The Cabin in the Woods

Richard Jenkins was on-hand at San Diego Comic-Con to talk about Let Me In, but questions about the highly anticipated and largely secretive The Cabin in the Woods were inevitable. We tried to pry some info out of the seasoned actor, what we discovered can be found inside.

Jenkins tells us when he was first pitched CABIN he had little interest until his agent coaxed him to read the script. "When CABIN IN THE WOODS was offered to me, I said, ‘That’s not what I do,’" Jenkins tells Bloody-Disgusting. "And my agent said, ‘You should read it before you say no.’ I read it and said, ‘Okay. This is fabulous.’"

Despite a lengthy and impressive filmography, Jenkins was a horror newbie before being cast by buddies Matt Reeves for LET ME IN and Drew Goddard for CABIN. "Drew and Matt are very good friends. It just kind of happened. They’re both really fabulous directors. I really love Drew and Matt is just really giving and open and yet he won’t move on unless he’s really happy. They both work the same way. On the day when you’re there and the cameras are rolling, they are both willing to change it up and shake it around a little bit."

Much like everyone else involved with CABIN, Jenkins was mum when it came to details. "Don’t know what to tell you," says Jenkins. "First of all, I can’t talk about it. And secondly, I don’t know anything about it. I promised Drew I wouldn’t and true blue to Drew, I won’t. I’d love to. It was really great. I don’t know when it’s coming out or what’s happening to it."

When we asked Jenkins about the look of the creatures, he certainly didn’t deny that there will be plenty of them. "Never seen them," says Jenkins. "That’s the thing. That was an entirely different [part]. But there was lots of blood. Plenty of blood. And Joss and Drew were having a great time."

As The Father in LET ME IN, Jenkins speaks very little, instead letting his horrendous actions do the talking. CABIN was quite the opposite for the actor, who says it was the dialogue in Goddard and Joss Whedon’s script that really grabbed him. "I love saying the dialogue. The dialogue tells you so much about a movie. The care with which the writer goes at and writes these words. They’re not just generic thoughts. You know, you’ve read them a million times. They’ll find a different way of saying it. You start there and you go, ‘Oh, this is different.’ And then the premise was just so crazy I said, ‘I’ve got to be a part of this.’"

Doing back-to-back horror movies is certainly a switch for Jenkins, who says he spent much of his childhood watching horror movies. "When I was a kid, I was [into horror], but we’re talking about the original Dracula, Werewolf, Lon Chaney Jr. and Frankenstein. And then in the ‘50s was The Blob. The scariest for me was the original The Thing with James Arness. And also Them! The first 10 or 15 minutes of Them! in the desert with James Whitmore going through the trailer, it’s extraordinary."