Halloween Set Visit Exclusive – Interview 2 of 9 - Malek Akkad
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Sitting outside the soundstage that serves as the house where Laurie is babysitting.
Staci Layne Wilson: Being in the Halloween family dynasty, I guess I don't have to ask how you became involved… [both laugh]
Malek Akkad: Oh man, well as you know, my dad was sort of the godfather of the Halloween series and I grew up with it myself. I was a P.A. on number four. And I worked on the last four of them. The last three with Dimension, and so this one I'm doing with Weinstein. We started this project about three years ago and it was going to be just a traditional sequel, then after the split from Disney we decided it would be better to approach it as more of a remake standard and kind of re-invent the franchise.
Staci: Is it hard to come up with new words? Re-invent, remake, re-imagine...
Malek: Well, we actually do hate to say re-invent because, you know, we love the John Carpenter classic, and it is a classic. We don't want to sort of re-invent that. We had sort of a re-imagining of his classic. It's like taking the core elements of the original and sort of filtering through Rob Zombie. So it's definitely a different take on the film.
Staci: I understand that John Carpenter, who makes no bones about the fact that he doesn't like to be involved in remakes of his films, is not involved in this…
Malek: No, he's not.
Staci: But you're very involved. So, are you here every day on the set?
Malek: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean I have to say most of my work is really in pre-production and if, hopefully, I've done my job properly in pre-production, this should all be running smoothly. For the most part, it really has been. But I'm here everyday and making sure you enjoy this movie. And it has been, it's been great. It has been, I have to say, one of the best crews I've worked with, Rob's one of the best directors I've worked with, [and it's] one of the best casts I've had.
Staci: Rob Zombie really like raises the bar quite a bit here. Did you approach him, or did he approach you?
Malek: We approached him. Once we decided we wanted to do more of a remake approach to it, then we started thinking about who we could get... what kind of directors, what kind of names... and then Bob Weinstein called me and said, "What do you think about Rob Zombie?" and it just instantly clicked. I mean, I didn't even have to think about it. It's an amazing idea. "All right, let's have him in and see what he pitches". So he came in and pitched the idea and his take on it and really that day we just said, "Yeah, ok, he's got it."
Staci: I understand this is your last week of principle photography, so obviously the movie is not cut together or anything like that — but what is the flavor that fans of Halloween can expect from this version, which is like no other?
Malek: It's definitely like no other. Well, you know in thirty years since the original, horror fans have gotten much more sophisticated and they expect a lot more, I think. You know the first one was sort of sparse and there were some long, silent pauses… and so this one is like the original on steroids, I guess you could say. I mean it's like times ten in terms of story beats, in terms of action. Rob is making a film that's definitely for today's horror audiences. I think they're going to be thrilled with it and I think it's going to crossover into a wider audience than your average horror film.
Staci: What does Tyler Mane bring to the role of Michael Myers?
Malek: Tyler Mane is great. You know, normally in the past we've used a stunt man to play Michael Myers and Rob was insisting that we use an actor and I couldn't agree with him more. Tyler has been great. He's been amazing. And he's really giving you know fleshing out the character more. This take on Michael Myers, this Halloween, Michael Myers is definitely more fleshed out as a character so we needed someone who could handle that, sort of the subtleties of the changing character and his reaction to things. We see him a lot more, we see his eyes a lot more, his reactions, so it had to be someone who could handle the subtleties of that.
Staci: And the child actor that you guys have cast as the young Michael Myers, Daeg Faerch… I looked at some pictures of him [he was not on set today] and I was like, "Oooh! Scary."
Malek: Yeah, Daeg. He is scary in the role. He's definitely scary, and he plays the character so well. He's such a great actor. He's well-adjusted and wonderful on the set and then we start rolling cameras and he just takes on this whole other air, which is wonderful. He's been such a trooper. Just taking it to a whole other level, because as you know in the original, the young Michael Myers [is a character] we only saw for like five seconds, 10 seconds at most. So that's really where this is going where the other ones never went, kind of the prequel areas, institutionalized era.
Staci: And that can be sometimes dangerous ground because you don't want to show too much. You don't want to humanize him too much because he needs to be scary, but I'd imagine you don't want to just gloss-over his origins, either. So how do you find that balance?
Malek: I think Rob has done a great job on the script in keeping that balance. He wanted to kind of humanize him a bit more sort of in line with the classic cult horror films, like Frankenstein, Dracula, these guys that are kind of... there's a certain gravitas to their character.
You're completely right; there is that fine line you want to watch out for. You don't want to sympathize with him but at the same time humanizing him a bit… and it is delving more into him as a real human whereas in the first one, he was sort of this phantom and you didn't really get to know him at all. It's definitely a different take.
One thing I wanted to do was make this film completely different from the original so it's not compared to the original. I want to keep the original as the classic it is so stylistically the way it was shot, the way it's acted (not all the actors haven't seen the first Halloween)... we're really coming at it in a fresh way and trying to keep it a whole different movie on its own.
Staci: I was kind of surprised at how many of the actors said to me today, "I haven't seen the first film," I was like "How could you not have seen Halloween!?" It's on TV all the time, for gosh sakes.
Malek: I know, I was surprised too. But it really, I think it's really better. I got them copies but I said, "You can't watch these until you're done filming." [laughter]
Staci: And you do have some terrific actors in here. I mean, some of them may have very small roles but there's some bona fide genre icons from the 70s like Sybil Danning, and Adrienne Barbeau. (Don't tell me Adrienne didn't see the original!) [laughter]
Malek: That's one of the reasons we shot in L.A. Because we wanted to be able to fill these little parts with those kinds of names; had we gone to Louisiana or Vancouver, we wouldn't have been able to get that kind of talent. So that's one of the benefits of shooting in L.A., and of course the great crews here. You know, they're all fans of the series in a way that goes to their childhoods, their teenage years. The younger generation that doesn't know the original Halloween may not recognize them as I would, or someone from my generation, but so that's where hopefully we would cross over and kind of the older generation as well and then the teenage kids... they'll be new faces to them maybe but it's just as exciting to have those kind of names and faces with us.
Staci: Yeah, and Malcolm McDowell. Do you ever get star-struck or anything? I mean I know you've been in the business for a long time, but come on: break out the milk-plus — it's Alex de Large!
Malek: You know, you can [get star-struck] but he is just the most welcoming, wonderful warm guy so that's just... so even if you had the thought of that, it melts away instantly.
Staci: Well, he was just telling a story about a leather fetish bar or something... I came in halfway through that story, and I'm like "Wait a minute here…" [laughter] Malcolm McDowell is telling naughty stories on the set. Cool!"
Malek: He's so great. You couldn't have asked for a better Dr. Loomis, you know, to replace Donald Pleasance, who was the greatest actor to work with. Donald was so wonderful. So Malcolm he's ...he loves this project, he loves the character, he really wants to make it as good a film as he can. And he hasn't seen what Donald Pleasance did. [McDowell did not watch the original Halloween, either.] And then also, anything he says has that air of sophistication, he has that English accent, anything he says is going to bring a lot of weight to the words.
Staci: I've done quite a few set visits and sometimes I have found you can get a clear picture of the energy and vibe in just a few minutes. On some, people are always moving and running around and doing this and that in an uptight way, and other times people are joking around and they're not doing anything at all. This one seems laid back and relaxed, and yet moving forward all the time. How would you characterize the dynamics on set throughout this shoot?
Malek: It has been great. I mean, like I said, this crew has been so fantastic and it's really... the mood on set always comes from how things are going. So in this case, I think everyone on the crew feels that we're really doing something special and unique — so that makes everyone excited and work that much harder to put that much more into it. I've been on shows where halfway through you're kind of thinking, "Oh, this is not going to be very good" and that tends to add to a loss of morale, or however you want to put it. I think that's definitely part of it. The crew is great and they know we're making something great and things are just moving like clockwork so it just keeps it ...it seems laid back, but really we're getting so much done.
Staci: And as a producer I know that you're thinking about the marketing: "How are we going to sell this film?", so can you let me in a little bit on that?
Malek: I can tell you we're preparing a trailer to go in front of Grindhouse. I don't know if you've heard that yet. So we're really excited about that of course, and you know, Rob Zombie first of all brings his own mark with just that name. So the buzz is already going great. He'll be able to do all kinds of talk shows and everything. Then Halloween the name also brings its own mark. So you put those two together and it combusts into something bigger than it already is.
Then from the marketing aspect… that's where the studio is the best so I hand over the film. I'll have certain approvals and stuff but really in the past they've marketed these things so well that I really at that point can kind of just trust them. It's coming out on August 31st. We're going to try to get a jump on all those other horror films that would be coming out around Halloween. We're very excited to have Labor Day weekend.
[end]
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