The Appeal of Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning: “I had seen the 2003 one and I loved it. I also had met with the producers Brad [Fuller] and Andrew [Form] and I really liked the way Platinum Dunes, the production company, works. They are a really close-knit group and they always use the same crew, and I knew that they were going to shoot in Austin again. I always wanted to be a part of it. They didn’t even have a script when I signed on. I just really wanted to be a part of it.”
It took a big leap of faith for Brewster to say yes without having read a script. “I know,” said Brewster, “but they really work hard. I know they’re really meticulous so I knew that they’d make a good movie.”
Collaborating on Her Character with Director Liebesman: “Jonathan Liebesman was very open. He definitely collaborated and he definitely listened to my ideas. He wanted me to watch Silence of the Lambs for Jody Foster’s performance and Aliens for Sigourney Weaver’s performance. We wanted a balance. He didn’t want to make her this super strong [woman]. He didn’t want to over-compensate and make her this superhero, and yet we also didn’t want to make her this sort of scaredy-cat. We tried to strike a balance. It was definitely a collaboration, which is great.”
Jordana Brewster was Ready to Get Physical: “I was forewarned so often. They kept calling my agent saying, ‘Is she sure she wants to do this, because it’s going to be Texas and it’s going to be hot and there’s going to be bugs? She’s going to be in the mud and in the dirt, and she’s gonna be running.’ They made it sound like it was going to be boot camp in hell, and be like a tiny movie with no budget, and so I was expecting hell. It was fine. I don’t know whether they thought I was a princess or what, but from what I was told, I thought it would be hell so I think I was pretty relieved.
The physical stuff was fun- it was. The hours were kind of hard because it was a lot of night shoots, which is always difficult. And it got really cold, actually, at night in Texas, so that was kind of hard. But other than that it was all fun.”
Maintaining the Level of Tension: With a film like this where the scenes are so intense, it seems like the actors might have had a difficult time keeping up the tension level during filming. But Brewster says the fact Liebesman basically shot the movie in sequence made it that much easier. “Luckily they shot everything in sequence, and I was really happy about that because it would have been impossible to get there and immediately shoot a death or immediately shoot a sobbing scene. We got to work ourselves up and once we lost a character, we were already invested in them so it was easy to have those emotions for them. But it’s hard. You have to prepare yourself and you have to kind of seclude yourself and be in a corner, and make sure that those tears are going to keep coming. It is trying, physically, that part is trying. But you have to just take it seriously and not kid around on set on those days that it’s going to be really trying. You just have to prepare yourself.”
One of the ways Brewster and her fellow cast members helped prepare themselves for the shoot was by spending time together prior to stepping in front of the cameras. “It helps because it makes like my relationship with my boyfriend in the film more believable, and the relationship between me and Diora [Baird] in the film more believable because you believe that they’re friends. That becomes more organic, really.”
Page 2: Jordana Brewster on the Prequel, the Fake Blood, and the 1960s
