Doug Jones Exclusive Interview, Part 2 of 2
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by Staci Layne Wilson
Staci Layne Wilson / Horror.com: What made you decide that you wanted to play this character who is so indelible in a lot of people's minds, film fans minds specifically?
Doug Jones: When the opportunity came up, it was basically… a breakdown came out over casting services, and my manager sent me in for an audition because he recognized the title of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. My manager Bruce Smith at Omnipop Talent [told me about it]. He was a film student before he got into management and that's one of those classic films that every film student should see and probably has to see. So when he realized that they were doing a remake it was like, "Oh" and he turned into a geek all of a sudden and he saw the role of Cesare and thought "Okay yeah, that's Doug."
So he was the one in the know, and I was like "Okay, I'll go look at it, whatever". So I basically just got the side — you know, a few pages of the script and went in to do an audition. That's where I met David Lee Fisher and that's where I met the casting director. It was because the audition went really well, but I still hand no idea what the whole premise…
Q: How do you audition for somebody who is a sleepwalker? Do you just kind of nod off in your chair?
Doug Jones: I kind of had a moment and a mood because Cesare talks only once in the film as you remember once you've seen it. So we kind of went over that moment. I spoke, I moodily looked around. It was basically the wake-up scene that we were enacting in the audition. So yeah, it of course was one of those moments where it feels awkward… when you don't know the whole story line, and all that. So on my way out of the building, David Fischer came running after me and he said "Doug, I want to give you a copy of the original movie. I want you to go home and look at this and then we'll talk later." So that's when I figured the audition went well.
I took the silent movie home and I absolutely loved it!
Q: Were you a fan of silent film in general prior to this? Have you seen many?
Doug Jones: I wouldn't say I was specifically a fan of silent film. I had seen quite a few over the years, but it's not like I would seek them out. I'm a good audience for what's recommended to me and if someone says "Ah you got to see…" you know, so I've seen a lot of Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd because people thought because of the comedic physical who-ha, that I would do well to see that — and I loved it. I absolutely love that kind of thing, so when this was referred to me by the director of the remake "Oh you better watch it", and I also wanted to see what the hoopla was about so I did some looking up, you know, I did some research into it and found that it was not just a memorable film from 1919 but a classic horror film.
It was the first of it's kind with an iconic bad guy in it that was the predecessor to Frankenstein, the mummy, and uh, Dracula. Cesare the somnambulist was before all these guys and was kind of like groundbreaking in a film that hadn't done the horror thing quite so much before. I mean, movies didn't really do that so much before and here this was German Expressionism with this art direction that was wacky, and bizarre and angular, and kooky.
Q: I know! You wouldn't want to live in that house would you?
Doug Jones: No, right. It was weird yet it was so beautifully art directed I thought, and I loved the acting of the day in silent films. It was always overdone and lots of big expressions and the actors in this film, the original, seemed more real to me for that era. I thought they were all ahead of their time, and the surprise ending was like no other. It was a cutting edge thing for it's day and hadn't been done before, so that's when I realized that this was a special movie and to do a remake of it the challenge.
I knew that there were going to be horror film fans and buffs out there that would not want to see a remake made of such a classic film. It's set in time and in history all this time without being touched and altered, just let it be. There is that attitude out there and I understand that attitude, but when looking at the opportunity to do a remake is when it was explained to me how it was going to be done. I was like, "Oh okay, this is going to be major amazing cool."
It would not be just a remake where we take all kinds of liberties and rewrite the story and do it in color and do it with disco music — not even close, right? It was done in the style of the silent film, so much so that David Fisher even used the technology to create matte shots off the old film and put all of us in that old film by shooting us on green screen first and then plopping us into the old movie backdrops.
That was an amazing thing, and it was a technology in the way of shooting a film that I had never done before. So all of this was a great challenge and to crawl into the movie, and sticking to it even though it was a talking film with dialogue. The dialogue really flushed out what the story was about and stuck to the story, which explained a lot of things that a silent film can't do. You know, when you're watching a silent movie, there are minutes that go by with people expressing and talking and waving their arms.
Q: I know, I do get a little bored sometimes watching all the silent histrionics.
Doug Jones: But then every five minutes a comment card comes up that says, "Yes, Mother" and you say wait, they said more than that! Right, so now that this is a talkie and they explain a lot more, so you have a richer, fuller story that does not take you away from the original, it really embellishes and explains the original film well. And so I was really excited about that.
I was also excited watching Conrad Veidt play Cesare in the original film. I really admire what he did with that, especially for the day that he was in and the style of acting that was prevalent back then. He really found a real [unique way] to play Cesare — if you're going to play something a little bit out of the norm like a somnambulist that goes on killing sprees at night, you really have to commit to that. It would be easy for a silent film actor to affect, "I'm a bad guy now." You know, that kind of posture.
Q: So Conrad Veidt, was he a well known actor when he played Cesare?
Doug Jones: Conrad Veidt was known, and he did other films before and after, yes. He's German. In fact the whole cast was German, but in the silent film days it didn't matter. So yeah, and when you bring his name up to the horror film buffs who are familiar with that era, they are fans of his. I can see why, after watching him act. Very handsome guy, and he had a very nice screen presence. He really created something realistic with Cesare. That was a challenge for me to step into an iconic film character; like, that then there's a certain fear to it that drives me forward and the fear is: I don't want to let the fans down, I don't want to put a cheesy modern day spin on this. I really want to be true to the story as it should be told, as it was originally told. And I want to pay homage to Conrad Veidt. I don't want to pooh-pooh anything that he did, or run over it with my own version of Cesare that goes way off the page.
So, I really respect him and I want to bow down his is presence sort of a thing… That's what my Cesare was partly was: A tribute to Conrad Veidt. So the technology, like filming on green screen, we were able to shoot the entire movie like, in a week…
We had a lot of work that was… Where the filming really took place was post production. David Fisher single-handedly composing and compositing every shot together. Every angle. It was amazing, the work he did. It really comes together seamlessly and what I loved about Cesare, too, in this version, the talkie version, was that I speak once. The rest of the film I'm the closest thing to a silent film character in the movie. So all was good. This was a happy, fun, interesting, different job for me to take on so I was sold pretty quickly on this one. I made it as good as I possibly could.
Q: What did you think of your makeup for this, and did you have any input on what it would be, and did you want any input?
Doug Jones: No, I didn't want any input and I'll tell you why: It's because we stuck as close to the original film as possible and that was all the input that was necessary. Look at the original film, use that whole makeup palette that they used, and the wardrobe that they used. It had to work in concert with the backdrops that were in the original film, too. So no, so we pretty much stuck to what was in the original and I loved it because I thought I looked like a cross between a mime and a regular person.
Q: Yeah, that's kind of what I thought.
Doug Jones: And Joan Collins at times without the shoulder pads…! Yeah, yeah… So it was a wacky look, but the way that they made up my eyes was haunting in a mimey sort of way. I see myself in all kinds of ways and that was one of the least freaky I've ever been.
Q: We could actually see your face.
Doug Jones: I did appreciate being able to use my own face with just some whitened and some darkened areas. It was lovely. The makeup artists did a great job too. I'm real proud of them.
Q: That must have been a real piece of cake. You just wash your face at the end of the day, and go home.
Doug Jones: There was none of this ungluing and tearing things down and unbuckling and unzipping and un-velcroing and wriggling out of your legs. I've done all that, baby, yeah! [Referring to his work in the Guillermo del Toro films, Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth]
Q: Can you talk a little bit about working with your Cabinet of Dr. Caligari director, David Fisher?
Doug Jones: I really admire his artistry and his vision for this movie, because he had an idea to do something so different and he stuck to it. He took a long time in post-production and [to take] that long in post production of a movie might cause factions around to say, "This is taking too long and interest is waning, and let's not do anymore." So I really admired his stick-to-itiveness to complete this and take the painstaking time with every frame of that movie to make it look like it does.
Q: It won some awards at the ScreamFest in L.A., right?
Doug Jones: Yeah, it did.
Q: So did you get feedback on MySpace, or whatever? Do people write to you that have seen it, and what do they say about it?
Doug Jones: Very few people, so far. In fact you're one of the only people that has given feedback to me. [April 2007]
Q: I see. I was looking for some information on it online, just to kind of be somewhat prepared for this interview. All I found was one short review in Variety. Which was weird, thought, considering the usual flood of information on the Internet.
Doug Jones: It's been a long time in coming to get it out there. But the DVD will be out on June 5. I thought this would be packaged as a 2-disk set with the original film, but…
Q: Yeah, I was curious about that. The original's in the public domain, isn't it? When they did the remake of Othello, they did that on the DVD, put the silent version on the disc, remember?
Doug Jones: Did they? Well, for this one it would really make for a very interesting package because going that far back to 1919 and then coming almost 100 years later, to see it as a talkie.
When my wife saw it, we were at the ScreamFest together and that was her first time seeing it. The afternoon before we went to that screening, I had her watch the silent film. So seeing them back to back was a great experience for both of us. It was a really fun time.
Q: You know I think it's interesting that this DVD coming out now, while in the news there are reports about all the people on Lunesta who doing all kinds of weird things in their sleep.
Doug Jones: People sleepwalk on that?
Q: Oh yeah, it's one of the side affects.
Doug Jones: I did not know that.
Q: So, before playing Cesare, did you look into anything about where people were sleepwalkers and had committed murder and said, "Oh, I didn't know. I just woke up, and she was dead."
Doug Jones: That might have been interesting. That would have been a very responsible thing to do wouldn't, it? No, basically for this one… this is something where I kind of relied on my own instincts when it came to the nuances like that. We've all awakened and sometimes you've answered the phone and you're not sure what you've said in the first part of the conversation until you "come to" or whatever.
Q: So you played him kind of like surfacing from a dream?
Doug Jones: Right. Kind of like from underwater, and you come to the surface slowly. So I kind of put myself into that place, I think, when the moment was right for it for me to find that. And I approached Cesare like, when he was awake he was not happy to be disturbed. You know what I mean?
Q: Yeah.
Doug Jones: [For instance], the first time he awakens in the film, you see him sort of like with this "Where am I?, Who are you?, What is going on here?" sort of look on his face. That's what I was going for, and to put the dagger in his hand was more trance-like, it seems, because he is under the influence of Dr. Caligari. That's what I love about Cesare too, is that he is a bad guy, he's stabbing people, but it's against his own will. I mean, I don't think his heart really is bad; I think that he is just getting suggestion in a sleepy state from an evil person.
Q: Do you think that's what makes him scary, because people think, "That could happen to me. I could be influenced."
Doug Jones: Sure, especially since you bring up this Lunesta thing!
Q: Don't take that pill before you sleep.
Doug Jones: Sure. So many people are drugged up now, whether it's the antidepressants or antipsychotic drugs, or sleep aids or wake aids, or whatever. We're very drug dependant now in our society and you do hear stories about side effects and things. If controlled research has been done for 20 years on a drug, and we still don't know what the effects are going to be… Of course the pharmaceutical companies hate me right now, but…
Q: I don't think you're going to be making any movies for them anyway.
Doug Jones: But I think sure, it poses lots of questions doesn't like, "What would I do?" Maybe it taps into your own personal soul like, "What am I capable of in a state where I can't make rational choices for myself? Is there something inherent in me that could turn into a murderer? Is there something inherent in me that could turn into a rapist, or whatever?" It does make you ask questions like that. That's frightening. People don't really want to look into that.
Q: Well, we horror fans at horror.com, we want to look into those scares. And it Cesare is scary… he's eerie and unsettling. Not like a slasher type scary movie but definitely makes you think.
Doug Jones: It's more real then like a vampire coming after you, isn't it?
Q: Yep. I think that's it, Doug. Thanks so much!
Doug Jones: Thank you, sweetie.
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