INT: Bean/Mitchell

My nerve wrecking experience continues on the set of
SILENT
HILL (read part 1 HERE). After the infamous nurse scene was done being shot, the rest
of the journalists and I all headed down to the cafeteria to eat lunch.
Unfortunately, I only enjoyed half of my meal because two of the zombie nurses
(still dressed up in their costumes) from the movie, sat right across from me at
my table. Having veiny, dead looking heaving breasts in my face did NOT increase
my appetite! So, after my disappointing lunch, the rest of the other journalists
and I headed to the room which held the press conference. This was a fun
experience and a lot of cool information came from the listening to the actors
and producers. Here’s all you need to know!

Note: These interviews took place in
July of 2005.

PRESS CONFERENCE SPEAKERS:

Radha Mitchell (Rose DaSilva), Sean
Bean (Christopher DaSilva), Laurie
Holden (Cybil), Jodelle Ferland (Sharon DaSilva), as well as Samuel Hadida
(Producer), Don Carmody (Producer) and Andrew Mason (Executive Producer)

Radha, what was the attraction of doing this film and
what are the challenges of playing a character in a video game?

Radha: I think the major attraction to me was
The Brotherhood of the Wolf, which was directed by Christophe. I saw that
film and I was intrigued and fascinated because I thought it was a beautiful and
exciting and strange and bizarre movie. And so then I met Christophe and I was
charmed, obviously by him. And I guess that’s what it was. And then, since
we’ve been making the film, we see the vision and the script come alive. And
it’s a very visual piece so when you read it, you won’t necessarily understand
what it is. But, since we’ve been working on the film, every day has just been
an assault on the senses. And I guess today was just a sample of that. And the
challenges, I guess I mean I’ve got to run around and call out “Sharon” and do
that in 50 different ways. So there’s that aspect. And I think Christophe has a
really interesting take on the concept of the video game.

Deborah, we know who all the other actors are playing,
but who are you playing?

Deborah: I’m playing Dahlia. Dahlia’s been
extraordinary because I think, to Christophe’s credit, and certainly the entire
crew and special effects and design, he’s really, really captured the essence of
her and then extended her into the psychological nightmare that would capture
the imaginations of the gaming fans. So it was a much deeper exploration than I
anticipated. Because I’m a big lurker on all the sites. And I love the varying
competing analysis on all the different characters. With Dahlia, it’s been an
extraordinary psychological journey for me, as an actor, to embrace this walker
between worlds, and as a mad and slightly cryptic prophet akin to obviously the
essence of the game, this has been just a delight to play Dahlia.

This is actually a question for Laurie and Sean. Can
you talk a little bit about your characters?

Laurie: Cybil is a woman who grew up in Brahams
which is a small town outside of Silent Hill. She’s a bit of a lone wolf, in
the sense that her mom died when she was thirteen and there was never really a
father around. It was a very religious community, Brams, so I think that
because my mother was such a woman of faith and she passed away in a really
painful way, it really scarred Cybil. And she’s really denounced any sort of
religion just because of what happened to her mom. Because of that I think that
she’s been a bit of an outsider who doesn’t have a lot of friends. But that’s
okay for Cybil because she’s found her calling and that is to serve and protect.
And, really, she wants to save children. There are different things that have
happened in her life and that made her not have a conventional life with
marriage and kids. She wants to be kind of like the mother of saving the
children. So that’s Cybil.

Radha: It’s interesting the way the relationships
are constructed in the film. Say, even the relationship between our characters,
is not stereotypical. They’re buddies and they’re on the journey together.
But, it’s interesting tension between the two characters. Ultimately, you know…I
can’t give away the plot, but all the characters are quite sort of fleshed out
and mysterious.

Deborah: They’re also all psychologically and
metaphorically interwoven beautifully. What Christophe has done has been really
quite inspirational for all of us as actors and the crew as well. Visually, for
the crew, they’ve had a blast.

Sean, could you talk about your character?

Sean: I play Chris Dasilva, and he’s sort of quite
a successful businessman. They live in a nice house. Things seem to be going
well, apart from the child, and I spend most of the time chasing around…trying
to get on different playing levels, different time levels. But he’s a good guy,
a regular sort of guy with money who wears nice clothes and drives a BMV.
(laughs) It’s all materialistic.

Radha: It has the same nostalgia; their
relationship does, as is in the game in that they’re sort of separated in
different dimensions. And they’re kind of passing each other by often in the
movie. They don’t actually connect. So it’s kind of, I guess, like the average
relationship…(laughs)

Is there anything new you guys are bringing in terms of
horror?

Radha: If you’re into horror I would say this is the
movie to watch because it’s elegant horror. That’s my understanding of it.

Laurie: I think of this as a nightmare fairytale.
It is elegant and I think of this as kind of a cross between Alice and the
Wonderland meets Dante’s Inferno. It’s very high art and frightening and
violent and sexy and elegant all at the same time. Which I think is,
Christophe’s genius.

My question is for Jodelle. I was just curious to know
how you and Christophe have worked together to differentiate the two characters
you play?

Radha: (looks over at Jodelle) How much are you
allowed to say?

Andrew: A different look. I mean, the two
characters are both clearly Jodelle, but they look very different.

How hard is it to get to the same level of bloodiness
the same everyday so that it matches and then how bloodied up do the rest of you
get?

Radha: This is just the beginning. (Points at
herself; She’s still in her bloody costume) And yeah, there’s an art and a
science to it. How long does it take? It took longer in the beginning. I think
it can be done in about forty minutes now, the whole look. It’s great because I
don’t have to wash my hair.

Sean: I don’t get any blood on me at all, I don’t
think.

Laurie: I get pretty bloody. The crew has been
amazing. Hair and makeup has been unbelievable on this journey because the
continuity that they have to keep up with us through the varying degrees of gore
and dirt, it’s astounding. But, also the set designers and location managers,
we have the most amazing sets. I think Silent Hill fans are going to be
knocked out because, visually, our sets looks so much like the video game, and
it makes our job so easy because we just show up and we are in Silent Hill. We
are in that world and we are just so blessed to be surrounded by such great
artists.

Radha: There’s like a new set every sixty seconds
or something. The sets are constantly changing and they’re huge.

Are you working on a lot of scene sets in different
ways?

Laurie: I’m not sure how much I can say without
giving it away, but the sets are definitely characters in the film. They have
emotional states in that they change and you’ll see the same set and you’ll see
it from a completely different perspective. So it’s sort of a hallucination a
lot of it. You’ll recognize the sets as you get more involved in the story.

How CGI driven is the film, if at all?

Andrew: It’s not really CGI driven. There’s a huge
effort to build as much as possible in terms of environments. It’s easier to
keep the characters real. For most situations it’s better to have something real
for the cast to respond to and that’s kind of what we’ve done. We’re using CGI
to kind of enhance and not to completely create. It’s just easier for people to
have something going on and something to look at, but I think it’s safe to say
that CGI enhances this whole world that we’re dealing with at the various level
of that physical world.

Were you guys aware of Christophe’s work before you
signed on?

Deborah: Yeah. That’s what made it even more
exciting. He’s so amazing. He’s such a visual director.

I was wondering since the video games have sequels,
would this movie spawn any sequel of its own?

Samuel: I think that it will have some…further in
the future.

Don: You always hope you’ve been successful enough
to contemplate a sequel.

Laurie, what’s your favourite part of your character’s
back story?

Laurie: I love Cybil’s back story because Cybil has
a very aggressive way of presenting herself and a very aggressive approach in
the world. I like the fact that it is revealed in the script the reason why she
is hyper-vigilant and the reason why she responds so quickly to things, and that
is because she had an experience where a little boy was abducted and taken up to
Silent Hill and dropped into a mine vent. Cybil went and hugged him and kept
him warm for three days until help came. She’ll make sure that justice is done,
because she made a vow that nothing like that is going to happen again. So I
like that my back story has been integrated because it really explains and
defines what makes this lady tick.

Is the movie a lot gorier than you thought it would be?

Laurie: It’s terrifying because it’s so deeply
rooted in psychological truths. It’s not random, and there’s no cheese factor.
It’s actually quite terrifying because it’s so deep.

Sean: But at the same time, Christophe doesn’t pull
punches when it comes to the gore factor. If something bad is happening, you
can bet it’s messy.

Laurie: And he goes for the truth. It’s not like I
guess when you’d imagine in a normal horror film or it’s like something comes
in, “AH!” I have been scared out of my mind many, many times on this film. Oh,
and that’s all good. That’s all good and right for the film.

There have been some really bad horror movies made from
video games. Were there any reservations of doing this?

Deborah: To me, no. Not with Christophe. He’s
fantastic. I was excited. My fingers are crossed of course, but no, not with
him.

STAY TUNED FOR
OUR INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHE GANS