“The Black Phone” stars Ethan Hawke (The Grabber), Mason Thames (Finney Shaw), Madeleine McGraw (Gwen Shaw) and director Scott Derrickson sit down with CinemaBlend’s Corey Chichizola to talk about their supernatural horror film. They discuss The Grabber’s mysterious mask, shooting on Super 8 film, why Ethan Hawke enjoys working with young actors, and much more.
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Short filmTranscript
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)