Tom Berenger – Exclusive Interview

Tom Berenger plays a famous horror author add odds with a creepy painting in The Road Virus Travels North, airing on TNT on July 26, 2006.

Staci Layne Wilson/Horror.com: You play a rather gloomy character in The Road Virus Travels North — what was he like to play?

Tom Berenger: I found it interesting because the thing was like almost kind of a supernatural horror story — somewhat. It also is about dying and imminent slow death, aka cancer. You could do the same story without all the peripheral supernatural, and the same story would be kind of intriguing and interesting because we've all seen it or we're going to go through it or you know...it's just part of life. But you add that thing [the haunted painting] on there so you've got both things going, what's going on inside of him and what's going outside.

Q: And you play a writer from Maine, which is kind of King-esqe. I must compliment you on your Maine accent, by the way. Good stuff.

Tom Berenger: Thank you. They made me tone it down a bit.

Q: Did they?

Tom Berenger: Yeah, they get scared about that. They're ok with Southern but they get scared about Yankee Maine. For some reason. I don't know why. They're ok with Southern and New York but for some reason they just can't...probably because there are so few people working in show business that have ever been there.

Q: Did you know it from having been there?

Tom Berenger: Oh, I've been there, but I've also got people around me from there. I hear it a lot. And I've done it before.

Q: How would you describe you character, Richard Kinnell?

Tom Berenger: He's actually sort of an orphan as we know from conversation with his aunt, which is why he's so close to her. He's divorced and he has no kids, all he's got is a dog. A lonely guy but I don't think he is lonely all the time, you know. He's a writer and they do spend a lot of time alone.

Q: He did seem a little uncomfortable, having to go home and be by himself.

Tom Berenger: He probably spends a little too much time alone, a little too much time in his own imagination. I mean, that's great for writing I guess to some degree, but probably in the days he writes he is conjuring up so much stuff that maybe he doesn't always know what's real and what's not. And like everybody, he's got his own little problems in life.

Q: Had you read the short story prior to playing the role?

Tom Berenger: No, no I haven't.

Q: You haven't read it at all yet?

Tom Berenger: Somebody just told me the name of the book, the anthology that it was in, but no, I never have.

Q: So I take it that there was enough in the script for you to be able to create the character?

Tom Berenger: Oh yeah, yeah. [And] he does have an interesting parting shot there at the very end.

Q: As I was watching it, I thought a lot of it does seem to take place in his mind but then again… people really are murdered in the story. So is there maybe a little segue there to think that maybe it's him killing these people? What was your take on it?

Tom Berenger: I don't know. I just think it's sort of like you could tell the same story without that outside thing going on, that supernatural. You could tell the same story and it would probably be interesting but maybe not as dramatic and it certainly wouldn't be Stephen King, would it?

Q: No, it would be depressing.

Tom Berenger: Yeah, but I think what he took was just the real life situation and laid that little extra layer around there that's not the internal part of the guy but the external. Then again maybe this is all in his mind, maybe this is not really happening.

Q: That's true. But in the story they did have the news report on TV about the woman that was beheaded, so somebody killed her.

Tom Berenger: Right.

Q: I understand there were several different paintings made, obviously, because it keeps changing and some of them are torn and broken. Were they really creepy-looking in real life?

Tom Berenger: Yeah they were, and they did have quite a few of them. Because it changes so much, right? And also they had one thrown in the river. They tried to sink that thing so it wouldn't float… and that was kind of a long day there. Trying to figure out exactly how to photograph that thing so it would hit the water and then sink. So they had to have several of those on hand. It's one of those props that the props department is just constantly running back and moving and checking, with the art department.

Q: Where was the episode filmed?

Tom Berenger: It was in Australia. In the Melbourne area.

Q: Really? Wouldn't have guessed.

Tom Berenger: No, [but] it was in Australia, and we were trying to make those highways look Boston, right? They had to CGI that bridge in because that really wasn't there. So they CGI'ed the Boston Bridge in there and they probably threw a couple of road signs in. I had to drive on… I had an American car with a left side wheel but we had to coordinate that so I'm driving on the American side of the road. [laughter] You know what I mean? That was kind of strange in a different situation. We had to cut off some street through the town with the local cops and then shoot a couple of American cars going on the correct side, our side of the road.

What was most horrifying to me was driving in downtown Melbourne on the interstate with all the tunnels on the flip side. But it was ok. I shot something there before and they couldn't get a period school bus, so they had the driver on the wrong side and they were shooting inside the bus and outside, and they had to flipflop the film. They turned it from the base side to the emulsion side and they flipflopped the film to make it left to right and right to left to make it look like an American school bus.

Q: Which one was that?

Tom Berenger: That was The Junction Boys.

Q: In this little mini movie, you get to work with Marsha Mason who is fabulous. Had you met her before?

Tom Berenger: No, I hadn't. She's absolutely lovely, too.

Q: She looks amazing. She's just great.

Tom Berenger: She must have been jet lagged but she was bing, bing, bang, boom... never had a yawn, never made a mistake, just right-on the whole way.

Q: So you didn't get to hang out with her or anything?

Tom Berenger: No. I mean, of course just on the set. Then she left when she finished. She wrapped up and I guess she had three days of work or something and that was it. She was out of there. I have to say that [in her segment, at her house] it looks like New England. If you look up on the small mountains with trees on them, it seems like New Hampshire in summertime.

Q: It really is amazing. The whole thing comes together really well. It's very visual. The music in it is very evocative. So, had you worked with Stephen King material before this?

Tom Berenger: No.

Q: Is it something that you'd like to revisit? I'm sure he's got plenty of stories left. [laughs]

Tom Berenger: That would be ok.

Q: What else have you got coming up, Tom?

Tom Berenger: I did a Christmas story called Jonathan Toomey and I guess that will be out November-ish. It's period.

Q: Period, from what era?

Tom Berenger: It's really hard...they were vague about it. I mean, I think it was really supposed to be 1918 or something like that. But just a little vague, you know what I mean? Of course set in that time in the United States they might not have electric lights they had gas lights. Or maybe they wouldn't have phones. Sort of hard to tell.

Q: So you won't be toting a gun and kicking ass anytime soon? You're so good at that.

Tom Berenger: No, no, no. This is for kids.

Q: But The Road Virus Travels North is definitely not for kids! Good luck with it, and thanks so much for taking the time to talk with Horror.com.

Tom Berenger: Thank you.

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Staci Layne Wilson reporting

Be sure and read Horror.com's review of The Road Virus Travels North.