Note: This interview was conducted at the 2006 Comic-con, prior to my re-watching the original The Wicker Man (see my new review here [1]) and seeing Mr. LaBute's remake (review to be posted soon).

Staci Layne Wilson / Horror.com: Why the Wicker Man? I know that maybe there were a couple of versions in the works inlcuding yours; why is the interest so high now?

Neil: I think there was interest from the original parties, you know, Robin Hardy who did the original one. He and Christopher Lee have been talking about doing another project together. And this one had been bubbling up for a while. I think people are always looking for material that's new and different and good. I came to it because I really love the original one and yet I thought I have a way to do this that makes it very different. So I was happy to sign on and approach it from a fan's point of view saying I really liked this but I think I can make it a whole new kind of film out of where this originally went.

Q: I vaguely remember the original, I saw it a long time ago. I remember it had a lot of songs... you know, and some kind of slow spots... So, are you going to step it up a little?

Neil: [laughter] There is not one song in my movie. Yeah, the first half is like a musical in the original. All these like folk songs and really just the opposite of what you would think to build up a frightening sensation. There's none of that in this picture and I've made a lot of changes to the original story. It still follows the idea of a man trying to save a young girl from this community that he thinks is going to sacrifice her but his connection to the island, the island itself is now a matriarchy instead of a patriarchy, there's a lot of changes that make it a whole different journey and hopefully, you know, a good one.

Q: If I remember correctly now, Edward Woodward was the virgin sacrifice in the first one. So now Nicolas Cage obviously has a kid in the movie, so he's not a virgin.

Neil: [laughter] He's not a virgin. That was the one thing I couldn't sell...that he was a virgin. To me that was all very connected to the original premise which was much more of a kind of battle between religious fundamentalism, of Paganism and Christianity. While there are still those elements in there, they're a Pagan community, and you can see that he's a Christian. it's less about that and more about the kind of power dynamics between men and women and what happens when the traditional power of a male dominated society gets transposed to a female dominated one. You know, does it really change, the difference...that was more the concern for me. So there's less about a virgin sacrifice while there still is a sacrifice it's more about a man in a woman's world trying to save this little kid.

Q: And you do still have the iconic wicker man. What was that like? Was that an ordeal to build that?

Neil: It was indeed. We certainly outdid ourselves in terms of the wicker man. I'm very much someone who's low tech. I'm someone who likes to shoot things in the camera and I didn't want to use very much CGI if I didn't have to. So we built like a 60 ft wicker man and burned it. It was one of those things that its hard to do and control but it's very satisfying to know that you actually made that happen as opposed to created it in a computer somewhere. So it was worth the trouble, from my point of view.

Q: What does Nicolas Cage bring to the role?

Neil: He brings I think he's someone who's very diversely talented. He's played leading men, he's played character roles so I think he brings surprise to it because you don't know what he's going to be, who he's going to be, how he's going to react to these people who are in essence stranger than the characters that he's often played. He becomes the kind of normal one in a movie like this. I think that he also brings with him the wattage of being a movie star.

People come to a movie like this and even more so than the original they're hard pressed to believe that it ends the way it does, because they figure movie stars just don't die that often. So no matter what happens to him he'll find his way out of the trouble and you know when that doesn't happen I think it will be a nice surprise.

Q: As someone who does love the original movie, what do you say to people who think that it should not be remade?

Neil: All you can really say is give it a try. Because I understand that feeling of "I love this thing, don't touch it" in the same way that I understand when somebody loves a book it's very hard for them to see a movie get made because they have such an idea of what those people should look like and what bits should be in that are important to them but I'm so used to seeing both movies, but particularly theater, where there are so many takes on something that I think the people...it's an easy thing for them to watch both and not have to compare. They're not so close that you have to say I like one better or worse. I think you can actually legitimately like both and not feel like you're selling out the original one. We were very careful to keep the spirit of that movie but it's a completely different ride.

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