog is coming toward us. And literally, the first time I saw it, it was like they've got some well-trained fog, because this thing came around the house, came at us. And all of a sudden, I heard this thump. And these three guys stood up with these lights on their chests and these fog machines.

So I mean, they were inside the fog, but they can't see. They were just taking steps, and they ran right into the truck.

WAINWRIGHT: We have all these different versions of the fog. What he's talking about is angry fog. And what angry —it's great fun, but I'll tell you. You mustn't talk —promise not to put any of this in your stuff. [laughs]

The angry fog is —is there's two guys with pump foggers like this. And so three guys and the foggers, and they have lights on like this. And they blast it and they come running towards you. And the fog, it's so thick that it turns black, but the lights inside kind of illuminate it. And it literally looks like a cloud has come down and is coming out and attacking you. That's angry fog.

Then we have sneaky fog. Sneaky fog is way off behind a bush or something, and it sort of comes tumbling down the hill. It's dry ice mixed with steam, so that it comes in with this great shot where —where Selma is in her car and she's run out of whatever.

The engine stops and she's sitting there and is just bummed, trying to get to her son. And she notices the fog around. And just this big slew of it comes around and just wraps all around her car. And it's really creepy. And it's better than any CG.

WELLING: You're on set and this fog's coming at you. And it's creepy.

WAINWRIGHT: Very, very weird.

WELLING: It's maintains a certain height, and it envelops you and it's just —

WAINWRIGHT: There's this great shot that we have when Spooner is on the back of the Seagrass and things have gone horribly wrong. And right on the edge, there's —the fog was coming in. We just pan all the way over, and it's just moving literally —I don't know. It's moving like a rowboat over the water and just comes along to the edge of the boat, comes right up over the edge of the boat and just starts creeping right into the boat. It was kind of like a snake or something.

Q: It also sounds like the "Seven Dwarfs" fog. Is there a Happy fog and a Grumpy fog?

WAINWRIGHT: There's lots of grumpy fog, trust me.

Q: Describe the grumpy fog.

WAINWRIGHT: The grumpy fog doesn't do anything, which is about 60 percent of the time.

Q: The original was pretty much kind of like just a straight ahead horror flick. Like one of the lines we heard today was, I guess Spooner was saying that, "I'm from Chicago's South Side' which sounds like its kind of going for funny.

So is that —did we happen to catch one kind of funny line?

WAINWRIGHT: There's one joke in the movie, yeah. And you just happened to be there. I'm only kidding. I can't bear kind of fake laughs that are like thrown in. And I have to say, DeRay is a comedian and he's very funny. But what I've really been impressed with DeRay is he just wanted to come to set to be that character. And so, he's really —he's in character. Occasionally he's funny, and when he's not, it's just great too, because you're with him.

Selma's very funny. She has a whole bunch of —she's sitting in the lighthouse very wacky —

BLAIR: Me, funny? Oh, I'm sorry. Was I supposed to be?

WAINWRIGHT: No, no, no. It's how it's supposed to be. It's unintentionally funny. She was trying to act, and we just happened to cut —

No, she just has her own sort of like wacky little—she goes off on her little tangents and…

BLAIR: I don't now what you're talking about. [Ms. Blair reaches into blouse and removes a breast enhancement device, tossing it at Wainwright.]

WAINWRIGHT: That's OK.

BLAIR: I'm just speaking out for all flat-chested girls across America.

GRACE: You don't know what it's like until you get whacked in the cheek with one of those things.

Q: You know what that would go for on eBay?

BLAIR: About a buck 50.

Q: I have a question for Selma. You just said this is not your genre. So what is it that drew you to this role then?

BLAIR: Uh —

WELLING: You know what she has in the palm of her hands. [laughter as Blair puts breast enhancement device back into blouse.]

BLAIR: This is the Adrienne Barbeau part of the role. Why do people say she was so stacked? I don’t see that. [Note from Horror.com: One must remember that Ms. Blair grew up in the age of "Baywatch"…]

GRACE: [Whispering] It's Rupert.

BLAIR: You know, I really think "Stigmata" was gorgeous, you know. I really thought it was really a stylish, beautiful film. And I am quite spooky, what I saw. I didn't see the whole thing.

But anyhow, I —but —yeah, and then I read the script to "The Fog" and I actually thought there was a quiet same kind of stylish element that was there. I don't —I'm afraid of horror movies, but —I don't know.

And Tom, I'm a fan of Tom's, and now, Maggie. Wow, making friends! What's wrong? Are these not the right answers?

Q: Maggie, same question for you.

GRACE: Well, Rupert has a really great pitch. And I very much concur. Elizabeth, she's quite well developed. I mean, I don't want to generalize, but —

BLAIR: Made me feel bad! (Referring to breast size.)

GRACE: Some films this genre sort of plunk down characters in a situation, and we're expected to be—you know —investigate what's happening with them and not really knowing who they are. And I liked that this script certainly made an effort to explain who these people were and why they cared about each other, and why we should care about them.

And yeah, it was —she drives the movie and she's —

BLAIR: Who drives the movie?

GRACE: We all do.

BLAIR: It's a joke! It's a joke, sorry.

GRACE: It's a starring female role, and you don't come across that a lot, someone that actually gets involved, you know. Isn't being dragged through horrific circumstances, crying all the time.

Q: Sure.

GRACE: She —she does have to sort of figure out what's happening.

WELLING: But again, I've said this before. This is not the first time I've said this. But don't let the title fool you. This movie is about the fog." It's about the fog.

Q: Has the whole film, or is the whole film going to be shot on sets, or are there practical locations?

WAINWRIGHT: Oh, no. We're all over the place. One of the main reasons why we came to Vancouver, is it's got this great Pacific Northwest location. So we're all over the place.

We're on the big island of Vancouver. We're on this little island called Bowen Island where we're shooting a bunch of stuff. We're all over town here.

No, we're using this place to the max.

Q: So Maggie, this has been a very big year for you. So how's the —you know —becoming famous on the cover of magazines and stuff. How's that?

GRACE: I wouldn't go so far as famous.

Q: I think you're getting fairly well known.

GRACE: Uh, I —I —I come from Hawaii most of the time.

Q: Are you hearing from a lot of people, or are people recognizing you? Is it a big change?

GRACE: I don't —yeah, it's been a pretty crazy ride this year. But it's been —I've gone through it with a really amazing group of people. So I couldn't think of a better way to do it. And I'm going through it with another amazing group of people. And Tom gave me some tips, because he can't leave his house. Tutoring me in the ways of walking out the front door.

Q: Yeah, my question was for Rupert. You said you came to the great Pacific Northwest. Obviously, the fog comes in even without you wanting it. So what about—did the weather present any problems, as well as —

WAINWRIGHT: One of —one of the problems that we have is that we have diminishing night hours.

BLAIR: We got fogged in. The plane couldn't land because of the fog.

WAINWRIGHT: Yeah. Every time we want fog, it's good. Every time we want a clear day, it fogged, you know. So I said in the middle of prep, you understand that the movie there's some scenes we can't shoot because there's fog.

And everyone's like, 'What?' And I said, 'Well, if there's daylight scenes where it's sunny and you're supposed to see more than 20 feet ahead of you and it's fogged in, it'll be a weather day.' They're like, 'Yeah, sure. It'll be a weather day.' And we've confronted a couple of those. And they weren't weather days, we just kept on shooting.

[End]