NBC "Fear Itself" is a new horror and suspense anthology that harkens the days of "The Twilight Zone" and "Outer Limits."
John Landis - Hollywood Boulevard - Hollywood, CA, USA © Lee Roth / RothStock / PR Photos
The latest episode to air on June 26 is "In Sickness and in Health" - an original script directed by John Landis ("An American Werewolf in London") and written by director Victor Salva.
photo credit is NBC Photo: Chris Large
A psychological gripper that centers on a beautiful bride’s (Maggie Lawson) wedding day when she receives a mysterious note that reads: "The person you are marrying is a serial killer," which then casts a shadow of doubt and suspicion on her happy occasion.“Fear Itself” airs Thursdays (10-11 p.m. ET) on NBC
photo credit is NBC Photo: Chris Large
Monsters and Critics spoke with John and Maggie the other day.
John, I wanted to know about your pool of secret talent in your films
John Landis: Monsters and Critics? It’s monstersandcritics.com?
Monsters and Critics. Yes. Good morning.
John Landis: You have the best title so far.
I notice that you use a lot of your friends, directors in your projects; of all the directors, of all your peers, whose work do you admire the most as far as their own career?
John Landis: That’s a very good way to get me in trouble. Truthfully, directors - well, everything’s so different that I can’t...
Whom I admire the most? That’s a tough one.
I admire the most the old time Hollywood workhorse guys like Michael Curtiz. He was a Hungarian guy. You look at his career, mostly at Warner Brothers but you look at the pictures and because they were in the old factory system they got to do everything. And you look at his pictures, I mean this guy made Casablanca, Captain Blood, oh gosh, Charge of the Light Brigade, Yankee Doodle Dandy.
I mean the guy’s career was amazing and he could do everything. I admire those guys the most. Howard Hawks, Don Siegels, the workhorses. John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock - I mean just these guys - because of the nature of the business - they were allowed to make many movies. I admire those guys.
photo credit is NBC Photo: Chris Large
I grew up with Rod Sterling and The Outer Limits as a kid and all these great anthologies, and I was wondering what imprinted you as a filmmaker growing up? Which ones really knocked you out?
John Landis: Well, I grew up with The Twilight Zone.
I don’t know if you ever saw the movie but it begins with the scene - have you ever seen the feature The Twilight Zone? Well, the opening with Danny Aykroyd and Albert Brooks?
Yeah, that’s me. I grew up with that show and grew up - very much that was the - what do they call them now, water cooler shows?
photo credit is NBC Photo: Chris Large
You came in the next day into the fifth grade going, “Oh my god, did you see? Anthony Meredith broke his glasses? “
The Twilight Zone had a huge impact on me and I thought The Outer Limits was very cool. I remember one where maybe it was Robert Culp? But it’s when I was a kid. I haven’t seen it since then but it made a huge impression where for some reason they took a human and were changing him physically into some kind of fish monster.
Maggie Lawson: Oh, I’ve seen that.
John Landis: Have you? Well, it really freaked me out but what was good about that show, The Outer Limits, was they treated it - by the way, Rod Sterling on The Twilight Zone, they often did funny things.
Outer Limits never did deliberately funny things; they were very, very serious in their stuff. Whereas Twilight Zone could have a show where it ends, “It’s a cookbook.” ? Lloyd Bochner figures it out, whereas Outer Limits was always much more character driven. I
I don’t know what the f*ck I’m talking about. I was influenced by the same stuff as everything else. But Maggie’s 12 years old so she never saw any of it.
Maggie Lawson: I actually did. That’s not true. I did see - my mom is a huge fan of The Twilight Zone and so introduced me to it as well. So ha-ha John Landis, I have seen.
John Landis: All right. Okay. Well her boyfriend James Roday is a maniac horror guy. So he would have exposed you to everything by now I think.
photo credit is NBC Photo: Chris Large
Maggie Lawson: Yeah he has.
John, one of my favorite 80s films was your 'Into the Night' with Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer
John Landis: I have to tell you all over the world people will come up to me and it’s sometimes Blues Brothers, sometimes Animal House, sometimes Thriller, sometimes American Werewolf or - it depends - or Trading Places -- always a different movie. But whenever someone says... how old are you?
How old am I? I’m in my mid-40s
John Landis: Okay. You’re old enough.
Because that was my first failure.
Really?
John Landis: Yeah. That tanked at the box office.
Well, I loved it.
John Landis: Well, thank you very much.
You blended noir humor with suspense and - which is the hallmark of great horror - that tightrope between humor and edge-of-your seat kind of action.
John Landis: Well, what I like about that picture also it’s got a wonderful performance from Michelle Pfeiffer and David Bowie; they’re both great. But Maggie in this show, when you talk about suspense...
No I’m serious. What she does that’s so impressive to me is this character, this woman in jeopardy but it’s still what is the truth and stuff. She’s able to bring a level of reality to everything she does she said about, did you hear that earlier question about how do you act scared?
Yes
John Landis: It was interesting. I mean there’s sometimes when we were shooting something, we were shooting in the church and it was creepy.
Maggie Lawson: It was very creepy. The locations were fantastic and John has a way of lighting and setting everything up so by the time you actually walk into the scene you’re like, wow, okay, this is not going to take a lot from me. I pretty much just have to walk in and take the scene for what it is because the church that we used was - oh, it’s fabulous.
John Landis: Well, it also is funny because in Edmonton, the arch - it’s a catholic church and the Archdiocese of Alberta for some reason would not allow us to shoot in any catholic property, which was disappointing.
photo credit is NBC Photo: Chris Large
I have shot in churches all over the world including Rome so I don’t know what their problem is but we ended up having to cobble our church together out of many different locations.
And so it - the big church where the - you’ll see lots of statues. I had every statue that wasn’t in every catholic image available we built - it’s an Anglican church we shot in so we had to build a confessional. We brought in the candles and the statues and everything and the church, luckily for us, had beautiful stained glass.
Maggie Lawson: Beautiful stained glass. But - and the statues and the whole setting, the church and the set pieces are kind of like their own characters even in the story. You see them regularly and they are, if you can imagine, the creepiest statues imaginable.
And I have to say, John, I have my St. Thomas statue here in my dressing room.
John Landis: Oh good. This just one funny thing happened. I wanted lots of Catholic statues. the St. Thomas, St. Sebastian - everybody. . St. Francis.
Maggie Lawson: Only John Landis would know this by the way.
John Landis: But of course you go to catholic, you go to religious store, merchandise - anyway. So the prop guy very proudly brings in this white statue of St. Anthony I think. And he’s like three foot, he’s very beautiful and it looked great.
And he proudly showed me that in fact it was made of a high polyurethane kind of plastic - rubber; it was very tough. “And look at this, John. And look at - isn’t this great?” And I had to show him, “Watch this.” and I throw it in the air and it bounces on the floor. So I said, “See? That kind of defeats the purpose. They had to buy extra ones so James and Maggie each got one.
Maggie Lawson: Yes. Yes. Yes we did.
John Landis: Maggie, where did you put yours?
Maggie Lawson: It’s in my dressing room. Every morning I walk in. You should see the wardrobe people when they come in to like bring my clothes, they’re like, “Oh.”
John, what genre is your favorite to direct, and what do you get presented with script wise most often?
John Landis: Directors, just like actors get typed, and because I’ve made very successful comedies, it’s like oh, he’s a comedy guy.
But my friend Walter Hill once said to me, “If they knew how much fun it was to make a Western they wouldn’t let us.” Because it’s so fun. I made Three Amigos in this country; I directed that and that was a comedy but it was a Western and since you ride around on horses it’s really fun.
But I as a filmmaker, I can do whatever story; I’m the storyteller. So if it’s a drama or a love story, whatever it is I’m perfectly capable of doing it.
It’s sad but I think it’s kind of amusing that I’m a master of horror now. Although since I did those two shows I’ve actually, I guess, done a bit of horror. I like horror and fantasy and I want to stress that this particular episode, the screenplay by Victor Salva, when I read it, it’s not what you expect.
It’s much more of a throw back. It’s kind of like a woman’s picture, a girl in jeopardy picture. It has really no elements of the supernatural and it’s entirely - sits on Maggie’s shoulders.
Also, it’s hard to approach this stuff without a sense of humor. But I think that’s true in every genre. I mean have you ever seen Psycho? Hitchcock’s Psycho? Norman Bates says, “Mother’s not herself today.”
I directed two episodes of Psych - that’s a USA show with James Roday and Maggie Lawson. And Maggie was on Psych - don’t get mad at me Maggie - but it makes me crazy. She’s under-used because working up there I just thought, man, this girl’s terrific and when I was given this script - I also, by the way, am a fan of James Roday, who is a very good, good actor and a really smart guy and really good actor.
I saw this as an opportunity. I called them. It was hard to work out but for me what’s exciting is this is a showpiece for Maggie Lawson because she’s playing a character so different than the character she plays on Psych and she carries the show. And James is not the loveable, lighthearted, wise cracking guy he is on Psych. He’s more like Heathcliff in this one.
Maggie Lawson: Exactly. He’s very creepy,
John Landis: That’s what worries me, Maggie.
Maggie Lawson: That’s so flattering and I take any opportunity I can to work with the wonderful John Landis because he is wonderful and he’s a master of many, many genres.
photo credit is NBC Photo: Chris Large
Maggie, what’s the secret to acting cinematic terror?
Maggie Lawson: Heavy breathing, eyes wide open - no. I don’t really know. I mean I think every character is different so I think it’s sort of finding - it’s literally putting yourself in the position. This was so interesting because it’s - this is more of a, as John was saying, this is more of a psychological...
John Landis: Nobody - they haven’t seen it so don’t give anything away.
Maggie Lawson: No I won’t. I won’t. I’ll be really good even though I like telling secrets. So this is more psychological and...
John Landis: It’s a real melodrama. It is. It’s like an old radio play.
Maggie Lawson: I’ll just say it’s more about like the unknown, which a lot of times I think is scarier. And without giving too much away I’ll say that. So it’s sort of not knowing what you’re up against and the fear that comes with that.
It was more playing that. And John has a way of setting every scene and shot as realistic as possible so it wasn’t - there were some creepy, creepy nights and it wasn’t that difficult to put myself in my character’s shoes.
How was it working on network television?
John Landis: Well, You direct the same. The problem comes in post-production with the networks. Well, when you’re doing with anything on television, you deal with what’s called standards and practices. And interestingly enough this particular show, this - the one I did is really much more about character than gore - or violence.
So I mean the violence in this one is all - I mean there’s violence but it’s mostly in your brain and this was an easy show in terms of censorship. I didn’t have a problem. I did have some creative issues with the executive producers but it’s strange because on a TV series like Psych for instance, the executive producer of Psych is Steve Franks, who is the creator of the show, which often means that he’s the writer, he’s created the show and the executive producer in television is the most important guy.
Directors tend to be traffic cops on a TV series. So it’s not your show; you’re working for them and it’s their vision. Like, no matter who directed an episode of Sopranos, it was David Chase’s vision and he was very in control.
And that’s true on sitcoms - so when I do Psych, for instance, which is my first experience, I’ve always been the executive producer so I never really had the experience of working for someone else like that.
We had disagreements but I had to understand it’s his show. So even though I disagreed he wins.
It’s not a problem. On this one, because it’s an individual anthology show, where NBC is using my name to sell it, I did have to fight because I really did disagree with some of the executive producers and it was annoying.
But I’m happy with the finished show and I’m thrilled with James and Maggie and I’m also thrilled with this guy Alwyn Komst - South African cinematographer did a fabulous job.
There are upshots to working on TV, none of which were on this show. But the upshot of working in television really that I find exciting is you get to, if you’re doing a series, even a comedic or dramatic series - doesn’t matter - you can tell a longer story. I mean I really love the miniseries; they don’t make as many any more.
But it’s a wonderful way of really exploring characters over time and I think that’s an opportunity in television that’s wonderful to really tell elaborate - , like remember HBO’s Rome. Or even the Sopranos where you can just really explore the characters.
You can do a lot in television but there really - it’s a delivery system. Does that make sense? It’s not different than film.
Maggie, What was the experience like for you?
Maggie Lawson: It definitely feels more like an independent film -- the way you shoot it, the pace and the developing of the characters. You’re not creating a character over 16 to 22 episodes. You’re creating a story that has a beginning and middle and an end.
I really liked that. It did not feel like I was shooting a TV show. It was very much... and it was fun I think for James and I both to really sink our teeth into something different because the characters are just so different and the shooting style is very different and obviously working with John is always such a pleasure but definitely more like an indie film for sure.
John Landis: It was like shooting a low-budget movie.
Did you have to play against the idea that the audience might expect the two of you, or Maggie and James Roday, to interact as they do on Psych?
Maggie Lawson: Absolutely. I think we were both very excited to play characters that were so different from what we play on Psych. In developing both of them the way they dress and even our looks and we went as far away from Psych as possible and John was very hopeful in that as well in sort of being in the whole process of creating a specific look.
For John to play this dark, , ominous, creepy kind of guy in Fear Itself is - I think it just shows the talent that in his brains. I think we are completely different from our characters. In fact, as I was doing ADR and watching, and one of the things that stood out most was that this looks and is so completely different that I forgot that we play (hectic) Juliet O’Hara and Shawn Spencer on Psych, so I hope the audience feels the same way.
John Landis: Well they’re actors. I mean that’s the thing people forget about TV stars because they’re playing the same characters every week.
I once worked with Don Knotts on a show and I was shocked. The guy was brilliant. And I realized because people just want to see Barney Fife, they want to see that nervous character that he, from (Steve Allen). He never got a chance to show how really good an actor he was.
So for me it’s very exciting that these two get to do this. Boy, are they different in this one.
I have to say there’s a wonderful moment in the Fear Itself episode when the character James plays and the character Maggie plays are actually getting married. And during the ceremony, there’s - you haven’t seen that yet Maggie - there’s a terrific thing where she looks at him and sees him in a way that is terrifying and it’s brief but it’s like uh-oh.
Maggie Lawson: Yeah and that you’re always rising up, your partner and picturing them for whatever the commitment that you’re going to make with them. So I think that there’s always a bit of a fear that goes with that. This goes a step further than what - I mean I think the normal fear is that they don’t show up or that you’re going to pass out on the altar.
This takes it a step further and I have to say that the wedding scene, shooting it was - John is so good at setting a scene. I really do believe that our sets and the shots and the lighting - like they all play a role.
They are their own characters in the show. And walking into that church that day, I mean it did take my breath away. It was so creepy and ominous and then it’s the complete opposite of the day you’re supposed to be so happy and it’s supposed to be so beautiful and it’s supposed to be bright and cheery and it’s just, oh, it’s so perfect the way John set it up.
John, what is next for you?
John Landis: I’m going to Paris and then I’m going to London and then I’m coming back at the end of July for Comic-Con and then I’m going to Vancouver to direct an episode of Psych.
Maggie Lawson: Yay.
John Landis: There’s lots of movies, none of them ready to go. By far the most difficult part of the filmmaking process is getting the money. And if you’ll notice by the product coming out it’s increasingly difficult to make small movies, unless they’re genre pieces and I don’t know if I really want - I mean I could make another horror picture but do I want to?
I could make a stupid comedy but I don’t want to. I want to make something of quality. But I’m out there hustling. I’m involved in a very exciting project - kind of a biography of William Gaines.
photo credit is NBC Photo: Chris Large
Maggie, did you enjoy doing horror and would you like to do it again?
Maggie Lawson: I will do horror any day of the week that John Landis is directing it for sure. I really enjoyed it actually, surprisingly more than I thought that I would. It was - it’s interesting in acting, when you have to put yourself in a character’s shoes in a situation, whether it’s, , funny and comical, light hearted, emotional.
Scary is a challenge. There’s a fine line between being real, a level of reality to it, which I think is what makes horror work in a lot of ways. But then not making it over dramatic and not, and if an audience is taken out of a movie in a horror movie, even just for a second, it’s very hard to reel them back in.
So, it’s a challenge I think as an actor to play believable scared, believable horror, and terror. And I enjoyed it and it was a really fun adventure and project to sink my teeth into and something different than I’ve ever done before. So thank you John for that opportunity.
John, what do you make of studios creating franchises in film?
John Landis: Well I personally - you start talking about what is now called franchising and that’s what the studios are doing. I mean, with the Hulk and with Iron Man and, you have Robert Downey show up at the end of The Hulk and you have Sam Jackson at the end of Iron Man because you’re creating sequels.
It’s like the James Bond movies. They’re really just serials. Like Indiana Jones, it’s a way of - and there’s different ways of approaching that. In terms of Freddy and Jason, I always thought those guys, forgive me, but I really liked the first Freddy because it was such an interesting idea; he comes in your dreams. But then I thought the sequels got dumber and dumber.
I never understood Jason. I mean after the first one in the others he was just a big kind of guy walking around like Michael Meyers. It’s like, hello. What the f*ck, ? They get boring after a while. I think it’s more interesting for me to create new characters. Although having said that, how many vampire movies are there? Vampire movies are all variations of Dracula. So who knows?
What about Masters of Horror?
John Landis: On Masters of Horror, which is sort of the show that this is progeny of, I guess - Masters of Horror there certainly was because it came out of a group of dinners that we used to have that were very fun and Guillermo del Toro was the guy who came up with the name Masters of Horror because there was a woman having a birthday.
The waiters singing Happy Birthday to her at the table next to us and Guillermo grandly, a little drunk, stood up and gave her this grand toast in Spanglish, and ended it with, “Happy birthday from the masters of horror.”
Which is so silly but it was a group of David Cronenberg and John Carpenter and Joe Dante and Stuart Gordon and Tobe Hooper. Mick Garris was there at the Masters of Horror dinner - Mick organized the dinner. Mick is the creator of Masters of Horror and of Fear Itself. A bunch of people like that and Bill Malone and it was fun.
This one is a little different because we’re not a group. I mean I know I certainly know some of the other directors. I know Ernie Dickerson and - but basically you meet each other in the lobby of the hotel because one director comes up to prep while you’re shooting.
And so you go hi. So Bousman came up and I got - I must say he showed me the trailer. He just did - I’m very jealous - he just did a musical film with Sarah Brightman that looks really cool.
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