JACK REHER:
Dark Corners…quite
the departure from the characters you played in Ghost World and
American Beauty. Do you want to say anything about that transition?
THORA
BIRCH: It is. It’s
different. It was a nice challenge for me, the first time I ever
tackled a dual role. That was one of the things that attracted me
most about the project that I’d be able to create these or hopefully
create these two different people and have all the visual
differences you can imagine and see the borderline psychological
differences.
JR:
There is a little seen gem of a film from 2001 entitled THE HOLE…was
this your first offering within this genre?
TB: Yeah,
you know I encountered material from all the kind of hot button ones
and I just, I don’t know, I kind of view the both films I’ve been in
are often put in that genre yet in a sense they’re not really part
of that genre or considered a typical horror movie. The Hole
was a really bad girl and it was obvious that it was coming from a
person instead of some spooky entity like a ghost or a science
fiction creation. In Dark Corners, it’s again some sort of
psychological thriller in a sense that it’s more of a line twist for
the audience. Hopefully, they’re confused that every second they
have no idea until the very end which, people I’ve spoken to have
see it, they still kind of don’t get it and think they do but aren’t
really sure so they turn to whoever they watch the movie with and
have a discussion about it. Which is great, it’s what I and the
director were going for the whole time. We wanted people to watch
this and go “WHAT!?!” and talk about it.
JR:
It had that impact on me the first time I saw it. I loved that
aspect. I want to hear your ideas on the importance of women in the
horror film genre…why is it such a crucial role within horror films?
TB: Well,
I think it’s often played with and toyed with…the damsel in distress
because traditionally the thought in general of being more prone to
be victimized in one way or another. A lot people like to watch hot
girls scream & cry and get fucked with. I don’t know. It’s a weird
deal I guess and kind of fun.
JR:
With the current trend of genre films like this coming out more
frequently…Do you think that every actress can do a thriller/horror
film like Dark Corners in a convincing manner?
TB:
Well, yeah…there will always be a market for and a need for people
to dabble in these types of roles. Whether they do it successfully
or not is in each individual viewer’s discretion to determine. Some
people might do one and other people might become the next Jamie Lee
Curtis or whatever. It’s a complete toss-up but it is kind of a
difficult genre to work with depending on the material sometimes
because the way they’re shot. It’s not something you can easily
relate to because I’ve never been dealing with the experiences I
portrayed in Dark Corners. That was even more realistic, acceptable
rather than running from some zombie with a knife or something like
that. That to me would be even harder to do convincingly because
I’ve never done that before.
JR:
Your performance seemed very multi-dimensional and complex. I’m
curious to know how you brought that strength to the role of
Karen/Susan?
TB: For
each of those it was fun for me to try and create as many
differences from one another that I possibly could. At the same
time because I was working so inside the story and I knew all the
reveals and all the answers. It gave me a freedom to approach some
moments from no quite the expected outlook because one character,
you don’t know if they really exist, and I kind of wanted to give
the feeling that maybe, to the audience, that maybe she didn’t even
know if she existed. So all of that confusion was really helpful,
just being able to embrace each little second and not think about
the overall picture and yet the overall picture is what informed
every little second. It’s kind of a catch-22 movie.
JR:
Do you have any exercises that helped you get mentally prepared for
the role?
TB: Not
that I was aware of before hand. I think maybe there were little
things clicking as we were going along. Certain things I’d do just
to try and separate the voice between Susan and Karen.
JR:
Regarding the production, you were working with a first time
writer-director. Were there any reservations on you part? After
all, you have worked with some brilliant minds from Sam Mendez &
Terry Zwigoff.
TB: Yeah,
I’ve worked with some great directors and Sam Mendez... that was his
first film. It was also Terry’s first feature…before he had done a
great documentary, CRUMB, but I kind of, maybe I’ve done it too
often, but I like working with first time directors because of their
energy, their passion & enthusiasm for being on their first film is
kind of infectious. It usually lends itself to a lot of creative
openness but also it’s kind of a precarious thing to do because you
maybe could get one [director] that isn’t so wonderful. It’s a
toss-up.
JR:
What was your first horror film
experience as a kid?
TB:
I don’t think you can call it a horror film
completely but I was one of those children who watched the same
movie over and over. The one thing I thought was kind of scary, the
first 25 times I watched it was Ghostbusters. It was a
green-goblin thing, the slime, that kind of got me. I’ve never been
a huge…I’m not so knowledgeable on the genre-
JR:
That ghost in the library scared the shit out of me.
TB: Yeah,
the beginning sequence when the books are flying off the shelves and
the papers in the air for completely unknown reason was pretty
scary.
JR:
Shifting gears a little, how do you see women in horror films today
vs. women from decades past?
TB: Well,
there seems to be an interesting change in direction. You used to
see girls that were purely victimized. Now it seems that the
filmmakers are toying more with the idea of, subliminally of course,
targeting girls that maybe have some lesson to learn or that come
away with the experience and change one way or another. It’s kind
of like we’re sticking with a type of girl now…the smart-ass gets
knocked down and becomes humble or the slut dies. It’s very much
kind of a…there’s an element of karma or morals that have been
introduced to the genre. Like ‘this is happening to you because…”.
JR:
If Thora ruled the world, what would your
criteria be to become a scream queen?
TB:
That’s good! That’s a good one…well, I honestly would probably be a
little bit more liberal than you’d expect. You’d definitely have to
have the knowledge of a certain amount of film history and a passion
for the process of filmmaking rather than necessarily acting.
There’d definitely have to be someone that loved everything about
it. More quality I’m looking for than ability.
JR:
What trips the fear factor inside of you?
TB:
You know, I used to have a nice laundry list of
things that did but now I can’t really put my finger on one. I
found a way to take care of them all.
JR:
Any all-time favorite horror films besides Ghostbusters?
TB: Yeah,
there was one…but for the life of me, I can never remember the
title. I have no idea what it was called but it was about a group
of kids that were abandoned in a city. I think one of the
babysitters or something like that, like at the very end they were
running around the town, always at night, and everyone’s turning to
powder (laughing) like these bodies just disintegrate into this
orange powder. And that one was pretty scary because it was like
“don’t go outside, you’re going to disintegrate, the aliens are out
there and their laser beams…” It was ridiculous but pretty good.
JR:
Is this genre something you’d like to continue working in?
TB:
Maybe off and on, you know I’m very material based.
If I encounter a script I really like and it happens to be in the
genre, there’s nothing that’s gonna…the fact that it’s a horror
movie, there’s nothing that’s going to make me say “no”. At the
same time, I don’t look for films that are in certain genres. It’s
about the character first.
JR:
Last question…who is more creepy…The Blair Witch or Joan Rivers?
TB: This
is evil because I like Joan Rivers but I’m going to have to go with
her because I can see that. But she has been nice to me.
-Jack Reher
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