| BITING
BACK!
Dracula has risen from the dead. Again. Cinema's most famous
orthodontically-challenged character gets another bite at
the cherry with the release of 'Dracula 2001'. This time round,
the filmmakers get round the problem of having a pasty vampire
by casting a Scotsman, Gerard Butler, in the central role.
'Trainspotting' star Jonny Lee Miller, meanwhile, stars as
a budding vampire slayer.
JOEL CRAWLEY meets up with Butler and Miller to talk about
things that go bump in the night, going down to New Orleans
and why they like scary movies...
Popcorn: What movies switched you on to the horror genre?
Gerard Butler: John Carpenter's
movies were big for me. 'Salem's Lot' - I don't know why -
caught my imagination when the vampire comes flying in through
the window or the little boy floats in.
Jonny Lee Miller: I saw
'An American Werewolf In London' when I was really little
and that was terrifying, but I think the scariest horror film
I've ever seen is 'Jacob's Ladder'.
We're used to seeing a Christopher Lee-style Dracula whereas
yours, Gerard, is more Byronic. How much influence did you
have in how your Dracula looked?
GB:
Can I be honest with you? Not an awful lot. The costumes were
pretty much made for me. I think I started filming the day
after I arrived because I was doing something else and I had
a lot of ideas about the way I wanted to look and pretty much
none of them happened. There were another 12 guys making those
decisions for me.
Was the dialogue always so minimal in the film?
GB:
No, that's a very good point, no it wasn't. I guess I didn't
do it [the dialogue] very well so they cut a lot of it out
and [producer] Bob Weinstein was like [in American accent],
"We want a cool, sexy Dracula, he doesn't have to talk."
Why do you think vampire movies have proved so popular
over the years?
JLM:
I think it's to do with the attractive side of evil. You know
you're immortal, you can do whatever you want and get away
with it. It's the seduction of it - I think people are really
into that. Sex is a big thing these days and that's a big
part of the vampire thing.
GB:
I agree with Jonny, I think there's something in the human
psyche that's very appealing about the dark side, about evil,
about violence, and I think Dracula represents the ultimate
of that. He is the ultimate bad-ass, especially for guys.
He can do pretty much what he wants and yet there's a depth
to him as well: misunderstood, furious, anxious, frustrated.
Did you get the sense you were working on a Wes Craven
franchise?
JLM: Not personally speaking,
no. You don't think franchise. Wes Craven, when he came down:
(a) he's a very nice man and {b} in this kind of - I promised
myself I wouldn't use the word but there you go - genre that
you know he's well versed in, he's going to have people around
him and he's going to have very capable people there who know
how to deal with horror and stuff. Of course you're aware
of it, but it doesn't filter down.
You filmed a lot on location in New Orleans. How much fun
was that?
GB:
When I was filming outside the Virgin Megastore, there was a
car that drove up and down about three times with two women
baring their breasts, so that pretty much sums up New Orleans!
I think I gave up within one hour of trying to be sensible in
New Orleans and I don't think it was a bad thing. I'm very easily
drawn to the dark side, and that was perfect for the movie.
It's a hot, sweaty vibrant dark town and it really helped create
the feel for the cameras, for the look and for you. The upside
of that is, when you're not filming you go out and have fun.
You wander the streets until six in the morning.
How did you cope with the physically challenging aspects
of the film?
JLM:
The challenging part of doing stuff like that is when you've
got someone telling you: "Now they're flying across the
room at you and it's the first time you've ever seen a vampire."
To me, that's more challenging than doing a fight sequence
because that's quite easy. You just do that and then the stunt
men do the dangerous stuff. But when you're acting to a piece
of sticky tape on a camera and it's supposed to be the first
time you've ever seen someone come back from the dead, I found
that much more challenging.
GB:
I had to do a lot of action stuff and stuff on wires and spend
nine hours in make up to look like a monster and having white
contact lenses put in and then having a harness shoved in
my groin and then turned upside down and hanging from a wire.
I found that really quite unpleasant! And in certain situations
you're asked to do that and act at the same time and that
can be quite difficult. And then I had these bloody teeth
so I couldn't help biting myself and I wasn't very considerate
of the other actors - whenever I went to bite their necks,
I'd really go for it. Contact lenses - I couldn't get them
in for 40 minutes and I was crying.
You see the coolness of Dracula, hopefully, in the movie,
but I certainly wasn't that cool when I was filming it. I
had to be tied up and submerged in swamp water on my final
day and there was an alligator about 20 feet away that everybody
was feeding with turkey and I was tied down so I couldn't
get out and I would have to fly out of the water and I put
ear plugs and everything up my nose but it didn't matter,
it was like two hot spikes going right through my brain. That
was particularly uncomfortable.
What about the possibility of a sequel?
GB:
I don't know. It was a really cool, fun movie but, oh I'm
not even going to say it.
JLM:
I don't go in for doing the same kind of thing twice generally,
so it would have to be pretty special to do it again.
What was it like working with an old pro like Christopher
Plummer?
JLM:
He's just fantastic. He's actually incredibly funny and he
just jokes around a lot. I had just seen 'The Insider' and
that was really strong in my mind and I was just blown away
by his performance, so I used to bug him about that all the
time. He's extremely professional but he's just one of those
people who's easy to get on with and has a wicked sense of
humour. I'd love to do something else with him.
GB:
My first day filming, I had to grab Christopher Plummer
and throw him around the room. I had also just seen 'The Insider'
and I couldn't help getting visions of him out of my head.
Suddenly I was Dracula and I was standing in front of Christopher
Plummer being told to grab his lapels and throw himself against
the wall and I thought I'd add to it by going for a kiss on
the cheek. He really helped me on my first day because I did
suddenly stand there and thought, "Holy s***, I'm Dracula!"
He was the funniest guy and I almost thought he was doing
it deliberately just to help me. He was great to work with
- he was having fun and - bang! - next minute he's all action.
What's next for both of you?
JLM:
I'm currently working on a film in Ireland called 'The Escapist'.
GB:
I'm over in Ireland doing this insane $95m Disney movie with
Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale, which is called 'Reign
Of Fire'.
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