Sean Patrick Flanery interview, Mongolian Death Worm chews up Sat. night Syfy

By April MacIntyre May 7, 2010, 20:11 GMT

Popcorn movie goodness alert for Syfy\'s "Mongolian Death Worm," which premieres Saturday May 8th at 9pm.

Oh, how the worm turned for Syfy.

The all American B-Movie is resurrected from the dead and brought back to life by great crews and terrific actors playing along for posterity.

Popcorn movie goodness alert for Syfy's "Mongolian Death Worm," which premieres Saturday May 8th at 9pm.

Treasure hunter Daniel (Sean Patrick Flanery)  and U.N. aide worker Doctor Alicia (Victoria Pratt) have the quintessential not-so-cute meet as they barter with each other for a favor, and find themselves battling local bandits while searching for Genghis Khan’s secret tomb in central Mongolia.

The crypt is guarded by man-eating Mongolian death worms, now plump and rehydrated thanks to an evil oil company's tinkerings, who sport projectile anus-like mandibles that have the left-over teeth of Roger Corman's Syfy masterpiece "DinoShark" around the opening. 

The worms, like the aforementioned "Shark" and Mega Piranha, growl like a caged Tiger in heat simultaneously battling a bad case of intestinal gas.

Good times for us!

"Mongolian Death Worm" is graced with the naturally lithe and lean Flanery, who we loved in "Boondock Saints" and as young Indiana Jones. 

This is Flanery's "The Blob," where he pulls out his training and athleticism and gets into the camp of the script with both feet, in creating a classic "B" movie for the whole family to watch and love.

The themes of all these films are uncomplicated: Mess with nature, nature bites back. Add fetching female scientific know-it-all to masculine rakish lead and voila, all that's left it coming up with the awesome and silly creature that attacks mankind.

The villain of course in Death Worm is the oil company, daring to drill in the desert near Khan's sacred tomb.  Which leads to the question, will there be a Death Worm 2 over the Gulf Oil Spill?

Monsters and Critics joined a few online journalists and spoke to Sean Patrick Flanery yesterday; Flanery is an E-ticket inside a B film.

Danity Donnaly:  How did you prepare for this role?

Sean Patrick Flanery: Hmm. Well, you know to be perfectly honest my preparation kind of in everything I keep completely to the script. I’m not a big method actor or anything like that. I think pretty much every bit of information that you need to go in and make a movie is contained in the script itself.

So it was just a product of myself and Steven reading the script and coming up with what we thought really worked. And I definitely wanted to add an aspect of humor to the guy because I think it’s a very fine line.

When I read the script I think this could be kind of tongue in cheek and yet, kind of scary at the same time, and all of those things. And I think we’ve pulled it off.

So, really there is no great secret I don’t go to the farthest corner of Malibu and meditate or anything like that.  It’s really all script based.

My research for every film I’ve ever done starts on Page 1 and ends at fadeout. It really does.

And then a series of questions directed at all the collaborators, the director, the writer, and we come up with you know, something that we want to shoot for.

And some movies you pull it off, some you don’t. And I really think we hit it on this one.

Starry Constellation Magazine: What did you find the most challenging about playing this role?

Sean Patrick Flanery: The Texas heat.

Starry Constellation Magazine: You were raised in Texas.

Sean Patrick Flanery: Yes, I was so - that was a joke. Really the most challenging aspect of this is a technical issue. And literally every piece of recorded dialogue in the film you watched had to be looped.

The audio was completely useless. So I’ll tell you this it’s - you know, an actor’s nightmare is whenever he has to go in and he has to loop lines and he has to re-record lines. Just because the emotional tone whether it is comedy, theater, anger you know, any of that it’s really hard to replicate on a sound stage when you’re not physically going through the motions.

And in this film literally every line had to be looped. So I was petrified at that. I didn’t know if we could even come close to replicating you know, what we did on the day.

So that was the most challenging aspect. Without question it was on the soundstage trying to replicate this and audio.

Starry Constellation Magazine: Well what made the audio unable to be used originally?

Sean Patrick Flanery: I don’t know. I don’t know if it was a technical thing, if it was a frequency thing. I don’t know. But we had to redo absolutely everything which was - it was difficult it really was.

But in the end I’m proud of the project - so. But I think it would have been much easier and we would have stayed to the authentic original what we captured on the day it would have been much, much easier.

But I think we still got there it just took a lot more effort you know, in post production.

Monsters and Critics: Hey Sean what fun this film was.

Sean Patrick Flanery: Yes, thanks, thanks I’m glad you saw that because we had a ball making it. We really did.

M&C: Based off of your answer about sticking to the script,   the scene with the power plant worker where you take his gun away from him where you confused him,  it felt very improv to me.

Sean Patrick Flanery: Yes, it did.

M&C: It didn’t feel scripted and it was a really a fun - a great scene it was one of my favorites and I was wondering if you could talk about that.

Sean Patrick Flanery: Well thanks, yes. I pretty much made that all up on the day. You know, those are the moments where I really felt like we had to add some humor there. And to be honest I’d love to do a project that was nothing but that.

And this is a great opportunity to do some of that. To interject some humor and some so I mean the shows that I really liked were like Raiders of the Lost Ark where it was deadly serious but he was funny as well. And you could see that this guy really, really enjoyed what he did. You know, he just relished every moment of the day.

And I wanted to try my best - obviously not to compare this to Harrison Ford by any stretch of the imagination, but to sort of bring some of that joie de vivre to him.

I mean, he just loved every moment. Everything was exciting, he was following his dream chasing these artifacts. And there was a moment for humor in everything.  He didn’t take himself seriously, and there was a element of this character being a little self deprecating which I always find disarming in a certain way.

And I’ve always wanted to do a film like that, and I certainly liked to do one from start to finish like that.

But yes, we made that up on the day. There was a couple other moments whenever he breaks character when he is turning the valves on and off.

I made that up on the day as well. It was just - we were really just having fun.

M&C: ...'turn it Clockwise, no, no, the other way'

Sean Patrick Flanery: Yes, yes, yes. And then it completely breaks character and he goes, no, no, seriously because I tried it one time and it didn’t work - you know.

Those moments are just -  and working with Steven was a great opportunity because he was open to that.  He really was.

If we found something that worked, we kind of latched on to it. And it was really cool, it really was I had a wonderful time.

M&C:  Your friend Andrew Stevens, the producer from the Boondock Saints. I mean did he sit you down and basically say 'listen, Steve McQueen had The Blob, this is your Blob?'

Sean Patrick Flanery: (laughs) You know what, he didn’t, but that would have been a great line!  That would have been an excellent line. You know, it’s funny every time you know, people are like Mongolian Death Worm, what is that? I’m like no, no, no, no you got to check it out.

You got to check it out, because it’s - I mean, because of the title you have to know that it’s not taking itself too seriously to call itself Mongolian Death Worm. And in that I think we really made a neat little film.

M&C: And so the ending Victoria Pratt - Elisa the Doctor - The ending is kind of open ended there for you guys to meet again, she is (wishful) 'I hope I see you again...'

Sean Patrick Flanery: I know.

M&C: Are you doing another version of the Mongolian Death Worm somehow, someway to keep this Indiana Jones-esque character of yours, to keep this adventure line open, any talk of that?

Sean Patrick Flanery: You know, no, no, there wasn’t on the day because I mean did shop the film. But I questioned it you know, to him. I’m okay, like wait a minute, this guy is in the middle of Senegal and he leaves all of these objects in the middle of the dessert and he just drives away? Come on man, come on.

M&C: I know, highly improbable.

Sean Patrick Flanery: Yes I know, I know. But we really didn’t talk any further we just really had a wonderful time shooting this one.

M&C: So do you miss Houston's Capitan Benny’s on the Half Shell, and with this whole oil spill mess in the Gulf.  Are you just heartsick what is going on with the whole oil spill and all the good seafood that i sin danger, being from Louisiana and living in Houston?

Sean Patrick Flanery: Yes and I grew up surfing there so you know, the Surfside Pier, Matagorda...you know the Flagship and Galveston all of that. That’s where I grew up.  As well as the Louisiana Coast. I’m a bayou person from the Louisiana Gulf.

So it’s just all my area. So,  I mean you never know what is going to happen, but I grew up amongst a lot of oil spills and I was there for a lot of the oil spills.

And whenever I would be paddling in on my surfboard and the news would be isolating one little tar puddle and saying the beaches are uninhabitable right when I paddled in.

So  I holding out hope that it’s not going to be nearly as apocalyptic as they are suggesting. So it’s obviously it’s tragic I’m not trying to downplay it all, it is tragic. But I’m hoping for the best ..., I’m hoping that this dome that they’re dropping as we speak works..

And we move on to the next thing. I’m hoping everybody gets their shrimp, I’m hoping everybody - the fisherman...

M&C: The oysters...

Sean Patrick Flanery: Yes,  I’m hoping everything goes right back to where it was.

So I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

M&C: George Cheung who acted in the movie with you.
Can you talk about him and what it was like working with him. He is quite the character actor.

Sean Patrick Flanery: Yes he is. For example, there was a big UFC a fight event. So me and George took everybody to see the fights at a place called Wild Wings in Dallas, Texas.

So I mean he is super cool. I mean you may think you know, he is this odd character actor. But he is a lad, you know?  I mean we went into this place Wild Wings and watched the fight and hung out and he was pointing out hot chicks. And he was funny as hell man, he really is. He was like 'Sean look over there...' I mean, he’s a great dude. I could hang with that guy all day long.

M&C: So I’m thinking you with Jujitsu training and everything you need to be on Deadliest Warrior. I think Deadliest Warrior and Gary Tarpinian the Producer of that wonderful series on Spike needs to book you. Have they ever talked to you,  because they need people that are experts in certain disciplines?

Sean Patrick Flanery: Yes, no I’ve never been approached with that at all. But that would be epic.

M&C: Yes, no I've already out there on the Twittersphere I’m thinking you need to be on Deadliest Warrior.

Sean Patrick Flanery: That would be killer.

M&C: It’s an awesome show. If you’ve never seen it is like so addictive. It’s like crack cocaine reality TV.

Sean Patrick Flanery: You know I mean I watch that network all the time, so I see the ads, but I’ve never watched it. But I’ll hit it on TiVo and check it out.

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