Buffy The Vampire Slayer

SET VISIT: THE GRUDGE, pt. 3

3.9.04

By Smilin’ Jack Ruby

And here we are with the third and final part of our coverage (read part one HERE and part two HERE, with a brief diversion HERE) from the Tokyo set of the remake of Ju-On: The Grudge - but actually - we’re coming to you from the Cerulean Tower Tokyu Hotel today where Sarah Michelle Gellar was having a day off from shooting on The Grudge. For Sarah, however, a day off from shooting Grudge means a day "on" doing international press for Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed and chatting with us our motley crew of online reporters.

We spent the morning hanging out on set watching Bill Pullman in action and then interviewing Taka Ichise (see Part 2), but then were whisked back across Tokyo to our hotel. Realizing that we’d be leaving Tokyo the next day, we made all our plans for the evening (Fangoria’s Norman England graciously offered to be our host/tour guide in his neighborhood and take us to his favorite local restaurant and then a coffee bar where we drank kahlua and listened to local music) and ordered some lunchtime room service.

One at a time, we were called into the next room to chat with Sarah. Almost as soon as I finished my lunch, ’twas my turn. As I wandered over, I found the effervescent actress in the midst of slicing a mango for her own lunch. We started out the interview chatting about the high price of fruit in Japan and went from there...

Sarah: ...the grapes are like $22 a box and Ted Raimi dropped one grape and was like, ’Well, there’s $2.50.’ (laughs)

S.J.R.: Have you spent a lot of time with Ted while he was here?

Sarah: As much as I could.

S.J.R.: Had you ever met him before?

Sarah: No, but he’s just a genius character.

S.J.R.: A whacko (this journo has interviewed Ted in the past at a variety of different conventions/functions and can safely report that ’whacko’ is a true and fitting word to describe the multi-talented comedic marvel that is Ted Raimi).

Sarah: Yeah, like a total whacko in the best sense of the word. He’s like a little child.

S.J.R.: Had you seen or heard of the Ju-On series before this started or did they come to you and you have to get up to speed?

Sarah: I have a definite basic understanding of Japanese cinema. I had not seen, in particular, Ju-On. I’d seen Ringu before I’d seen Ring, but Ju-On I had not seen. I’m not sure it’s readily available.

S.J.R.: Well, as a bootleg it is...

Sarah: (laughs) As a bootleg, absolutely, yeah. That’s how I got my copy - where you see all the barcodes and stuff. I got a phone call - I’d been out of town - and they said, ’I know it’s very last minute, but there’s a script and take a look.’ I always say, first mistake - I read it at eleven o’clock at night. Second mistake - I watched the movie when I was done. Don’t do that at night by yourself.

S.J.R.: Was this the completed Susco draft now being used?

Sarah: Yeah, it was Susco’s, but it was definitely a different draft. It’s changed...I’m sure on the internet, you’ve seen earlier drafts as well. I’ve got to learn how to do all that stuff. I’ve got to learn how to read scripts on the internet before. I’d know what I wanted to see beforehand, I’d know how things changed...

S.J.R.: But it’s hell on your eyes scrolling down a hundred-page script online.

Sarah: Yeah, but I read scripts all day long, so it probably wouldn’t be that different. It’d probably be okay for me. There was just something really different there. It was the idea of being part of something that had never been done before. You don’t get those opportunities very often and you don’t get an opportunity like we’ve all had out here.

S.J.R.: Well, this is the fourth different country I’ve interviewed you in...

Sarah: (laughs) I like to get around! Will you be in England in three weeks? I’ll be there in three weeks.

S.J.R.: What’re you up to there?

Sarah: We’re opening Scooby and I have to go to England on my way home from here.

S.J.R.: Is globe-trotting and being exposed to different cultures and work environments something you think helps you as an actress?

Sarah: That’s an interesting question, actually. I think as actors, we’re gypsies at heart. I think we’re nomadic people. For me, I’ve really spent eight years in one place and I got lucky on my hiatus to leave Los Angeles - which isn’t even my home. I’m from New York! I’m still getting acclimated there. I love to travel and I love to be in different places and I love to feel like a local. This is just the ultimate. I live in Japan! I walk in back alleys and they have restaurants where they know me as the customer - the poor ’gaijin’ - that comes in all the time that has a minimal knowledge of nihongo (Japanese). As you can tell, my knowledge is minimal, but I can order my water with no ice, which is the most important thing, but you know, I can’t get past there.

S.J.R.: Shimizu-san is known for carefully building scares as a filmmaker - what has your experience been like with him on how to react to scares and the like as obviously, Japanese horror films work differently than American ones?

Sarah: They’re actually based, in some senses, in a little more reality. In some senses, his shots are a little more artistic, so they’re a little more complicated sometimes and you’re wondering, ’Why am I holding this look?’ I felt that way last night - poor you guys, last night...

S.J.R.: Ah, we were fine.

Sarah: When I realized they brought you there at 2:00 - and I saw this day happening - things are different here. It takes a lot longer to reload. Poor Rosa and I just wanted to get a feel for something and you have to reload the camera for thirty minutes between everyone and I thought, ’These guys better really like us,’ because even I don’t want to sit on set that long. But that last shot of the night was really complicated with the pictures and picking them up and then to be here today, they had to get a hand double, so I was trying to show Chiho - Shimizu-san’s translator’s is actually going to do my hands tomorrow - so we were going over how we were going to pick up the pictures. It was cute, she said, ’Probably in your life you won’t be doubled by a Japanese woman again.’ And I said, ’You know what? I probably will be. I’ve been doubled by a Chinese man, so if I’ve been doubled by a man, I can be doubled by a Japanese woman.’ I digress right now, but the interesting thing was that I was holding the look at these pictures for so long until finally I cheated and just looked - and I realized the camera wasn’t even on me. It had panned off and back down to the picture, to the box, to the other picture and to Rosa. I was like, ’Why am I holding this pose for such a long time?’

S.J.R.: Have you seen anything he’s put together from the beginning of the shoot?

Sarah: Yesterday was only the first day he let us watch playback! I think they were trying to impress you guys.

S.J.R.: To that, he came over at one point and was giving you direction in English - how does that usually work with him giving direction through Chiho?

Sarah: He speaks to me in minimal English. I’m the only person he does that to. I think it’s because I try so hard...you heard them all making fun of them counting yesterday. I skipped a number.

S.J.R.: Oh, that’s what they were all making fun of you about...

Sarah: (laughs) Yeah, when they were all joking when I said, ichi...ni...san...and I went right to roku - I went right to six. I was like, I don’t even count that well in English. I don’t think I should be judged by my Japanese counting. At the beginning, I was just like, ’How the F is this going to work?’ I listened to Japanese when I first got here and everything was... (speaks gibberish Japanese) It didn’t sound like words to me. I could never figure out where one word ended and the other began. I thought, ’How is he going to direct English? How’s he going to be able to say, ’Hit this word’ or ’This doesn’t make sense.’’ As I’ve been here, even the first A.D. was saying, ’I can’t believe your knowledge of the Japanese language (S.J.R. Note: Actually, a number of people commented on how quickly Gellar had picked up Japanese).’ It’s gotten so bad that I used to eavesdrop on conversations with the producers because I could hear certain words and tell what was going on and now they won’t talk around me anymore.

S.J.R.: That’s a compliment!

Sarah: It’s because they know I can figure it out! I realize it’s because I do what Shimizu-san does. I listen for key words that I know, I listen to the inflections in peoples’ voices and I look at the faces. With that combination, I can put together what people are saying. Now, I can’t say anything back. I have to answer in English. But I have my minimal knowledge where I can say to Shimizu, ’I agree,’ ’I don’t agree,’ ’I understand,’ ’That’s perfect.’ It’s really interesting how your knowledge grows.

S.J.R.: In all the trade breaks and such when talking about The Grudge, the wording always comes around to "produced by Sam Raimi" and "starring Sarah Michelle Gellar." As this is an ensemble piece, will you talk about the dichotomy of needing to sell a movie with stars, but the fact that this is a film of multiple storylines and characters?

Sarah: You guys today - I will say one thing about you guys, you all have had really interesting questions today. I’m definitely not answering the same questions twenty times. I have to give you guys props on that (S.J.R. Note: The other two one-on-one’s were conducted by Patrick from SciFi and Eric from Cinescape). That’s interesting to thing about, too, because it feels like an ensemble movie and I have to say - and it probably sounds like such a line to you guys and I’m sure you hear it all the time, but I have never worked with a group of actors that I’ve gotten along with better. You usually have one that’s an odd duck, but I mean, even genius Ted - we literally go out every night. This morning we all talked on the phone because I had to come here, Rosa had to work, Bill had to work, Jason was going to be here. We have one makeup artist still here and we were trying to figure out, ’Well, if we go here for dinner, we can meet here for drinks afterwards.’ And that’s what it’s been like. Maybe I haven’t been on a production where there’s been so few Americans - maybe Lost in Translation was like that with the few Americans that were here - but it’s so nice. Normally, a couple of actors are clique-y and you go out with those actors, but here every night it’s whatever actors are here - all the actors, the American A.D.’s, the American producers, the kiwi hair and makeup and script supervisor - we go out in a group every night and it’s so amazing. I send five pictures a day back to my friends and family and they write back and are like, ’Are you still with those actors?’ I’ve spoken to Clea every day since I’ve been home. I’ve spoken to Katie since she’s been home. It’s just been one of those rare experiences. When they say, oh, The Grudge with Sam Raimi and Sarah Michelle Gellar, it doesn’t feel like that at all. And also, I’ve never met Sam Raimi!

S.J.R.: I was going to ask. Obviously, he’s not here...

Sarah: I heard he may be coming, actually. It could just be one of those rumors, though.

S.J.R.: How many more days do you have? Would you overlap with him?

Sarah: I’m here until the end.

S.J.R.: I know it’s a movie light on effects, but are there any makeup or visual effects you’re involved in?

Sarah: I have a band-aid! Sometimes the band-aid is on and sometimes we do a shot afterwards and the band-aid is off and sometimes the band-aid has to go back on again.

S.J.R.: Is there a continuity person assigned to band-aid duty?

Sarah: Well, that’s one of the really interesting things about Japanese films - there’s no continuity person. The first day I get on set - this is actually a genius Jason story because it was actually him, not me the first day - I actually had known at the beginning that we were supposed to be responsible for our own wardrobe. And you just can’t ask American actors. Jason gets to set and they’re all like, ’Where’s your wardrobe?’ and he’s like, ’What do you mean?’ and they’re like, ’You’re supposed to come in it!’ Jason was like, ’Oh, shit!’ He had to go back to the hotel and get his own wardrobe. So then that night, we’re done and I’m like, ’Okay, do I get it dry cleaned? Do I bring it back to my hotel and charge it to the UPM’s (unit production manager) room? What do I do?’ I tied my scarf the first day and I didn’t remember how it was tied and I kept thinking, ’God, what color was on the outside?’ I’d never had to do that before. So, they hired some Japanese crew members to do it, but they still haven’t figured it out yet. So, basically my continuity is kept by the script supervisor and my makeup artist, Jane. Now it’s really cute because my wardrobe dresser that they hired and my prop girl - they take pictures on their phones and they pull it up on their phones. But it’s still like, ’Which earrings?’ It’s still all a new experience.

S.J.R.: What do you think of the creepy house they built?

Sarah: How beautiful is that set? I’m one of those actors who still gets impressed by stuff like that. Every time I go on a new set and I get to see it and I waited to see the house because I had two and a half weeks before we started, but I did not look at the set even though my dressing room was the one right there. I feel like a kid every time I see a new set. It gets me really excited. It’s so beautiful. It looks like the original, but it’s not real!

After thanking Sarah, I headed out of the room for a few minutes as they sent the actress down to the Scooby-Doo 2 international press rooms and moved in Jason Behr. Though he was the lead in Roswell, appeared as a guest star on Buffy and was in Alien Nation: Millennium, my path has never crossed with Behr. Unshaven and looking scruffy for his role (and wearing a toque and coat), Behr seemed to really be digging his time afield.

S.J.R.: Will you talk about being one of a small cadre of Americans on a Japanese shoot - something that’s not all that common?

Jason: Well, the first night that I got here, I went out to dinner and it was late at night and I was amazed at the massive expanse of city that they have here. I mean, there’s thirty million people in Tokyo. I’ve never been to a city like that. I think it’s the biggest city in the world. I mean, thirty million fucking people - that’s a lot of people. I was just walking down the street going with the flow of people and there are just so many lights and they had kanji and katakana and hiragana (S.J.R. Note: The different kinds of Japanese and Chinese characters). It was visually beautiful, but I didn’t understand a lick of it. It just looks totally foreign to you. It was very surreal the first night when we were walking through all the people. I’ve gotten more used to it and have been fascinated by the culture and the history.

S.J.R.: As Japanese horror has a lot of cultural roots, do you think learning more about the culture has helped you get into the horror aspects of the film a little better?

Jason: I think that my character, Doug, isn’t so fascinated by Japanese culture. I think it helps me as an actor understand the tone of it all and Shimizu has a very unique an inventive style to his storytelling. It helped me to see his first couple of Ju-On’s to understand what he was going for with this. But my character is a logical-minded person. He doesn’t believe in superstitious events and he has a very scientific explanation for everything. So, in that respect, I didn’t have to do much research.

S.J.R.: So, when he’s faced with the supernatural, it’s much more of a fright for him?

Jason: Karen experiences most of the things in the film and she has to deal with it with him. You see two very different ways of dealing with things. She’s very superstitious, emotional and believes in a lot of these things. He’s very scientifically-minded and is the eyes of reason, so he is just trying to help her deal with this, but also in the same respect, he’s trying to rationalize and explain that everything is going to be okay.

S.J.R.: A new wave of Japanese horror has hit America in the past few years - how familiar were you with it all?

Jason: Ju-On is actually the first Japanese horror film that I’ve seen when they sent me the tape. The moment I saw the way Shimizu told that story in that sort of fractured story-telling, he was always trying to keep you off your game and you never really knew how everything was pieced together and you’re always trying to put the puzzle together. It was very interesting. Visually, he had a different style to him. The moment I saw the movie, I knew it was something I wanted to do.

S.J.R.: What were you first conversations like with Shimizu?

Jason: Sarah and I sat down with him for three hours and went through, piece by piece. He showed us pictures of locations, he showed us where we going to be and what we’d possibly be shooting at that time. He laid that all out for us. The first time, we didn’t get anything on its feet. We didn’t go through actually rehearsing. The first meeting was mostly about talking about stuff. It was more about getting to know each other and what our views were about the character and the story and how that fit in with his views of the story and how he wanted to approach things. The first meeting was mostly just three people talking.

S.J.R.: Do you ever find your way to the big house built on Stage 7?

Jason: I really don’t have anything to do with that at all. It’s mostly...

S.J.R.: Watching Karen go through it?

Jason: Yeah. She is the one who goes to the house and she is the one who experiences all these things. It’s mostly him trying to help her through it. He really is the eyes of reason in the film - the audience’s perspective of it like, ’Eh, I’m not really sure I believe in this.’ Just sort of looking at it from a normal point-of-view. As the more things go on and she’s so convicted in what she believes and what she saw that he kind of starts to believe a little bit of it. But, it’s mostly just trying to help her do things.

S.J.R.: How is it like being directed through a translator?

Jason: It’s interesting because he’s learning a bit more English as we’re learning a little more Japanese. It takes a little bit of time to go from him through the interpreter to us. As the weeks have gone by, I’ve found myself paying less attention to her - if any - and just watching him because he’s very expressive in the way he talks and it’s sort of like we start to have a short-hand with him just by what he’s doing. It takes a little bit of time to go through those channels, but we’ve taught him a little bit of English. We taught him what to say to him after a take - ’Okay, do it again, but suck less!’ (laughs) I think that’s his favorite direction now.

S.J.R.: And it’ll carry on to his next movie to some other poor actor...

Jason: Yeah, who might not get it! He’s got a wicked sense of humor, Shimizu. He’s got a really fantastic sensibility about himself. He’s very funny, he’s very playful and it’s just a blast to be around him.

S.J.R.: Are there ever scares you’re involved in?

Jason: Because the character doesn’t believe in this stuff, it’s been a cakewalk for me. I don’t have to react to that kind of stuff.

S.J.R.: Had you known Sarah before?

Jason: I’ve known Sarah for years now and we’ve worked together before. To be out here with her and to go through all these experiences with her has been just a blast. Nothing, but fun.

S.J.R.: With Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert’s involvement, was that something of an appeal to you as somebody you wanted to work with?

Jason: Sam’s been doing some amazing movies for years now. He knows good stories and good storytelling, which is why he kept Shimizu telling this one. He has a very inventive and unpredictable style about him. I think we as the actors need an interpreter, but I don’t think the audience will.

S.J.R.: How were you cast? Did you meet with Tapert?

Jason: Just the normal acting channels - through agents and managers and the auditioning process.

S.J.R.: I guess the question I’m trying to get at is that obviously Raimi’s been busy with Spider-Man2 and Sarah mentioned that she hadn’t even met Raimi...

Jason: No, I didn’t meet anybody over there. The first time I met Shimizu was when I came out here to Japan.

S.J.R.: How fast a process was it to get started in the movie?

Jason: I think it was right before the holidays when all the stuff went down with the auditions. I didn’t have any idea what was going on with it until afterwards, so it did happen relatively quick with, ’Okay, they want you to go out to Japan.’ But, after seeing Ju-On - the first one and I really loved the film and wanted to be a part of it, which is sort of a risk when you don’t meet the director, especially one where you don’t know how good their English is and you don’t speak Japanese and it’s a very difficult language, but after the very first meeting, I thought, ’This is going to be a great run.’

And that’s our report from Tokyo, Japan and the set of Sony Pictures’ upcoming horror film, The Grudge, directed by Takashi Shimizu and produced by Sam Raimi - set to hit theaters this October, 2004. Much thanks to Sony, the cast and crew of The Grudge and in particular, the unit publicist and Sony’s publicist-in-the-field (we’re not really supposed to mention publicist’s names in reports, but thanks guys) for having us on their set in Tokyo. Thanks also to Iwao Saito, Michael Kirk, Shintaro Shimowasa, Rosa Blasi, Takashi Shimizu, Taka Ichise, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jason Behr for filling us in on the big scoop!