Aaron Stanford on Alexandre Aja’s Script: Asked if there were ever any moments when he thought the script pushed things too far, Stanford said, “I’m sure there were moments here and there where I said, ‘No, we’re not doing that (laughing).’ I tried to make sure that any moments that I felt were really clichéd horror film or over the top or one-liners that they wanted… There wasn’t that many of them but every once in a while there’d be something. I’d say, ‘You know, I really think we’re trying to make this not be your average, everyday horror film. We’re trying to make this be something unique and really break a lot of horror conventions.’ Whenever something would happen that I felt was sliding back to really conventional horror, I would take exception.”
Collaborating with Writer/Director Aja: “There was a lot of collaboration on this movie. Alex is very interested in hearing what people have to say and he was very loose with the dialogue. He’s French so he was very aware that some of the things that he wrote were not just the way that we would actually speak. He said, ‘Make sure you make it your own.’ Whenever we had any new ideas, he was always ready to incorporate them.”
Next Up: “X-Men: The Last Stand:” “The Last Stand” is the second “X-Men” movie Stanford’s appeared in and the first film of the series minus director Bryan Singer. Brett Ratner of “Rush Hour” fame is helming what’s been rumored to be the last “X-Men” movie.
Stanford explained the differences between the two directors: “You know they’re both very different people and they both bring something unique to the project that they work on. The thing I really enjoyed about working with Brett is that the man is the Energizer Bunny. I mean, he just does not run out of energy. He’s constantly on. When he comes in, he’s thrilled to be on set. He’s just very excited about life in general. That kind of positive energy on set really helps you out.”
Stanford wouldn’t reveal much about the third film of the series but did say, “I have some pretty fun stuff. There’s a lot of stuff blowing up (laughing).”
