I remember sitting through the press screening of Across the Universe and asking myself, "Who is this actor and why isn't he in more films?" The actor I was wondering about is Joe Anderson and, thankfully, he is in more projects, one of which is the chilly thriller, The Grey. In The Grey, Anderson, Liam Neeson, Dallas Roberts, Frank Grillo, and Dermot Mulroney star as oil-rig roughnecks who survive a plane crash in the Alaska wilderness only to find themselves stranded in the hunting grounds of a vicious pack of wolves.
Co-written and directed by Joe Carnahan, the cast and crew of The Grey actually endured freezing conditions in order to make the film look as realistic as possible. This meant the cast had to not only figure out a way to survive in the less-than-hospitable weather, but also had to bring their characters to life while fighting off frostbite. And in our exclusive interview in support of Open Road Films' release of The Grey in theaters on January 27, 2012, Joe Anderson talks about what it was like to work out in the middle of nowhere in -35 degree weather. Anderson also discusses the wolves, shooting the plane crash, and bonding with his co-stars. We also touch on two of his upcoming projects: the ABC series The River and playing Alistair in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Parts 1 and 2.
Exclusive Interview with Joe Anderson:
What was actually on the set representing those wolves?
Joe Anderson: "They mixed it up. Joe Carnahan sort of early on made a decision to switch between the animatronics, real live wolves, and CG. I saw a lot of kind of puppet head-type wolves, you know? There was a very funny moment where we had to stand with just a piece a black screen and watch this wolf head, just for an eye line. There were some comical moments just watching that piece of a wolf doing something. But yes, they mixed it up and I think it worked quite well. They didn't show a lot of the wolves; most of the time it was kind of done through sound more than anything."
"I didn't get to play with a real wolf. I was bummed about that."
I was just going to ask you if you got to get close enough to pet one.
Joe Anderson: "No. No, I didn't. I was doing another film at the same time, so I was sort of going in and out. I know...I have a feeling that Frank Grillo and Dallas Roberts and Liam may have come into contact with them when the wranglers had some on set. But, I missed out on that so I was bummed about that."
How tough was it to act all freaked out when you're not actually seeing a wolf?
Joe Anderson: "Yeah, it's hard. I mean, it depends where you are and if anything accompanies the 'freak', so to speak, whatever that freak is - be it a wolf or be it an explosion, or if there's sound effects or if there's something physical going on on set. Sometimes they'll fire a blank so that everyone can react, 'Bang!', at the same time, and it's instant. So, you know, there's all sorts of ways to aid that. But 9 times out of 10, you just shut yourself in it and roll with hit."
Watching the movie I just wanted to put on some mittens and curl up in the theater with some hot chocolate. What was it like for you guys on the set?
Joe Anderson: "It was extraordinary. I think that was one of the main pulls for me toward the film was actually the challenge of going out there and facing -35 degrees."
Are you crazy?
Joe Anderson: "Yeah. I'm working on the Celsius, so it was 35 Celsius I think it was. 35 below freezing. So, it's unreal. I've never felt anything quite like it. I mean, physically you're drained because you're fighting the cold all day as well as working. You don't realize it, but after the first couple of days we're like, 'Damn, we're tired. Why is that?' You just don't realize that you're basically on top of a mountain staying alive. Whether you're shooting a movie or whether you're acting the story, both were to do with actually staying alive while we were doing it, you know?
[Laughing] It was crazy, especially at times when we were right on top of the mountain. We had to go through the trees, they would have these Snowcat Caterpillar things that would plow our way up through the snow and get up beyond the tree line - right on top of the mountain. And there were days when it was a complete whiteout, 35 mph winds, and the Snowcat driver was driving literally just from orange post to orange post - just a tiny, little post stuck in the snow - and that was how we got our way to set. You couldn't see more than six feet in front of you, so it was at times a little hairy, a little scary."
Were there days when you were wondering what the hell you got yourself into?
Joe Anderson: "Yeah, when you're going through the pain barrier...that's kind of interesting. [Laughing] When you're going, 'Oh, wait a minute...' And, really, there's a part of you, because it's one of those primal things - you know, hot and cold - your body just says, 'No way!' There's this kind of battle that happens and you feel like one of those crazy people that are on an adventure show. You see them, the nuts that jump into frozen lakes and things, but you suddenly realize that by default you're in this situation. You kind of read the script and thought, 'Oh, this will be a cool movie,' but you had no idea you'd be facing frostbite on a daily basis."
Was there ever an option to go on a set instead of out in the middle of the elements?
Joe Anderson: "Yeah, the plane crash had to be shot on a set. They didn't mess around. They got a plane and cut it up, and then they put one section of this plane on a gimbal that could flip 360 and go around. So some of the footage you see in the movie, some of those guys are pretty much upside down while that's being shot. And that was amazing. Then they had a huge, huge section of the plane - in fact, I think it was pretty much the full length of the plane minus the tail and the wings and the front end (the cockpit) - and they had that on a gimbal as well, and they would bounce that around. And to be on something of that size and obviously it's a plane...it is a real plane, not a fake plane, it's a plane, and you sort of see how it behaves and you get thrown around. You go, 'Wow, this is not something I'd want to experience for real.' Subsequently, flying is different now for real. It is! When you see one of those planes cut in half and you see what it's made out of, you go, 'Oh, okay, it's not made out of much.'"
It was a very realistic crash sequence. I can't even imagine what it would be like to experience the real thing.
Joe Anderson: "It's amazing, but then also to become aware from shooting it to watching it in the theater, and to say, 'Wow, okay.' That's really when you go, 'Movie magic,' that's when you really appreciate how much post-production does, how much the special effects [contributed]. The sound department, wow, these guys are out of this world with what they can do.
There were a couple of shots in there that I've never seen before. There was one of Liam with the mountain rushing past his head as part of the plane is ripped away. It makes the hair on the back of your neck go up on end. It's extraordinary. It's like good fun that you could be a part of something that's pushing it in that sense."
What did you do before you got to set to get your body ready for the extreme weather conditions?
Joe Anderson: "I've actually shot a few times in British Columbia and so I kind of...I had no idea we were going 300 miles south of the Arctic Circle and that we would be on top of a mountain with 35 mph winds and what have you, but I kind of was just prepping myself in terms of what would I bring. Like, I'm the skinniest guy alive, there's no way I'm going to pack on any more pounds in the time that we had.
But I do remember all of us, we had flown to Vancouver. We had shot in Vancouver for a little while and then we jumped on a plane and headed up to, I think it was Smithers. We landed and the moment the plane door opened and we stepped out, there was a clothing store straight across the street. And there were cars there ready to take us straight to the motel and we all walked straight past the cars and went into the cold weather clothing shop. We just loaded up. It was so funny, you could see the front rows of the plane had hit it first, and the back rows were coming in afterwards. Finally the whole cast and crew were in there buying Woolies and buying clothes.
It was just insane. But I think there was a kind of bond with the cast whenever you're doing something that is physical like that, and I think that you sort of get a bond because you're looking at each other going, 'No way! Are we doing this for real?' And then just the idea that we're all standing there freezing and you think, 'If any of those reporters dare say it looks fake, we'll go crazy.' It's -35. You throw a glass of water in the air and it's frozen by the time it hits the floor."
What did you find out after you were up there was the most important piece of clothing that you had?
Joe Anderson: "Interesting...interesting. Most important piece of clothing that I had was I would say...oh man, that's hard. It is, because it's so extreme that if you lose one piece, that part of you goes. [Laughing] It will just shrivel and freeze. And so I would keep my underwear on! Yeah."
Probably a good idea. And then you went from those conditions to shooting The River?
Joe Anderson: "Yeah, it went from The Grey to The River, and, ironically, people were saying, 'Wow, next time I hope we're in Hawaii.' [laughing] And so I was giggling to myself as I was on the plane off to Hawaii thinking about those guys. But, yeah, the next one was in Hawaii which is a jungle, so it was one extreme to the other. But actually Hawaii's quite a nice jungle; there's nothing there that can bite you or kill you or hurt you. There's nothing poisonous, so it's a nice jungle. But it's hard, nonetheless."
Why are you doing these projects that are so strenuous? These are two back-to-back projects that are really physically demanding.
Joe Anderson: "Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know. It's funny, I do do a lot of stuff like that in my spare time, not snowbound, but definitely in the Sequoias and all over California, and hiking - a lot. And my father's from Africa, you know? I've grown up with a bit of country and outdoors in me always, and especially in this business it's nice to go out where you can't see anybody and where you can't even hear a car. It's quite a nice feeling to take a couple of days and do that. And then there's the kind of kid that says it's fun to be a little Indiana Jones every now and then. [Laughing] You know what I mean? It's the stuff that you look at when you're growing up and go, 'Oh, I want to do that. That's cool!' I I wasn't one of those guys who saw a Shakespeare play and went, 'Wow, I want to be an actor.' It was Indiana Jones or something like that for me. The point is, there is the escapism that you get to do something that you don't get to do every day."
I haven't seen an episode of The River yet, but I've read that it's one of the scariest network shows ever. Is that true?
Joe Anderson: "I would say, yeah. It's pretty out there. It's definitely new and I've never been on a set like it, and I've never seen anything shot like it. I've never experienced what I've experienced filming it in such a short space and time. It is so rich. It should be pretty intense."
But it's not scary like 'gore' scary, right?
Joe Anderson: "No. No, they don't play so much with gore. It's not about that. It's about how you tantalize an audience with the idea of the dark side of things and the idea of magic, and the idea of the possibility of things that are based in reality. Some of the stories that we come across are based on real myths, if that makes sense. And so a lot of these things are things that are grounded in folktales and stories that we got from South America and places like that - Mexico even. It's definitely more rooted in reality than the sake of gratuitous gore. There will be a lot of jump moments, but they're not gratuitous in any way. I think it's quite tastefully done and I think that's what is going to set it apart, hopefully."
And it's filmed as though it's found footage, shot like a documentary with multiple cameras? Did that affect you since you didn't know which camera was on you at any one particular moment?
Joe Anderson: "It's interesting. Sometimes you're used to tailoring to the fourth wall that doesn't exist, so to speak, in a film. On this, your character is aware that he's being filmed. You're being filmed from all over the place. And then, as an actor, it's kind of interesting to choose what you tailor to which camera. It means that you have to be on your game every take, no matter whose take it is so to speak, because there's multiple cameras. There's none of this one camera covering one angle way. There's 13 cameras sometimes. It's a lot of cameras."
It sounds as though this style allows you more freedom to react and interact with what's going on in the scene.
Joe Anderson: "It does. It does. It's interesting to see and discover through the multiple different angles and the unconventional nature of the angles, because there are so many cameras and a lot of them are documentary style or maybe even 5ds, 7ds that are mounted, you get quite a wide angle on some of these shots. To me, it's an interesting thing to start acting in I wouldn't say in more of a theatrical way, but in a way that you know you're not just going to be seen head-and-shoulders, head-and-shoulders, head-and-shoulders all the time. You're definitely going to be seen from above, from below, from the side, all around. So, you do think about that. You kind of expand it a little bit to suit that. But at the same time, it's so fast. The show can be so fast and tricky, you just have to go for it and forget about where the cameras are and just play the reality of it. That's what's fun."
"They haven't shown us the last episode, so I'm gagging to see that one. We've seen a few, so we're excited to see it."
Why commit to a series?
Joe Anderson: "It was interesting. There were a bunch of reasons why we didn't want to do the series, and a lot of it was getting locked down into playing the same guy over and over and over again. Some of these series, a lot of them are procedurals and I just didn't really feel like standing around the same desk or the same crime scene or the same murder. So when this show came along - without giving anything away - talking to Zack Estrin and Michael Green and Oren Peli and just trying to gauge the simple premise that they go to the Amazon to rescue their father. 'Great, yeah, but what is going to happen with these people?' You start to listen to where these guys are going to take these characters and this story, and you start to realize that actually in this show, anything...when I say, 'Anything is possible,' I mean a big green monster isn't going to suddenly jump out from behind a trash can. It's not that anything is possible. What I mean is that characters can flip and turn and spin and become all sorts of different things very, very quickly. And their personalities can shift in ways that I think will impact the show and the major plot lines. So, I'm excited and I have full confidence. They don't tell us outright but, you know, if you've got your head screwed on you can read between the lines and see where it's going. I'm excited for where it's going to go."
It sounds like it'll keep the character and the story fresh every week.
Joe Anderson: "Yes, I think so. And each one is its own thing, so it doesn't matter where you jump into it, so to speak."
And on to a completely different topic: Breaking Dawn. Where do you stand on this whole issue of vampires without fangs?
Joe Anderson: [Laughing] "You know, I quite like the idea. It's this thing where it's like...I'm going to shift this, and shift this completely, but when I saw the very first Batman movie with Michael Keaton in it, that Batman, I was like, 'Yes, that's amazing.' I was younger then, but they kind of treated him like a real guy. 'This is a real guy. This isn't just da-dum da-dum Batman!' Yes, it had it some corny moments to it and then Joel Schumacher made it corny, but then Chris Nolan has come and made it into something that is so based in kind of reality again. Heath Ledger's joker: based in reality. And so, you know, I love the idea that vampires don't have those stupid teeth and they can do it that way. So, yeah, I love the concept. I love it."
Did you have any qualms signing on to a Twilight movie?
Joe Anderson: "Did I? No, not at all. Not really. I think it's fine. You can do stuff and so long as you enjoy it and that it's fun and it doesn't hurt anybody, then what's the problem? No. I think it's great and they're fun films. I had fun doing it, so not at all."
