Darren Lynn Bousman and Rebecca De Mornay Interview:
You keep playing these devious roles. What draws you?Rebecca De Mornay: "Well, I actually don’t keep playing these roles but they’re the ones that everybody seems to like. I’ve done over 35 films. Less than a handful of them are, but for some reason people like me the best when I’m crazy."
Darren Lynn Bousman: "You know what’s awesome though about what she does in this one, why it’s different from other movies that she’s done, imagine where her character ends in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and that’s where she begins in this. If you thought you saw her go crazy, you thought you saw her be as psychotic as she could get, you haven’t seen anything yet. This is a much more reserved, kind of subtle performance which makes it, in my mind, so much more terrifying. One of my favorite scenes in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle is the bathroom scene. She goes crazy, basically just destroys a stall, and she’s really physical. In this, it’s so much more emotional. It actually gives things a cost, so I’m excited for you just to act."
Rebecca De Mornay: "It’s a very interesting and very well directed film, and it’s very character driven. That’s the best thrillers and dramas and horror films, if you’re clearly coming from the inside out of the characters. This mother really embodies how abusive parents sell it to their children as well. But they feel that they’re doing the right thing so we see then how children, we see what we made of them. I think it’s really well written and directed."
Darren Lynn Bousman: "In essence, it’s a home invasion film when you look at it. You’re like, 'Okay, it’s a home invasion film.' But to me, if you look deeper at the family, like a dysfunctional family, so I didn’t run wild with the tricks of Saw but I still wanted to appeal to the genre crowd. I wanted to make sure that I made a movie that would live up to what genre fans wanted to see, yet in my mind made me more mature as a filmmaker by not relying on the gimmicks and weird edits and things like that."
Rebecca De Mornay: "And casting me."
Darren Lynn Bousman: "Exactly, and casting Rebecca De Mornay."
What cool stuff do you get to do in this movie?
Rebecca De Mornay: "She’s a very, very disturbed and psychotic and criminal and murderous woman that I tried to make equally believable as a mother to the mother I play in Flipped. To get into the psyche of someone that’s really sick and hurtful is pretty challenging, but that’s what I wanted to do. I figured out when I got to the end of the script that I, for some reason, knew how to illustrate where she was coming from, what she’s been through."
How does the film reflect where family values have gone?
Darren Lynn Bousman: "Well, it’s definitely a look at kind of the perversion of family values. I think it’s about the perversion of family values, not only with their family, the Koffins who come in and basically act as the villainous characters, but the perversion of family values in the victims who are the good guys supposedly. It’s just kind of a different look because I think what we strive to do with this film is to blur the line between good and bad. There are no good guys and bad guys. It’s just shades of gray. I think you start off kind of hating mother and the brothers, and by the end you kind of love them and feel for them."
Rebecca De Mornay: "I agree. For me it’s the underbelly, talking about family values, the underbelly being perverse of what family values could mean in these dysfunctional homes, which unfortunately are a lot of homes. This mother that I play is able to parent and sell the children on the notion that hate is love. That’s what she raises them in and that’s what they become."
What was the best thing your mothers taught you?
Rebecca De Mornay: "Don’t take no for an answer."
Darren Lynn Bousman: "Make sure the prostitute never talks."
They say Saw 3D is the last, but if it makes $100 million it won’t be...
Darren Lynn Bousman: "I hope it’s not the last one because when my career washes up I’m going back and I’m riding that pony. No, I think it is. I think Saw has run its course and it’s ending like a gentleman instead of letting itself continue to get weaker and weaker and weaker. So I’m excited and happy for them."
