Warner Bros Pictures' Red Riding Hood takes the classic fairy tale and makes it edgier, mixing in romance with the horror. The PG-13 film stars Amanda Seyfried as Valerie, the girl in the red cape who's stalked by a wolf. Gary Oldman co-stars as a fierce werewolf hunter with a flair for fashion, and Shiloh Fernandez and Max Irons play two local boys - one poor, one rich - who are rivals for the hand of Seyfried's Valerie. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who no matter what film she goes on to helm will forever be referred to as "the director of Twilight," leaves vampires behind to tackle a gothic tale of murder - and werewolves.
The cast, director Hardwicke, and writer David Leslie Johnson sat down in LA for a press conference to talk about breathing new life into the fairy tale, creating the 'red riding hood', and what the story's actually about.
Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, Max Irons, Shiloh Fernandez, Director Catherine Hardwicke, and Writer David Leslie Johnson Red Riding Hood Press Conference
Gary, when you play these men possessed, do you ever have to rein yourself in - or can you go over the top and be an actor possessed?
Gary Oldman: "Well, I hope I’m not an actor possessed. And if I were, then I have Catherine here to rein me in. I mean, it depends what you’re playing. This is a fairy tale, albeit a dark twist on an already dark tale, but it is a fantasy so you can push the limits a bit in something like this. I mean, I think Solomon is...I viewed him as very sort of Shakespearean."
Amanda, did the love triangle or the darker version of the tale attract you?
Amanda Seyfried: "Actually, the thing that attracted me to this movie was, I actually didn’t read the script before I met Catherine. She had crazy visuals to show me, so I thought how difficult it is to make this old timeless tale into a full length movie, and she had these great ideas. Then I met with Leonardo DiCaprio and that was it."
How did Leonardo DiCaprio get involved as a producer?
Gary Oldman: "It was his idea. I believe so. It was Leonardo’s idea. I think he was looking for something for his company and was sitting down with Lukas Haas and said, 'Hey, what about Red Riding Hood? We haven’t done that.' One of the few we haven’t done."
Then David starts writing?
David Leslie Johnson: "Yeah, they come to me then after they have the idea and sort of pitched me, 'We want to do Red Riding Hood?' I’d worked with them before on Orphan so we were looking for something to work again together on. That’s how I came on."
Amanda, how do you define your character? Do you think of her as sexually precocious, a 20th century girl in the Black Forest 500 years ago?
Amanda Seyfried: "I separated from the usual damsel in distress, which is in most fairy tales, to somebody that’s completely not in distress at all. She’s this young, strong female that’s going through her life and realizing her sexuality and kind of trying to navigate herself through young adult life in this medieval village. So that’s how I kind of wanted to start playing it. Of course, she’s the heroine in the movie. It centers on her, so she needs to have balls. That was really attractive because I like playing women that have just no fear, especially in the circumstances. She’s pretty brave."
Is she a modern woman?
Ananda Seyfried: "Well, yeah, and we added majorly contemporary elements to it, like a love triangle and the coming of age element to it. It’s very contemporary how she’s dealing with her parents and the man she loves and the man that she was [betrothed to], yeah. Right, Catherine? She knows how to work a good coming of age story. You obviously are connected to that youthful kind of essence. You just know how to design that."
What were the big challenges in writing this as a feature film?
David Leslie Johnson: "In terms of coming up with the story, part of the challenge was - as Amanda was saying - about taking this tiny little story and creating a feature film out of it. Sometimes when you have such a tiny story, you need to blow it up [and] you kind of lose track of what was magical about the story. So I really wanted to let you keep the story. I wanted there to be a point where it literally was the fairy tale, so that the idea that came then is like well, what happened before that? Why is she going out to grandmother’s house? Where is she coming from? There’s such a tiny part of the world in that fairy tale. It’s a good canvas so you can do anything. The idea was to put the fairy tale at the end and then work backwards.
What about the dance scene?
Catherine Hardwicke: "Well, I’ve been to Burning Man. It’s pretty awesome and it really does harken back to medieval times. It’s very tribal and exciting and burning effigies, so David had this festival in the script and I’m like, 'Oh great, this will be fun. I’m going to go to town on this.' So we came up with this whole dance."
"Our choreographer, Sarah Elgart, tried to create a dance that could be old and new at the same time. We looked at the paintings of Bruegel and Bosch that were painted at the same time period, but there was like abandonment - like crazy cod pieces and people were just wild and sexy. They weren’t like Victorian age, so we said, 'Okay, this is license to make a super sexy, fun pagan ritual' and we went for it."
Max and Shiloh, have you been at dances like that?
Shiloh Fernandez: "Yeah, my mom actually goes to Burning Man so..."
Amanda Seyfried: "So you might’ve been at Burning Man and not known it."
Shiloh Fernandez: "I don't think it’s been around that long. I did go to the river [festival] which is kind of funky. No, actually I did, I had to learn the dance. I had to be taught these moves and it was hard for me."
Max Irons: "I had to do absolutely no dancing whatsoever, which I was very pleased about. I think I had to walk around looking grumpy."
Amanda, talk about telling the big bad wolf story with Julie Christie and putting on the hood the first time?
Amanda Seyfried: "We had to use that and it didn’t seem to fit in any place except for something that was sort of like a dream. I think it works really well because that’s the iconic piece of the narrative. To do it with Julie Christie with prosthetics, big teeth and huge pupils, it was really cool the way we did it and we kind of used that lens where you just focus in on one thing. I think that’s the only way we could have done it, really, that would’ve worked and didn’t feel kind of stupid that we just threw it in there because we had to. It was just perfectly designed."
Catherine Hardwicke: "Julie Christie as you’ve never seen her."
Amanda Seyfried: "It’s true, it’s true. Oh, she plays such a cool character. Then putting the cape on for the first time, yeah. It was kind of a big deal when the cape came onto the set because it’s its own character, because it’s the most iconic piece of the story. Then after a while it wasn’t really a big deal. I just got sick of it because it’s really heavy. It was so beautifully designed. It took a lot of time to make that cape really beautiful."
Catherine Hardwicke: "There was like a sewing circle, like 14 ladies in Vancouver who embroidered all the details on it. We really wanted it to have a lot of heart and soul."
Amanda Seyfried: "And it did."
Was there just one?Catherine Hardwicke: "Well, there was one main one that had everything, and then there was like the backup cape."
Amanda Seyfried: "And then my stand-in wore like a half cape."
Gary Oldman: "A half cape for close-ups?"
Amanda Seyfried: "No just to stand in literally, for standing in, like a half cape. It came down to here and her arms came out."
Gary Oldman: "I thought you meant only from the top up because Richard Burton, when he was playing Henry VIII, he would have what he’d call his going home trousers on. So he’d have normal clothes on because he wanted to get up quick to the pub, but he was Henry VIII from the waist up because it was close-ups. That’s what I thought you meant."
Amanda Seyfried: "No, I’m not that clever."
Catherine, what did you see in Amanda and the male suitors?
Catherine Hardwicke: "Right, well, actually really Amanda’s the only person I thought of for this part because I had been taken with her. One time she spoke at an autism benefit and she just said some simple words, but I just jumped up and she drew me in and was quite amazing. So I’ve been watching her in all these other parts and I saw she could be funny in Mean Girls and charming in this, and sexy in Chloe, and I’m like, 'Man, that chick can do anything.' I really thought, 'What big eyes you have,' I guess. That’s one reason I thought of Amanda."
Amanda Seyfried: "I’ve got the biggest eyes in the business right now, between 17 and 25."
Catherine Hardwicke: "We measured her and she won."
Gary Oldman: "I think Charlie Sheen measured her."
Catherine Hardwicke: "She’s a fairy tale character."
Gary Oldman: "The camera adores you. Always, every time we see you on the screen, you go, 'Oh my God, look at that face.'"
Catherine Hardwicke: "I know. That’s kind of why she looks like a fairy tale I thought. Then the whole idea, once we had Amanda, is how do you find two guys that have that equal appeal but the chemistry works with the two guys so we started the search."
Amanda Seyfried: "13,000 men line up."
Catherine Hardwicke: "A chance to make out with Amanda Seyfried."
Amanda Seyfried: "I did make a joke about that last night on Kimmel. I said that literally they just came in one by one, I opened my mouth, we made out. Which is not really that false."
Catherine Hardwicke: "Different from what actually happened."
Max Irons: "No, seriously, that was it."
Was it on a bed?
Catherine Hardwicke: "No, actually this is in a casting room."
Amanda Seyfried: "It was standing up, actually."
Catherine Hardwicke: "Maybe that’s a good question... Did you guys practice? You knew you had to kiss, did you practice on anybody?"
Amanda Seyfried: "I had no time."
Max Irons: "Back of my hand, in the shower, endlessly. No."
Gary, how do you bring the reality to fantastic stories?Gary Oldman: "Well, the reality is what is really on the page. I don’t really work too far away from the framework of the script. I think if something is well written, it gives you the clues and the answers are there. I always think that if something isn’t well written, then you’re working too hard - and you know that you’re working hard. But they all each have sort of a different approach. I mean, the characters that you play, they all set up their own sort of particular hurdles that you jump over. This to me is Dracula Lite, I think. Yeah? You know, he’s a cousin of [Dracula]. But good words, that’s your map of the world. So it was a very defined character on the page to begin with, so all the clues were there."
Wasn’t the original story a metaphor for losing your virginity? Are we missing that here?Gary Oldman: "I think probably. I had this conversation with someone, if this wasn’t a PG-13 then I think all those things that are kind of there if you want to look for them, I think you could’ve gone further with them if this was for an adult audience. You’ve got to remember that 14, 15 year old kids are going to be watching this. But I think, yeah, to me it’s about a little bit of S&M."
Amanda Seyfried: "Cannibalism?"
Gary Oldman: "A bit of incest."
Amanda Seyfried: "There’s a lot of incest. You could find that if you look for it."
Gary Oldman: "And it is a dark story that I think most of us... I mean, I can’t remember how young I was when I heard it. I was so small I can’t remember. Maybe this was a way of, I think, protecting your kids. You told them these stories so they wouldn’t wander off. I mean, if there was a modern day equivalent, 21st century, maybe it’s a predator on the internet."
Is it a cautionary tale to young girls against rolling in the hay?
Amanda Seyfried: "I don't know. I don't think it’s going to keep girls from rolling in the hay. I think it’s going to make it really attractive, even more attractive than it already is."
Catherine Hardwicke: "But it is about getting in touch with your dark side."
Amanda Seyfried: "Or just not ignoring your sexual impulses."
Catherine Hardwicke: "And then finding the right way, or a way to act on them."
David Leslie Johnson: "Because I did a lot of research into where the stories came from and it definitely is a cautionary tale as we know it, but before it became a cautionary tale, before the Brothers Grimm put the moral on the end of it, there was no woodsman character. She saved herself. She figured out that the wolf was a bad guy and that she’d been lured into this bed, and she tricked him and she got away. That I found a lot more interesting than just be good or something bad will happen to you. It was more of an adventure story that she gets lured into this precarious situation and then escapes by her own wits."
Catherine Hardwicke: "That’s the thing in fairy tales. You actually do confront your dark side, your impulses, or your feelings of sibling rivalry in Cinderella or whatever. You admit that they exist and then you work through them and conquer them and come out living happily ever after having learned something. That’s one reason why the fairy tales keep having traction and meaning."
Gary Oldman: "And also in fairy tales is that good is different from nice. There’s a chasm between the two. I mean, I think Solomon is good but he isn’t nice."
Catherine, what was your approach to the film's visual style?
Catherine Hardwicke: "That was one of the things that I was excited about when I read David’s script. I thought, 'Oh, finally I’m going to get to really create a whole world, a special, unique world,' and we started trying to go back to the heart of the story. It’s about woods so we know there are woodsmen there, and that’s probably what the houses are built of and we looked for big, rustic, masculine logs that are…maybe too masculine. I’d better be careful around here." [laughing]
"So we were looking for an architecture that added to the paranoia of the village. We found that we put the wall around the buildings and things were raised up and lookout towers, so that you felt like that fear and paranoia was baked into the DNA of the buildings itself. And then Vancouver is beautiful. The landscape around there is gorgeous. I mean, those shots at the beginning where we were flying over in a helicopter and it was just like drinking in all that beautiful nature, and so we had to kind of expand on the set that we built and do set extensions and really feel like you’re in this beautiful landscape. [...] Those were real trees, but there was a beetle infestation so they had to be cut down anyway so we’re ecologically sound - in case anyone was noticing for the green report."Gary Oldman: "But a lot of it came out of your imagination."
Catherine Hardwicke: "Yeah, I did a lot of drawings."
Gary Oldman: "I mean, you were an architect."
Catherine Hardwicke: "An architect and artist and animator, so this was my chance to really create something amazing. And we had a great production designer, Tom Sanders."
Gary, did the costumes really add something to your performance?
Gary Oldman: "Yeah, the costumes. I mean, if anything, people say sometimes, you know, 'What is your method? and I just think, 'Well, you get the clothes and the shoes and get out there and try and have as much fun as you can.' The talent is the method. I had a great [time], but not such a good time in the armor."
Catherine Hardwicke: [Laughing] "I was going to say, if you’re going to tell the truth, he hated the armor."
Gary Oldman: "Honestly, that was very hard. But the robe, well again, you came up with this. Didn’t you really? It was your brainchild."
Catherine Hardwicke: "Well some of it, and Cindy Evans also, our costume designer."
Gary Oldman: "Cindy, yeah, I mean, come on, what a fantastic entrance! You come out of that carriage wearing that purple robe."
Amanda Seyfried: "Sexy!"
Catherine Hardwicke: "Well I thought he looked really sexy when he had the robe undone in that scene in the bar at night with the rock star debauched priest look. [laughing]
Gary Oldman: "My goddesses!"
Catherine Hardwicke: "Was he hot or what?"
Max, did your dad have any words of wisdom when you read this role?
Max Irons: "He just said, 'Pay attention to what you’re doing and remember that you’re an actor and that nothing else really matters. Enjoy what you’re doing. Don’t take any of it too seriously.' That’s about it, I’d say."
Is there a reason why you dropped 'Little' from the title since we've always called it Little Red Riding Hood?
Amanda Seyfried: "The size of my breasts. That’s what I said. I actually said that on camera. He says, 'Maybe they’re not little anymore.'"
Catherine Hardwicke: "I think just to fit on the marquee."
Amanda Seyfried: "I can’t be 11 anymore."
Max Irons: "No, you can’t. That’s true."
Catherine Hardwicke: "You can’t be a size 11? What?"
Amanda Seyfried: "I can’t be 11 years old. [...]Little Red Riding Hood was really young. She was a child."
David Leslie Johnson: "Yeah, that was sort of it. This wasn’t a little girl. This wasn’t Little Red Cap. This was a young woman so it seemed patronizing almost to call her… I mean, the fact that she’s named after an article of clothing, it bugged me too. It pushed it over the top, I think."
Amanda Seyfried: "Well it also can’t be that coming of age story if it’s a child because children, that’s not what they’re dealing with in their life at the time. It’s just this girl that has all this tension and turmoil and questioning about herself and developing into this young adult. You can’t have that with a little child."
Catherine Hardwicke: "A seven year old."
Amanda Seyfried: "Also, it makes for an even more exciting story because you have that whole sexuality and romance to it, which you can’t do with a 5 year old because that’s gross."
Because it’s a whodunit, you don’t have to just play yourself but yourself with the potential for being the wolf. Is that a second part of the performance or does that all come together?
Max Irons: "I don’t think as an actor playing a part you can approach it that way. I think that’s down to editing, the script and Catherine. I think if you start doing that, then you’ll put your foot in it, basically."
Shiloh Fernandez: "I felt like it lent itself to mysterious aspects that could be considered maybe dangerous or something. At least for my character, I thought that the moments where he might be suspicious, it wasn’t necessarily that he felt that way. He was feeling something completely different, and the audience’s reaction to it makes it seem that way more."
Max and Shiloh, what did you learn from Gary Oldman?
Max Irons: "I think the first day that Gary came onto set, he came on in his armor and his purple coat and we were all kind of ever so slightly intimidated, forgive me, by the presence of Gary Oldman. But what he was doing was walking around this enormous set in front of all sorts of extras, cast and crew and bellowing at the top of his voice and making some incredible sounds. And you just looked at him and thought, 'God I can never do that. That’s quite embarrassing.' But then you see that what he’s doing is what differentiates an uninteresting actor to a really interesting actor, for an actor who has the ability to take a chance which may make him look like a fool, but may end in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow so to speak. So, you have to take chances to be a bit dangerous and a bit silly every now and then and playful."
Shiloh Fernandez: "I concur. I agree. I think for me it’s always been hard. I’m a little embarrassed to do rehearsals sometimes. I think, yeah, even at the table read, he completely was going for it and I think that was a good lesson for me to learn. If you don’t try things, if you don’t try and experiment and do things that may seem, like Max said, silly, then what’s the point really?"
Gary, has there been anything that you’ve learned from young actors that you don’t already know?
Gary Oldman: "I hate them."
Shiloh Fernandez: "That’s what I was going to say. I was trying to be polite."
Gary Oldman: "I may have been walking around in my purple robe doing silly voices, but I took one look at these two men and they’re good looking. Young, good looking kids tend to interest me. Part of wanting to do the piece in the first place, I think, was to work with Catherine who I do really think – it’s true what Amanda says – you’ve got the pulse on something and you seem to know what these kids want. You can’t even define it, but it works and you have a real take on it. And it was also a chance to work in the arena with these young guys."
Catherine, what would you like to say about Red Riding Hood?
Catherine Hardwicke: "Oh, okay, holy sh-t. Well, I did have a very exciting experience on this and it was my dream when I first came to Hollywood to get to work on a movie where we created our own world and with amazing actors and everything, so pretty bitchin’." [laughing]
Gary Oldman: "Pretty bitchin’?"
Does she still say “Everybody focus”?Catherine Hardwicke: "Focus? I did say that."
Gary Oldman: "Hundreds of times."
Shiloh Fernandez: "Focus people!"
Max Irons: "Final frenzy."
What does that mean?
Max Irons: "Well the final frenzy is when you get to the end of the day and time is running out, we have to focus up. 'Focus up, people!'"
Amanda Seyfried: "'Focus people! Focus!'"
Catherine Hardwicke: "Usually the last like 45 minutes, people just want to go home and we had a very tight shooting schedule so I was like, 'Okay, the last 45 minutes we’re going to do even more, like bigger shots, big crane shot, more than you’ve ever done.' So we’d pass out the chocolate bar and then..."
Gary Oldman: "One chocolate bar."
Catherine Hardwicke: "One chocolate bar. Everybody had a little piece. For real, everybody had a little bite and then we’d go into final frenzy. We’d put the hat on, we’d put the music on, and we’d get like a big huge shot at the end of the day and then we stopped."
Gary Oldman: "It’s was just so f-cking mad."
Catherine Hardwicke: "That’s what we were, completely mad. I’d be like, 'Okay, man, this is a close-up. It’s one of the most important lines in the movie and we’ve got four minutes to get one take.' And Amanda would be like 'Okay, let’s do it!'"
Amanda Seyfried: "And it was the only take."
Gary Oldman: "Every director I’ve worked with at some point I’m sure, even on The King’s Speech..."
Catherine Hardwicke: "Goes into a final frenzy?"
Amanda Seyfried: "You think?"
Gary Oldman: "A final frenzy, yes."
What did Shiloh show you during the Twilight era that made you come back to him for Red Riding Hood?
Catherine Hardwicke: "He had a very masculine, mysterious, sexy, interesting vibe that I thought was great, and then I saw him audition for that and I kept following him. And then he followed me around and said, 'You’d better bring me into this.'"
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Red Riding Hood hits theaters on March 11, 2011.
