Buffy The Vampire Slayer

SET VISIT: THE GRUDGE, pt. 1

3.7.04

By Smilin’ Jack Ruby

Ju-On. Though little known stateside, the Ju-On series is already into four incarnations here in Japan beginning with the TV-movie known as Ju-On 1, its straight-to-video sequel Ju-On 2 which took quite a bit of its length from regurgitating footage from Ju-On 1, but then moving theatrical with Ju-On: The Grudge. The Grudge was a wild success in Japan and was considered the heir-apparent to the horror crown first raised over the head of Ringu, in particular because super-producer Taka Ichise was behind both movies (as well as Hideo Nakata’s follow-up, Dark Water - Ichise has been called the "Dino De Laurentiis" of Japanese film). The success of The Grudge spawned two things - Ju-On: The Grudge 2, which was released in theaters here four months ago (and on home video last week) and then the American remake, which is currently filming.

All five have been directed by Takashi Shimizu and with the exception of the American remake which was adapted by first-time scripter Stephen Susco, they’ve all been written by Shimizu as well. Historically speaking, this is the first time ever a Japanese director has ever directed the English-language remake of his own film.

When we arrived at the set of The Grudge, we were first told that we would have to interview Shimizu-san that day because he was working with the "American actors," not the following day because then he’d be working with the Japanese actors. If you’ve ever read about the lengthy and exhaustive shoots by Hong Kong filmmaker John Woo back in the day, the work ethic there seems to be echoed in Japan where if the production wasn’t American, Shimizu-san would be shooting Grudge in seven-day weeks working the cast and crew for however long it took in a day (fourteen, fifteen hours) to finish that day’s work. The American actors - happy members of SAG - don’t go in for that sort of thing and thereby finish their days (and take their breaks) according to SAG rules. On days where there are no American actors, Shimizu-san and the crew just go back to shooting late into the night, working until they can’t work anymore. Oh, and there’s no overtime (it is, however, a Tuesday-Sunday shoot because of how congested Tokyo is). There’s a reason why Shimizu-san was able to shoot Ju-On: The Grudge in 18 days (the remake has a 42-day shoot - Shimizu-san, a prankster by nature, has joked that the extra time is because of having to "wait for translation" when he gives direction to the cast. That said, later in the day we saw him working through a scene - sans translator - with both lead actresses).

We first visited the set on Day 31, a day where Sarah Michelle Gellar (who plays an American nurse living in Japan named Karen) and Rosa Blasi (who plays the widow of a man whose mysterious death still haunts her three years on) were filming a key dramatic scene. Though we would be talking to other people throughout the day, we were told that Shimizu-san wouldn’t be able to speak until we wrapped for the night, likely around 8:00.

Backing up a little bit, let me tell you a little bit about the title, Ju-On, with information gathered from Fangoria reporter Norman England (being a long-time Fangoria reader, it is way cool to globe trot and meet all the international Fango reporters whose bylines are so familiar - Michael Helms in Australia, Alan Jones in Europe, Michael Rowe in Toronto, Abbie Bernstein, Marc Shapiro, Anthony Ferrante and Bill Warren in Los Angeles and now Norman England in Japan) who explained the significance of the word to us, which actually isn’t a literal translation of "grudge." The kanji letters Ju and On have two distinct meaning. "Ju" means "curse" and "On" means something along the lines of "to wish evil onto someone." To put those two Kongi letters together has a pretty strong impact on those people who know the language as it is a doubly evil curse. More on this later when we talk to Shimizu-san about it, but just giving you a quick head’s up that it means a bit more than carrying a mere "grudge."

We were told an interesting/telling story about the success of the original Ju-On movie. When it was first made, after producer Taka Ichise had seen an impressive short film from Shimizu-san and had decided he wanted to make a haunted house movie, they didn’t think it would be all that successful. That said, Ichise had already gone out and started to raise financing for Ju-On 2. There were only around 3,000 copies of Ju-On out in video stores across Japan, really, but that said - you could never find it. It was pretty much permanently rented as people just kept telling their friends about it and they’d hit the video stores to pick it up. So, following that, the theatrical release of the third one, Ju-On: The Grudge, became a massive nationwide hit.

Interestingly enough, The Grudge is another film coming to America via the famous Roy Lee and his Vertigo production company. The term "Roy Lee remake" is pretty much a modern Hollywood euphemism for any Asian genre film - from stuff he’s on like Ring, The Eye, Dark Water, Infernal Affairs, Chaos etc. or even stuff he’s not involved in like Pulse - that’s remake rights were snapped up by Roy Lee and then taken around Hollywood to be re-made. Famously, DreamWorks has an option on about ten of these and when I asked Walter Parkes about it at one point (Ring junket? Saturn Awards? some time), he told me just how much he loved the stuff Lee was bringing them. Before Ju-On: The Grudge was made even, Lee had been interested in the Ju-On property and had spoken with Taka and Shimizu about the rights. When Grudge was completed, Lee took it all around Hollywood and it was a fateful screening in the Thalberg Building on the Sony lot where producers Sam Raimi (who has been busy finishing Spider-Man 2 and hasn’t yet been on the Grudge set, but has been watching dailies) and Rob Tapert saw it and immediately wanted to go after it with the intention of having Shimizu direct his own remake. Though they considered making it in America and having it be a Japanese-style house or a Japanese family living in America, it was later decided to have the remake take place in Japan with Americans living there.

Okay, what to say about the plot. We were told straight-up that Shimizu-san was very protective of the secrets of the film and we got a strong indication of just how protective even the crew is of protecting the film the next day when they were really worried about just how much of an opening scene from the picture we’d be allowed to see. Given the scene, which I will be describing, but not in spoiler-ish detail, I completely understand.

But, I still need to say something about the plot.

The Grudge tells the story of an American nurse, Karen (Gellar) who is sent to care for an elderly woman, Emma (Grace Zabriskie) who is staying in Japan with her son, Matthew (William Mapother) and his wife, Jennifer (Clea DuVall). Matthew’s sister, Susan (Kadee Strickland) also lives and works in Japan as does Karen’s boyfriend, Doug (Jason Behr). The elderly woman, Emma, cannot speak and is almost assuredly dying. The house where she’s staying is, well, perhaps not the best address in the world. In fact, it may well be one of the absolute worst. Is that enough of a plot description? Hopefully. The story is told in a non-linear way with overlapping plotlines and though Gellar shows up in most of the trade breaks, The Grudge is truly an ensemble film.

All right. Once we arrived at Toho Studios, we made our way to Stage 2 where Grudge was shooting for the day. The scene being shot was an incredibly important dramatic beat where Karen goes to visit Maria (Rosa Blasi), a woman who still hasn’t gotten over the mysterious death of her husband, Peter (Bill Pullman) three years earlier. Karen believes that "what’s going on now" at the house could have something to do with Peter’s death (how vague am I being? Vague enough?? Good.), so she goes to Maria to find out what she can. Maria, well, she’s a mess (lots of makeup on her for this scene as after Peter’s death, she’s taken to making a living working in the Shinjuku "hostess" bars). Her apartment is in something of a disarray, ashtrays line the place and dust is the pervading design motif. It was the first of several sets we visited, but before walking in, we had to doff our shoes as tradition states that you don’t walk onto the set with your shoes on (this was also the case on Men In Black II as they didn’t want us to scuff up the floors).

The impeccably-detailed apartment had bookshelves full of, well, whatever old books could be found, it seemed as they won’t really be in the shot (an ancient complete works of Dickens, etc. - a few psychology textbooks in German), but also a number of framed photographs of Pullman and Blasi. We were told that when Pullman arrived, the first thing he and Blasi were whisked away to do was a series of photos all over Tokyo - including at the Shrine of the Emperor Meiji where Eric Moro and I had visited that morning taking similar touristy shots - and these were what peppered the apartment. The joke, in fact, for Pullman and Blasi was that it had not been a movie for them, but a "still shoot" as they’d been raced all over the place with a still photographer before even hitting the stages.

The first day, we saw four other sets beyond the one being shot on. Two were areas in "the House," the main house of the movie where most of the horror takes place. The first was a bathroom set which had been built up as when Karen first comes to the house, she finds Emma all along, basically, in her own filth. She quickly takes her to the bathroom to give her a bath and get her back in working order and so that small set was built up for that scene. The "house" is a traditional Japanese residential address, so even in the bathroom, it reflected this. Sticks off bamboo were attached just outside the window to mirror the exterior.

The next "house" set we saw was the attic built up. Unlike an American attic, this attic is little more than a crawlspace, though would cover an area over at least two different bedrooms. Segmented into two parts, neither of which you could really stand-up in (a short person might be able to stoop), the front part is slightly taller, but then the second half truly is a crawlspace where you might be able to fit a few boxes...or something.

The third set we saw was the upstairs of "the house," including the bedrooms for Matthew and Jennifer as well as Emma, very spare rooms that reflect the fact that the couple has just moved in. The halls are narrow and again, the traditional nature of the Japanese house is reflected here. This could never be mistaken for an American house or, much less, a Hollywood-style haunted house, which is probably why it was so effective in the original Ju-On movies (though they’re using almost the exact same kind of house here as the original Ju-On movies, instead of going to the original one - located in a Tokyo suburb - they’ve built everything on stages this go-round to better control weather and lighting). On the set of Thirteen Ghosts, so much attention had been poured into making that huge glass house as exhaustively detailed as possible with new things to catch the eye at every turn. With the house in The Grudge, it’s much the opposite - a spare, pale, off-white series of rooms with wood floors, stairs, door and window frames. If one of the great scares of Lovecraft is the horror of merely walking into an open field and having it swallow you up in broad daylight, you can imagine the kind of horror you can conjure from an anti-Gothic place like this.

But though these "pieces" were cool, we hadn’t seen nothing yet.

On the brand new Stage 7, a massive, new state-of-the-art building in the center of Toho Studios, the Grudge crew had built the house. Ho-lee shit! I still remember being impressed walking onto the creepy Thirteen Ghosts sets, but here was something that for Halloween could simply be a nightmare of a funhouse. Not only did the crew build up the house, but all the grounds around it. When you first walk in, you go up a short driveway with stone fences on either side. Beyond the fences are thick braces of trees - high trees - including some of the red-leafed maples made so famous in Ringu. The trees serve to cloak the house inside - a simple, two-story-with-attic affair that looks equally simple and scary-as-hell. What was so scary about the house in Amityville? How normal it looked, but subsequently how horrifying when put in context. With no stage lights turned on in the building and only a few lights on elsewhere, the house was bathed in dull, gun metal gray that matched the mud and stones that surrounded it on the ground and made it look long-abandoned.

Walking around the house (the largest complete house I’ve seen on a stage - similar to the house built by Spielberg for the first act of A.I. - though that was built up as a complete interior - this, despite a few removable wild walls, was pretty much a full, built-up house) was intimidating. On the first floor, there’s a small sidewalk leading up to the front door and then a path of stones leading around under a ceiling of bent trees. Towards the back of the house is the Tatami room, a place traditional meant for taking tea, but used by this production for other reasons. Upstairs, you can see both the attic and the upstairs which were built up elsewhere in order to afford better interior camera movement.

We wandered over to the front door and looked inside. Standing in the small, square entryway, you look up at the house and it appears like an Escher drawing turned on its side. You can see so many angles from that one vantage point as immediately by the entrance is a stairway leading to the second floor. You can see the hallway leading down through the second floor and you can glimpse through a bedroom door up there as well. On the first floor, you can stare diagonally through the house all the way out the door of the Tatami room as there is an doorway between what is likely the kitchen and that room. Once against, the ability to see all the way through the apparently spare, "What? We’ve-got-nothing-to-hide!" house gives it that much more of an eerie feel.

As we were watching the goings-on, we were joined by production designer Iwao Saito who showed us around the house and answered a few questions (some of which were too spoiler-y to report, so they’ve been edited out).

Q: In reality would a house like this in Tokyo belong to a rich person or middle class?

Saito: It was written for a house that could be rented or lived in by someone in the upper middle class or upper class. The design - it comes out in the script, too - the foreigners who come here and find that there’s enough space, so they say that it’s perfect. So, it’s the right kind of space. Also, it’s a normal enough house, so that it’s real. It’s not opulent and it’s something believable. Seen from a foreigner’s view, a normal Japanese home would probably look a little mystical and different as well. I tried to bring in these Japanese architectural elements that are unique to Japanese architectural styles like a tea room that brings in the mystical side.

Q: Did you (he) stay pretty faithful to the design of the house in the earlier Ju-On movies?

Saito: He wasn’t able to change the actual lay-out, so pretty much the lay-out is completely the same as the original because obviously this English version has been written after making the original and then the movie version. So, he didn’t have the freedom to play with it.

Q: How long did it take to build the house?

Saito: It took three weeks working from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. working seven days a week. The American producers were very surprised at how fast it was built. The good thing is that (we) built things simultaneously, so while (we’re) building the house, (we’re) also building the garden. So, there are many things about this that are different because, for instance, often western horror films are very gothic and very decorative. In contrast to that, they wanted to make this very simple and with flat surfaces. They wanted the shadows to come out smoothly, so they rounded the edges. The walls appear to be very thick. It also imitates nature, which is very traditional in Japan like the usage of bamboo, which imitates nature. (I) didn’t want to be too true to Japanese architecture because the doors and ceilings would be lower and (I) wanted to make that difference. So, the windows and ceiling in the Tatami room are much higher and the doors are specially made.

Q: Why was it important to build this set on a stage instead of using a practical location?

Saito: The reason was to control elements like the lighting - especially because it’s a horror film.

Q: Are most of the rooms in the house actually shown in the movie?

Saito: The Tatami room and then the hallway and the second floor hallway, but the actual individual rooms are in a different set. You couldn’t actually do the filming if you build all the rooms in there. Almost every part of this stage has been used in the film. Speaking of the convenience factor...(Saito indicates a couple of walls) - these walls come out, which is not possible with the regular location.

Q: Were there specific things you built into the house to make it more amenable to a horror film?

Saito: Japanese films are eerie and mystical on their own. This is the first time (I’ve) done this, so I’m not sure what the actual reaction will be - if the house itself seems to be ghostly or not. In this movie, there’s a lot of Japanese-style horror elements. (I) don’t know how a western audience will react, but the people who are horrified by the Ju-On movies are horrified by the Japanese elements. (I) think with the building of this house, it was important to keep those Japanese horror elements.

Q: How hard was it to build?

Saito: It was fairly easy to build a Japanese house. Even though (I) wasn’t able to play with the lay-out, the whole issue of bringing in what essence and what architecture style to was his. So, if it’s a very traditional Japanese home, it’s fairly easy, but it’s like, ’Which elements from which period to pull in?’ and the combination of all those elements. The elements all have to come together, so the different measurements and the balance of the design have to come together, so that was very difficult.

Q: How much of the surrounding grounds are real plants and how many are fake?

Saito: This is a real Japanese maple tree, but it has fake orange leaves because it’s obviously not autumn. If you look closely, you can actually see that the new leaves - the new buds - are coming out. So, when (we) shoot, we have to take it off.

At that point, we finished up our chat with Saito and slipped over to Stage 2 where the main unit was shooting in Maria’s apartment. Lunch had just finished up and Gellar - wearing jeans and an off-white hoodie was on set with Blasi, who was clad in a red dress wearing heavy makeup. The scene we were there to watch was an extension of one from that had started shooting earlier in the week where Karen arrives at Maria’s house to ask about her husband, Peter’s death. The first shot had the camera dollying parallel to the action as Karen stands in the entryway to Maria’s living room as Maria tries to talk about what’s happened while lighting up an umpteenth cigarette. Unfortunately for Karen, Maria really doesn’t know anything more than she did three years before.

The scene continues as Maria rises and walks towards her bedroom, Karen somewhat following her, but realizing she’s more than intruding on Maria’s grief. Maria tells Karen that she’s already tried to find out what happened - she’s talked to the police detectives, private investigators, everybody - but there are no leads. Finally, she walks to the bedroom closet as Karen watches.

We watched these two scenes being shot (the first series of shots being the camera dollying across the room and then the second series being from the opposite corner watching as Maria rises and walks to the bedroom as Karen - seconds later - follows), but then struck up a conversation with two of the producers - Michael Kirk from Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert’s Ghost House Pictures and Shintaro Shimosawa from Roy Lee’s Vertigo Entertainment.

Q: Will you talk about when you first saw the movie and decided it was ripe for remake?

Kirk: I work with Ghost House Pictures and Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert and the first time we saw it was a year ago November, so that would make it 2002. Roy Lee brought the project to our attention - he set up the screening in the Thalberg -so Roy, Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, Nathan Kahane and Joe Drake from Senator went to the screening room and watched the film and were all blown away terrified. We walked out of the theater and I think we all felt it was something really special. The magic of the movie was in its direction, so Sam said, ’If we remake this movie and I think we should, Takashi Shimizu has to be the director.’ From then, it was a matter of executing what was the best plan for making a remake feasible. We wanted to make sure that the director felt comfortable. There had been a lot of talk about bringing the story to America or somewhere else, but at the end of the day we decided that Tokyo and using the Japanese crew and a system the director was familiar with and comfortable with was the best plan. Once we decided on that, it was a matter of working with the script. We went through a bunch of different versions and drafts, but I would say that we saw it in November and by the time we got the rights and everything, it was probably January or February.

Q: Did you already have an awareness of the Ju-On series? [Screenwriter Stephen] Susco did an interview saying that he’d taken bits from all three.

Kirk: I don’t want to speak for Sam Raimi or Rob Tapert, but Ghost House Pictures only became aware of this film when we saw that one projected at Sony.

Q: Why was Sam so insistent on doing it in Japan?

Kirk: I think he thought A: The Grudge is a uniquely Japanese story and he wanted the director to be in a system that he was familiar with. You’d have to ask Sam.

Q: Do you have the rights to the first three Ju-On movies?

Shimosawa: Yes.

Q: When The Grudge was being made, was there already a plan with Roy Lee to take the movie - when finished - to shop around as a potential remake?

Shimosawa: Yes, there was a plan. Before the feature version made?

Q: Yes.

Shimosawa: Yeah, there was.

Q: How early was it on your radar?

Shimosawa: Probably right after the two video versions. That’s when Taka and Roy connected on this project. They’d connected once before on The Ring and after Roy saw this project, he was really just enamored by the horror.

Q: How difficult was it to integrate American characters into this Japanese story?

Shimosawa: It was very difficult. It wasn’t so much difficult as just really challenging. There was a large group of us that developed the script and it was challenging because there are certain beats you follow with American characters in an American setting, but in a Tokyo setting, it’s a different setting. The number one challenge that we faced was not making too many references to them being in Asia. We had to create these characters as though they had been here and were comfortable living here.

Kirk: We didn’t want to say, ’they’re a group of college students’ or a ’group of models’ that happened to be in Tokyo. We wanted to find people that had a real purpose being here. Some characters already had a history here and an appreciation of the culture, so it did take some time to find the storyline that worked and create logical reasons why to have nine western characters in Tokyo. I think at the end, we were pretty happy with what we came up with.

Shimosawa: And we had great checks and balances with Shimizu. They picked up on all the little stuff.

Kirk: Yeah, if anything felt a little false, they were sure to tell us.

Q: Would you talk about the casting of Sarah Michelle Gellar?

Kirk: We auditioned lots of actresses, but I think Sarah was really passionate about this project from the very beginning and I think her passion won everyone over. She just felt like the right choice.

Q: What was she so passionate about?

Kirk: You’ll have to ask Sarah, but she’s familiar with Japanese horror. I think her husband is familiar with Japanese horror, so I’ll let Sarah tell that story. She was familiar with Japanese horror and was a fan of it.

Q: What did she bring to the audition?

Kirk: Sarah always brings an honesty to whatever she does and a vulnerability. Everybody always says they see something different in her performance, but that’s what I saw - just that openness and vulnerability, yet there is a resolve at the same time which this character has. Through the course of the movie, she’s trying to figure out what’s happening to her.

Q: Was there ever a concern about her bankability or her being overly identified with Buffy?

Kirk: Not that I’m aware of.

Q: What precisely were Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert’s involvement with working on the development of the script? They’re obviously not here during production...

Kirk: They’ve definitely stayed in tune via dailies. As a matter of fact, they just had a screening of dailies a couple of days ago at Sony. They were very involved with the script and it was casting and it was really Sam’s idea walking out of the theater last November, 2002 - he was the one who said, ’Let’s re-do this. We’ll do it in Japan and we’ll use this director.’

Q: Is there a particular challenge involved in working with a director who is used to working with 18 day shoots getting bumped up to a 40+ day schedule for an American audience?

Kirk: Yeah, well, I think he’s probably more used to cutting in camera - shooting sections in scenes and editing them in his head - out of necessity, but he was very open to learning how to shoot western style coverage. He really wants to make sure the editor has everything he could possibly need.

Q: Who is cutting it?

Kirk: A guy named Jeff Betancourt who just did a film called Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. He did The Good Girl. So, there was a bit of a learning curve early on. We talked about in pre-production the necessity of taking two takes of everything, getting coverage when needed and as it is horror, he certainly knows the importance of getting proper coverage for the horror scenes, so that’s where we tried to spend most of our time - just really making sure we give those scenes enough time and attention.

Q: How did you find Stephen Susco?

Shimosawa: Roy had read a script of his called Endgame, which was a really great spec and Stephen was just in love with the film when he saw it. He and Roy sat down and then we all started developing the story with him.

Q: How much of it is him and how much of it is Shimizu-san?

Shimosawa: I’d say it’s about 50-50. He gave homage to Shimizu’s stuff, but he has his own flavor in there, too.

Q: As there’s now Ju-On: The Grudge 2, how will this remake be sold in Japan?

Kirk: It’s going to be released in Japan in December and they’re expecting it to be a big hit.

Q: As The Grudge?

Kirk: As The Grudge.

Q: Is there a concern that American audiences aren’t going to get this?

Kirk: That was the trick of developing the script over the last twelve months was keeping what makes Japanese horror, Japanese horror and unique and special and scary. Part of that is not spelling everything out, not tying everything up too nicely at the end of the film and yet, trying to answer some of the questions that were posed in the originals to a certain degree without beating the audience over the head. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character’s quest is to answer some of these questions and I think that character and that storyline is in place to gain access to a western audience and help them grasp on a little bit. But, we don’t want to give away too much. That was another debate we had with Taka and Shimizu - debates and healthy disagreements about how literal should we be with the storytelling. I think we’re all - again, I don’t want to speak for everybody - but I think we found a decent balance between Japanese horror and satisfying western audiences’ desire to have some logical explanations.

Q: The Dark Castle movies all have a similarity in that they generally start off with one kind of scare-scene and then move to another location where the characters are trapped in a box for the rest of the movie. What’s that kind of motif for Ghost House between Boogeyman and The Grudge? What will make a Ghost House movie a Ghost House movie?

Kirk: Well, as Sam and Rob have both said, we want crowd-pleasing, spill-your-popcorn ten times during the film, jump-out-of-your-seat, fun ride movies. We want them to be intensely scary and I think all the films we’ve done and the films we have in development all have supernatural elements to them. They’re all supernatural horror films. That may change down the road, but spooky, scary, grab-on-to-your-date-as-tight-as-you-can kinds of movies are what we want to make.

Q: Are you scared of Dark Water and Ring 2?

Kirk: Yeah! Yes, I am. (laughs)

Q: With the casting of Jason Behr, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Clea Duvall, are you targeting a specific demographic?

Kirk: Our goal, actually, was just to get the best actors for the roles. We felt that was our main mission. Sam and Rob spent a long time along with Nathan Kahane and myself and Shin and Taka looking at tapes, going to auditions, taking meetings and finding people who were passionate about the movie - understanding that they would have to come to Japan, work in a different system with a director who didn’t speak fluent English and so A: you had to be right for the part, but B: you had to be game for the challenge of coming over and making the movie.

Q: And Sarah was game for that?

Kirk: Yeah, she really was.

Q: Why was that?

Kirk: (laughs) You’ll have to ask her.

Q: What’d she tell you?

Kirk: Again, I think she’s just a fan of Japanese horror. She liked the original movie, I believe. I don’t want to speak for her, but she did say that. I think it was kind of an exciting challenge.

Q: What universal element in the Japanese version did you guys see that you thought would make this a good horror movie to remake?

Kirk: We thought it was scary as crap, so that’s the universal element. We saw a really unique and new way of scaring people - really simple ways without a lot of computer graphics. Just good, old-fashioned camera angles and actors creeping from one room to another and dark corners and at the heart of it, you’ve got this terrifying ghost, Kayako who when you see her - at first you only see her in glimpses - then at the end, you really see her. With most monsters, the more you see them, the less scary they become, but Kayako actually becomes more terrifying the more you see her, so it was a combination of all those things.

Q: With the advertising, not many Americans know the original, so are you going to see Toshio? Are you going to show Kayako? How much are you going to see?

Kirk: I don’t know much about how we...

Q: You won’t be cutting the trailer.

Kirk: (laughs) I won’t be cutting the trailer, but I think it’s already been decided that we’re going to keep Kayako and Toshio’s exposure as minimum as possible in just glimpses. Like in Jaws, you don’t see the shark. We don’t want to show the ghosts. We just want to suggest that something terrifying and unexplainable is happening and people are dying.

Q: Did you want to follow-up...?

Shimosawa: Oh, yes - I thought what unanimously was thought about why this movie was scary was that the horror was so relentless, you didn’t have to be a really bad person or do something really bad to have bad things happen to you. You didn’t have to open Pandora’s box. This just came after you. A lot of Taka’s films are like that with The Ring and Dark Water. These things latch onto you and there’s nothing you can do to escape it.

Q: What’s this film about in your opinion?

Kirk: Hmm...if I answer incorrectly... What’s this film thematically about? It’s funny because we didn’t want it to be a metaphor for Americans not being able to assimilate to Japan. (laughs) I told Shimizu-san he will single-handedly wipe out fifty percent of the tourist industry of Japan with this film. Lost in Translation makes it a quaint place to visit, but you’ll run away screaming from your travel agent when they suggest coming to Tokyo. As far as bigger themes, I don’t know if there are bigger themes. The Grudge is borne out of an awful event and the anger that lingers long after the event and spreads like a virus - you guys have all probably heard that line. I think Shintaro’s right - you’re not a bad person, you’re not a dumb teenager walking into the wrong place. The "grudge" will get you and like a virus, it’s indiscriminatory.

We finished up with Kirk and Shimosawa and sat back down to watch some more shooting. The extension of the scene we had seen earlier ended up being the primary focus of the evening’s shooting as through numerous rehearsals and takes, Maria went to her closet, brought down a box of photos of her late husband, walked them back into the breakfast room and set them on the table. Karen then sat down at the table and began flipping through them (to explain what she was looking for is spoilerific, so don’t ask). Maria takes one photo in particular and looks at it, but Karen keeps flipping through the photos.

Something spooks her and she stands up, walks over to some shelves and picks up a framed shot of Maria and Karen and a knowing, somewhat horrified look of realization passes over her face.

What’s interesting is what changed through the rehearsal process, mainly how the two cameras would pick it up (we watched on video monitors). Maria’s dialogue was ever so slightly changed every other take. The way Karen walks to the table and takes the photograph up changed and so on. At one point, to amuse the press or whoever might’ve been looking at the monitors, Sarah would stick her tongue out at the camera and smirk seductively at the end of each take for a second after Shimizu-san called "cut" (when he was finished with a scene, instead of "cut - print," the cry was, "okay!").

As it was a dramatic scene, they spent a lot of time working on nailing it just right. During a break to change the angle of the camera, Blasi walked over to say "hello" and chat.

Q: Can you give a little set-up to the scene we’re seeing filmed here?

Rosa: Yeah, pretty much in the opening scene, I’m how my character is probably the whole movie - fresh-faced, married to Bill Pullman, probably a completely different character than what you see in this scene. Obviously her life has gotten a lot rougher and that’s reflected in how I look, how the apartment looks and how I act. What has happened to Bill in the opening scene has hardened me. I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell you...

Q: We know Bill jumps out the window.

Rosa: Oh, great! Way to ruin it for everyone! So, basically that’s what happened and she’s come to me looking for answers and I’m not really wanting to bring up the past and that’s what that scene is about.

Q: Can you talk about what it’s like to work with Shimizu-san and how different it is from working on an American production?

Rosa: Yeah. I’ve never gotten direction through a translator before, but he seems to have a great sense of humor in English, so I wonder how much... (laughs) The other day he said, ’I want you to act like Robocop!’ I looked at the translator and he went, ’I’m kidding! I’m kidding!’ So yeah, it’s different like that, but I have an enormous respect for him especially based on....they gave me Ju-On and when I hear about what the budget was and the fact that he shot two movies in nine days, it’s unheard of. I expected the quality to be bad. I expected it to look like it had been shot in nine days and I was floored by what great quality it was, what great direction, the shots how they were set up - if I hadn’t gotten the background information on the film, I would never, ever have known.

Q: Do you have a sense that this is moving faster than films are made in the U.S.?

Rosa: Yes, oh, yes. It’s moving a lot faster than films in the U.S.

Q: Do you like that?

Rosa: Yeah, I like it. I like it especially because - this last scene we did a few times - but sometimes we’ll just do things in two takes. Most times, we’ll do things in two takes. I like that. On my television show we’re doing eleven pages a day, so for us to be doing 1 to 5 is slow, but I like it - especially when I have dialogue in the scenes. Yesterday, when I just had to give looks and stuff in two takes, I got sent home before breakfast!

Q: In the scene, you’re talking about talking with the police and investigators, so what can you tell us - if anything - does your character know about the supernatural elements of the story and what were the investigators hired to find out?

Rosa: Well, it was three years ago when the ’accident’ had happened and I tried to uncover and investigate myself why I had this perfect, wonderful, happy marriage - we’re talking about having children the night before - and the next thing I know, he’s jumped off a balcony. It doesn’t make any sense. Because there’s no rhyme or reason, they’ve probably investigated me to see if I pushed him off and I probably wanted to find out what I could at the time.

Q: Did you ever make a supernatural connection to it?

Rosa: I think I’m the only person in the film not in a horror film. I don’t think I’m in a horror film - I think I’m in a drama. I really believe that!

Q: Have you and Sarah as American actors working with a Japanese crew talked about the differences therein?

Rosa: Well, she yelled at me the first day because I was wearing shoes on a Tatami mat. She’s like, ’Take your shoes off!’ I was like, ’Oh my God! Why?’ I had just gotten off a plane and she was screaming at me. The only thing we talked about was she was like, ’Just so you know, he shoots really fast. Sometimes we have to ask him for rehearsal and then he’ll do two takes.’ I was like, ’I’m glad you gave me the warning, so I’ll be prepared for that.’ He is so smart, he has it set up in his head how he’s going to edit it, so he doesn’t want to do coverage. Most directors are like, ’Just for safety in case this doesn’t work out,’ and he’s like, ’I know how I’m going to edit it. What do you want from me? I don’t need for you to do it that way, because I’m not going to use it!’ So, it’s more like that - not wearing shoes on set. You walk around most sets in America and there’s all these big, burly crew men and they’re not wearing sandals and socks. So, that’s different. It’s more like, I yawned and she said, ’Cover your mouth!’ Things that are considered rude here as she’s been here longer and miraculously picked up the language. She’s a freak of nature. So, that’s the difference.

Q: In terms of performance, do you two have a code you two have when working with the director?

Rosa: No, no. He’s really open to communication and we’ve been communicating with him. If there is a tendency for him to want to move on, we’ll be like, ’Please, please - do one more take.’ When he thinks it’s okay, he’ll say, ’Okay!’ and you see a hundred crew members jump and start taking down lights. And Sarah did say before today, if you want to do another take, you have to say, ’Wait, wait, wait, wait!’ immediately, because in ten seconds, everything will be demolished. So, it’s more like keep up or get up.

With that, Rosa went back onto the set to keep shooting. We were told that we’d be getting Shimizu-san soon. We settled in, the production ordered pizza for us (two Domino’s pizzas cost $50 - holy shitzu!) and kept watching the shoot...

Tomorrow, check back for Part 2 of our Grudge set report with the rest of our first day on set, a chat with director Shimizu-san and then our next morning with our first Bill Pullman sighting and a interview with producer Taka Ichise. Check back later in the week for Part 3 when we interview - one-on-one - stars Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jason Behr. On top of that, don’t forget to also check out Part 1.5, a look behind-the-scenes at Toho Studios, longtime home to those giants of Japanese filmmaking, Akira Kurosawa and Godzilla!