Milo Ventimiglia and Lauren Lee talk Pathology

Members of the press were invited to sit down with some of the cast and crew of the upcoming MGM/Lakeshore release Pathology at the 2007 Comic-Con and talk murder most foul. In this installment, actors Milo Ventimiglia (“Heroes”) and Lauren Lee Smith (The L Word”) chat about their mutual love for their co-star and bathing in fake blood.

Milo Ventimiglia (“Heroes”) and Lauren Lee Smith (The L Word”) in a scene from Pathology.Lauren was asked if she’d ever been to the behemoth that is Comic-Con. She replied that the only other time she’d been to the San Diego fete was many years ago for the show she was working on at the time, “Mutant X”. She was really only in and out for about 3 hours so she didn’t have an opportunity to wander around. Of course now-a-days who can even WALK the exhibition floor?Milo on the other hand was there in 2006 with the first Heroes panel. “I have to say Comic Con kinda kicked Heroes off. It built that awareness. All the people that come to Comic Con and shows like this they’re the ones that are going to give that buzz and that excitement online which you know spreads like wildfire.”What was it like compared to last year: “Last year was 2000 people hanging out seeing our show, this year it was 6,000, 4,000 waiting outside. You’re going from local band to [becoming] Elvis or The Beatles. It’s pretty amazing.It’s a cool experience. I’ve played roles where people have genuinely hated me. They walk up and tell me they hate me. To have smiling faces, having people approach you with just the joy in their hearts, it makes me feel like I’ve done my job better. Hopefully it will continue to spread and we can continue to do what we hope is entertaining.”The conversation turns to their co-star Michael Weston: Milo: “Michael Weston (Enos from The Dukes of Hazard, yes Enos) is an intense individual. *laughs* It’s funny: you look into his eyes and he has such a kind-hearted nature about him. I remember thinking to myself ‘Ok, Jake is evil. He’s so bad; can this guy really do it?’ I remember watching him rehearse and find those beats as Dr. Jake Gallo, the madness in his eyes. Once we got to set and the cameras were rolling I was giving to him as much as he was giving to me. Holy shit! I hold that guy’s name around town in high regard and I make sure that people know about him and Lauren because there is such an honesty behind their eyes in their performance. It’s just fun. I like to think that I give a lot of myself, not only to a character but to the people that I’m working with. When you see that reflected back and they’re giving you as much, it’s a constant collaboration. Yeah the scenes with Michael they’re amazing. At times I think I felt like I was trying to keep up. Because the cameras would start rolling and, boom, he is there. There is something scary and dark and fucking maddening behind his eyes and you’re trying to match that, counter that. A lot of what Michael’s and my character [were] was these guys are on the same plane. As bad as Jake is Ted has to match him and maybe even surpass. The scenes with Michael were just great, so good. [To Lauren] You had a bunch of them too.”Lauren adds: “Incredible, incredible actor. It was really funny: when I first auditioned for the role I read the script and I thought to myself ‘God Michael should play Jake!’Milo: “Really? It’s like you knew?’Lauren: “Yeah, yeah. I’d worked with Michael in The Last Kiss and I told Tom Rosenburg…”Milo: “Tom Rosenburg who runs Lakeshore [Entertainment] with Gary Lucchesi.”Lauren: “I know you look at him and [Michael’s] a lovely human being. Then he can switch something in his eyes and he becomes so friggin’ scary. It really is.”Milo: “As an actor you do want to be up against those people who can go to that dark place, that can get there, that can hold the scene and work with you. But at the same time when cameras stop you really want to be around someone that is ‘oh hey bra, I’m sorry. I love ya!’ He’s such a warm individual, as was everybody that it wasn’t a bad thing showing up to work, working on something so dark and so twisted. Everybody was so genuine with what they were given and when the cameras were off we were all sitting around having a good time. There were no assholes in the group which lead me to believe that I was the asshole! If I couldn’t pick him out I might be him.”Lauren: “You were.”Pathology is the American debut for director Marc Schoelermann. The actors talked a bit about their leader. Milo: “[Marc’s] very cool, very good. He’s got a style. It’s so funny: you need a leader, you need someone to guide the ship, you need someone to tell you actually what they’re shooting, what they’re working on. [Marc] is so exciting, so giving of how he envisions the piece: whether you are here, here or really far and wide and also the sentiment of the moment. Sometimes you’re jumping back and forth on story/script and you don’t really know where you’re at. He was always there to remind and to put you the right frame of mind as to what you were shooting/doing.”Lauren: “It’s just so lovely to show up to work and your director, every single day he shows up with the same amount of passion. It was really nice.”Milo was asked if he was concerned at all about fan reactions to such a morbid film choice.Milo: “I honestly hope that people don’t get so connected to one character that they only see me as that one character. Understand that I’m an actor and I’m malleable and I’m going to be playing a lot of different characters over my career. I hope their reaction is one of: ‘Wow, I didn’t think he could pull it off. But he did. He’s doing something different.’ I actually took photographs of the past four roles I did and I look like different people. Going from the first season of Heroes to this music video I did for Fergie where I was covered in tattoos and punked out, to this movie playing a murdering doctor, back to the second season of Heroes and its like these are four completely different people. So for me I hope that fans or people who have watched any job that I’ve done will be excited about seeing something different. At the same time, you see pieces of me in every performance.”Lauren filled us in on her character a bit.Lauren: “Juliette is part of this group of residents who devise this game of killing people. When we first introduce Juliette her and Jake are, I guess you can say, together. They’re an item. Dr. Ted Grey [Milo’s character] comes into town and Juliette sees this rivalry between Ted and Jake and in her twisted way it sort of turns her on, so to speak. She starts becoming obsessed with Ted. She starts seducing him and trying to get him to become a part of our group, part of the game. And then madness ensues!Earlier in the day, at the panel for the film the director spoke about spending time in an actual morgue. Turns out Milo jumped at the opportunity.Milo: “You read a script and it’s about Forensic Pathology and for me I’m kind of a realist. I want things to look real whether someone is eating a bowl of ice cream to cutting open a dead body. So I asked: ‘Do we get an opportunity to go to a coroner’s office?’ and they said ‘Yeah, are you cool with that?’ and I said ‘Absolutely, let’s go!’ We spent quite a lot of time. It wasn’t just about seeing dead bodies. That gets old, frankly. It’s about talking to these people, these technicians, these pathologists, these workers that are in the bowels of this large building in downtown LA. For me I thought that was what ultimately drove my performance, was speaking with these people and hearing what they go through on a psychological level. I watched about 20 real autopsies, everything from a 5-month old baby to and 88-year old who was stabbed with a screwdriver. We saw a lot.”The shoot was only 30-days and the subject matter rather morose. So how was spirit on the set?Milo: “High times, everybody’s excited. I think knowing we had a limited time together we bonded pretty quickly. Everybody was respectful. Everybody was enjoying themselves. When they’d call for more blood, everybody was clapping! This one [pointing to Lauren] loved the blood. They had this stuff called HD Blood which I guess reads a certain way on camera and you’ve got bottles of it. And I’d be over there just dumping it on my hands like lotion. It was a fun time. Everybody was excited to be there. I think everybody was there for the same reason: they wanted to make a great film. They wanted to put something out there that fans are going to be into. It’s not just genre. It’s not just for someone who’s looking for gore or horror, it’s for someone who’s looking for psychology, someone who’s looking for love. Oddly enough there is a love story and humanity.”Lauren is also in the upcoming release Trick or Treat. She tried to talk about it, without giving anything away.Lauren: “The movie is a cross between Tim Burton and David Lynch. It’s very, very odd. I got into a lot of trouble recently because I said way too much [about the film]. It’s basically four interwoven stories and my storyline is a group of young girls, (Anna Paquin plays my sister,) who are big city girls; its Halloween night and we’re looking for a good time. And that’s basically all I’m allowed to say, which kind of sucks because there’s a lot more too it than that. Our night turns into exactly the opposite of what it set out to be.”How did Milo approach Pathology? Milo: “[I saw it as a] character drama, to be real honest. I approached it as a study of character: these people, what they go through and the psychosis to get into the art of murder. Like I said, these are people who know everything about the human body: the functions, the mechanics, the organic machine of the human body. You’ve got to expect that at some point, once you know everything what’s more to learn? Let’s go further, let’s go beyond that. You fall into the disrepair of bodies, how to take them apart and kill in a way that undetectable. I didn’t look at it personally as a horror film, as a thriller, as suspense. It’s just purely character driven film that has some really cool elements to it”That being said, is Ted the hero? Milo: “[He’s an] anti-hero. He’s not doing likeable things. He’s doing drugs and sleeping with women who are not his fiancée and he’s killing. You look at the 10 Commandments and he’s not doing anything good. But you’ve got to like him. That was my struggle with the character: he’s not likable. He’s not doing anything that you’re going smile at. How do you stay with him the whole movie? How do you root for him to get out of it?You die with Dr. Jake Gallo (Michael Weston’s character) mostly because it hurts so bad. You die with Dr. Juliette Bath (Lauren’s character) because it hurts so bad and you understand that pain of what they go through. You don’t understand the reason why they’re jumping to murder and sex and drugs at times but you can sympathize because they’re very human characters.”So Ted, much like the future Peter Petrelli we glimpse at the end of season one on “Heroes”, has a duality to the character: Milo: “His life starts in the [positive] direction of: he has a beautiful, loving fiancée, his has a career, and he’s at the top of his field. But he knows it all. What happens when you know everything and you’ve got the life that everyone could possibly admire? You kind of get bored with it; not bored because of the people but bored within yourself and wanting more. The Ego [wants] more. He flips over and you see the dark side. He taps into that, which guess what, every single person at this table has. This is how accessible it is. Playing around with “Dark” Peter Petrelli was cool but this is very different. I think a lot of when Peter went dark that came out of pain of what happened, what he did, the weight of the destruction of world feel on his shoulders. With Ted it’s very singular. He’s not thinking of anyone else but himself.Pathology opens Friday in select cities.