Interviews

The TV Addict interviews Garret

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The TV Addict posted a new interview with Garret. It contains a few spoilers about what’s ahead on The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Here are a few quotes:

Can we just talk about Cromartie’s death scene for a moment. How much fun was it to shoot knowing that… you’d be back.
Garret Dillahunt: It was fun. I kind of wished we had time for effects to go even further, you know, pound me into mush. But the shotgun was pretty potent. You should have been in that room. She [Summer Glau] just shot it and the air in the room would ruffle your clothes from the gun. I thought it looked really cool and the green screen stuff they did with my face was perfect.

Is it an entirely different show for you now that you’re playing John Henry? Are you enjoying yourself?
It’s fun to have real conversations. John Henry doesn’t have an agenda, other than curiosity at this point. He’s just trying to absorb as much information as he can. I get to be sort of infantile, childlike and genuine. But I know in upcoming episodes I’m going to be out of the room, loose in the world, and somewhat of a super-powered baby.

That was my next question, how does that work?
Well, I’m still the Cromartie body. Still capable of all the same things that Cromartie was capable of doing, just with a bigger brain. I don’t have a task yet so it’s kind of scary, sort of being a smarter Cromartie. Which I think is going to make him dangerous because he doesn’t even know his own powers yet. But I don’t really know what’s going to happen. I do know that I make a friend, a very dangerous friend… maybe it’s a girlfriend, wouldn’t that be great! [Laughs] And I do get into a fight. A big fight happens and it’s a real learning experience where I’ll experience fear and emotion for the first time.

So if one were to assume that John Henry is the birth of Skynet, would it be fair to assume that how humans treat you in the next half of a season might…
Determine my, our [Skynet’s] whole approach to humanity. Maybe.

Outside of TERMINATOR of course, what do you like to watch?
I like MMA stuff, I know that sounds really lame but I like mixed martial arts. In terms of scripted TV I still watch some ER because I have a buddy who runs the show and just directed his first episode, I like LOST, I watch a lot of TV.

Fans loved you on LIFE.
I like LIFE, and I think it’s getting better and better. I have a lot of fun with that Russian guy. For some reason having an accent gives you a license to do whatever you want. [The TV Addict]

New Last House interview with Garret, Winter’s Bone confirmed

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Garret talked to Bloody-Disgusting.com recently and apparently he is already filming Winter’s Bone in Branson, Missouri. The film is directed by Debra Granik, with Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes (Deadwood’s Sol Star) starring. Here is the synopsis, taken from this article:

“Winter’s Bone” centers on 16-year-old Ree Dolly, who hails from a large family of Ozark meth cookers. When her no-good father goes missing — after using the family home as collateral to post bond — Ree must either bring him back alive or prove that he’s dead. Otherwise the authorities will seize the family’s house, throwing Ree, her two younger brothers and their mentally ill mother out into the cold.

And here is what Garret said about filming The Last House on the Left:

Bloody-Disgusting: How did you land the role in Last House?

Garret Dillahunt: The director, Dennis Iliadis (although I like calling him by his proper Greek name, Dionisius) had seen ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES, apparently, and called me in for a meeting. I don’t know what he saw in Ed Miller that made him think I could pull off Krug, but I’m glad he did. I had to meet with Wes’ approval after that, and then we were done.

BD: Were you familiar with the original before you took the role? When did you see the original film?

Garret: I wasn’t familiar with the original prior to shooting. Particularly surprising since I like so many films from the ’70s. BADLANDS, ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE, SCARECROW… always on my favorites list. Film is a lot like literature in the sense that I feel like I’m always reading yet there are these great, unexplainable holes in my library. Not much Faulkner, for example. It’s the same with film. There are just so many I haven’t gotten around to, and yet I see a shitload of movies. We all watched THE VIRGIN SPRING together, though. And I thought that was pretty amazing and ahead of its time. In some ways we owe more to that film. I watched the original LHOTL later, after I was free from the fear of being improperly influenced by it.

BD: The original is pretty brutal and hard to watch, do you feel that was the goal of the remake too? What do you think they were trying to accomplish and what were your goals?

Garret: Was that the goal of the original? To be brutal and hard to watch? I’m not sure, I guess, what our goal was other than to tell the story in our hands well and true and complete. The result is certainly brutal…relentlessly so. I felt like I’d been mugged after the first screening. I’ll say I think it is certainly a timely film (again). People are angry right now in this country. Good, hard working people feel like, through no fault of their own, outside forces have come into their lives and torn them apart. They feel violated and disrespected and powerless. Those forces are given a face with Krug and Co., and this normal, American family decides to take some power back. That decision is not without cost–psychic and otherwise.

BD: Can you talk about the dynamics of the father and son relationship you have with your son? And maybe talk about if you see some connection to the Collingwood family’s relationship.

Garret: Well, Krug and Mr. Collingwood (Tony Goldwyn) have both fathered children. There the similarity ends, pretty much. Heh. I really appreciated the inclusion of this storyline in the script. It fleshes out the character so much and, actually, made it easier to play him as I felt sorry for him. I think he is a guy who’d benefit from LOTS of psychotherapy. He loves his son, but doesn’t know how to raise him properly. He has twisted ideas about what being a man is. He’s quite intelligent, yet makes horrible decisions. He has been beaten up by life and has responded to those setbacks in the most unhealthy of ways. Everything is a slight..a personal attack that he cannot get around. When we meet Krug, he is already lost. He just doesn’t know it yet.

Read the rest of the interview at Bloody-Disgusting.com.

The Last House on the Left – screening & Q&A

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There was a screening of The Last House on the Left last night, with Garret, Wes Craven, Sara Paxton, Monica Potter showing up at the event and doing a Q&A. ShockTillYouDrop has the full report. Here are a few tidbits:

Shock: Garret, you’re slipping in to the shoes of Krug, formerly essayed by David Hess, how was that experience?

Garret Dillahunt: I actually had a great conversation with David Hess and he was really nice. We talked about things that were troublesome for both of us playing this. I, too, hadn’t seen the original but I was surprised because I love watching movies. I had watched bits of it before we started, out of respect for them and with the knowledge we were updating… I don’t know, I just wanted this to be our own. I was so proud of it, so proud of this cast. They’re a really good group and I think Dennis is great. When I met Wes, I said, “Every actor has a checklist of things [directors] they want to work with in their life and Wes Craven’s on mine.” And Wes said, “How far down the list?” [laughs] I’ve watched the rest of the original since because it has a very special place in the hearts of the hardcore fans.

Shock: Can you talk about creating some of that intensity on set? You obviously need to put trust in your director so how did Dennis help you along with that?

Paxton: Dennis was absolutely amazing and was really protective of the actors. We had a lengthy rehearsal process which I thought was really awesome because we could focus on the physical part that we were doing so on the day all we had to focus on was our headspace.

Potter: And because it was such an intense film, we had a bunch of jokesters in our cast. It was so intense and, the producers included, there were so many scenes where we were so distraught we just had to laugh a lot. And we did because we were like a family. We’re in this country where some of us had never been to before and we all sort of lived in this apartment building. We ate together…we didn’t sleep together. [laughs]

Dillahunt: I was lucky, I guess, because Sara and I had worked together once before. I remember originally very nervous about the stuff I was going to have to do. I was happy it was someone I knew, at least. Then I thought it was horrible because you don’t do that to friends.

Paxton: I was happy. I was like, let’s do this, I know the guy!

Dillahunt: I have to say, you really set the tone. Not being a young man anymore, it really amazes me when I work with younger actors who are so together and so capable. Sara really put me at ease. She was nervous I wouldn’t be rough enough to sell it. Every time I grabbed her it was like I caught a wild weasel, she was so into it I had no choice. Everyone was like that and a good thing Dennis and Wes did was assemble a group of people who wanted to make something special. I’m really proud of it, I think it’s great. The first time I met Dennis, I complimented him on Hardcore and the first thing out of his mouth was, “I had some great actresses.” It sold me immediately on him. We’re just a part of the process, but it’s an important part and I’m glad he understood. Sara made that scene happen, really.

Shock: Garret, what did you do – if anything – to bond with your family members, so to speak?

Dillahunt: I didn’t do anything consciously. For me, it’s all about the story and getting around I can play such a horrible a man. I wanted to play him well and I was happy to be surrounded by actors who felt the same way. There wasn’t any ego on set. Everyone wanted to do what was needed to fulfill the story. So that’s easy to bond with. We were alone down there [in South Africa], the problems we had were few and fleeting and we were all there to make it better. I guess it wasn’t me, it was Wes and everyone who put this good group of people together.