DARK SKIES an Interview with Director Scott Stewart

Coming to theatres this Friday is a film that will have audiences on the edge of their seats with the spine chilling DARK SKIES.

DARK SKIES tells the story of a family living in the suburbs that begin to have strange things happening in their home. It becomes clear aliens have come and the fight for the family to survive begins.

Writer/director Scott Stewart says about making DARK SKIES that instead of making a film that is a global event, he wants to center is around a family and what happens when every day fears give in to extraordinary fears

Knowing this I was pleased to speak with Scott about his film DARK SKIES and get a little deeper into what made him choose this topic, his choice in casting and what makes us love creepy, scary movies so much!

Hi Scott, thanks for talking with me today.

Absolutely.

I read the inspiration for the film, how hard is it to take an idea such as this and say ‘yes, I can make this work’. Taking aliens, spookiness and take your own ideas to make it work.

For me it came from a convergence of a lot of different inspirations. I grew up in Northern California in the late 70’s and early 80’s so I’ve always been partial to family in jeopardy stories and movies about parents and kids. It’s always been special to me so I kind of think the scariest movies; the movies I like the most in terms of scary are the boogieman. In DARK SKIES there are a number of them and they are treated in equal ways. First there is the parental fear of ‘am I being a good parent’ and ‘am I providing in terms of financial needs’ anxieties these days. You can try to do everything right but your underwater with your house or out of a job or highly skilled and can’t get a job. A lot of people feel out of control, like they are being thrown about. You look at the news and see all these things and I think people feel a little helpless. It’s hard not to feel like you are at the mercy of tidal forces, something larger that is bouncing you around. So when you look at it that I way I started looking at fear at the most primal level, particularly in the suburbs, of having a predator being around in the neighborhood. Especially people with children and that was the basis of the feeling that I was looking at which was what if something, say a family that’s very much like a family today with kids and parents struggling with a lot of anxiety and then real strange things start to happen.

You refer to the aliens as “the grey’s” in the film. Did you feel like it was important to focus on the human fears because you keep ‘the grey’s’ pretty much ambiguous?

Yes because that’s what my research has shown me talking to people who have experienced abductions and encounters. If you take them at face value as opposed to someone supplementing another trauma and saying its alien, it’s very psychological. None of the stuff I’ve read is anything like the movies. The aliens just appear and talk in an alien language but happening at the level of nightmares or dreams. Depending on religious beliefs and backgrounds they start out thinking it may be a possession or a haunting and it sort of evolves to a thought of something otherworldly. When you think about it really logically, which ends up getting to a very scary place. If the beings are here, and they’ve been here which is the premise of the movie and they are part of our lives and we don’t realize it. If they’ve got here and managed to go undetected and are so far advanced than we are then we are merely the lab rats and they are the scientists. We can’t understand what they are doing and that’s even scarier!

Thinking of ourselves as being lab rats – wow, not something most people would like to consider. That feeling that we don’t have control.

They are almost a force of nature.

You took an interesting angle in that most movies jump right in with the aliens but in your film they aren’t jumping right in. You set out a path of one thing leading to another.

The movie explores the idea of basically that their fears are being examined then amplified and so what people describe as being scary about the movie is that its very relatable. What happens to the family feels like things that could really happen. It’s a mental breakdown and kids doing weird things and feels all in the realm of the possible instead of the spectacular movie stuff. There is another aspect of the movie and it’s not just what happens to the families but how the neighbors and friends think is happening. That’s another element of fear and anxiety there because they are questioning them and no one believes them.

What do you think draws audiences to scary movies but especially scary movies with the possibility that this could be true?

That’s why I wanted to keep the movie grounded because I wanted them to leave the theatre and go looking at dozen of sites, hundreds of sites talking exactly about things that are related to the movie. It’s just out there and in the world. I think people, particularly going to the movies and in a big group sitting in the dark watching something scary, they like that collective catharsis. They like being scared!

Its fun more with the masses too instead of watching alone.

Its fun by yourself but it can get a little too intense by yourself. There is something satisfying about being in a group. You get to have a thrill and walk away from it.

It’s the “glad it wasn’t me” syndrome right?

This one is a little different because you go home and its very realistic and not a fantasy.

What did you see in actress Keri Russell that you knew this was the role for her to play?

She was my first choice and its rare you every get your first choice and I was lucky she responded to the script. The characters in the movie start to believe what is happening to them at different times and she is the earliest to believe. Her husband, played by Josh Hamilton, is the last to believe so I needed in both of them. With her she is so relatable, she feels very real and totally beautiful but real. People because of her growing up on television and movies you feel like you know her. She is very empathetic, she’s a mother of two and everyone likes her. She has a sense of trustworthy relatability and is very solid. I thought that is a very important quality for her character Lacey to have. To believe what is happening you believe her because she seems reliable. She takes a wild leap and you go with her. With Josh Hamilton I had to make sure you believe he is married to her, doesn’t look like an action hero and I wanted someone that felt as uncomfortable out of his element, as most people would. He is really likeable, warm and funny and that was really important because he is the last person to believe within the family. I wanted to make sure that the audience didn’t dislike him or turn against him. In reality, how long would it take for anyone to believe what is happening in their house? It would have to stare you in the face to believe something that incredible.

Most people see actor J.K. Simmons as this jovial character who can make you laugh and not confrontative father figure. This is kind of different for him?

He’s such an amazing actor if you look at the breath of his roles. He’s more known recently for playing funny characters in bigger roles. He did play the role of a white supremacist in OZ. He has got such an incredible range and he’s a character that is modeled after people who run various websites that I’ve run into during my research. We made a choice that he was someone who has spent too much time in the foxhole and is very, very tired. He wanted to help people and probably gone through the nightmare himself with his family but now lives in a small apartment in the city. The choice was in the script but he committed to this beaten down quality. I didn’t want someone with a British accent or stage actor that’s good at the explanation scenes. Instead J.K. played it so real and effective and yet there is some real emotion there and there is a little bit of funny but its very restrained and he’s so good at it.

So this truly is the perfect cast?

I lucked out here. I also lucked out with the kids. Dakota Goyo who plays the 13-year-old Jesse. We auditioned hundreds of kids particularly for the role of the six-year-old Sam played by Kadan Rockett and everyone bonded as a family. We shot it all in real locations and kind of lived as a family.

It is hard to get kids to play fear since kids have their own set of fears as it is?

The trick is to see what each actor needs to get what you want to get from them to the screen. They were all very talents. What we realized with Kadan being six-years-old, was to get him to be what he really is and that’s a six-year-old. If you just get him to be himself all the other stuff comes through. In the context alone he could be really disturbing and really scary and Keri would look at me and say “ohhhhhhh that’s scary”. We would shoot all his stuff first and point the camera at him first and I wouldn’t even call cut. They would talk to him and role into the scene to get it very real and he gives a very credible performance.

You’ve done movies like PRIEST and LEGION, is that what you like? The good guys vs. the supernatural?

This one is different from those movies and quite a departure visually with a more scary drama. That’s actually more what I’m interested in. This movie is a reaction from making the other movies making it outside the studio system and make a more scarier film in a primal way. DARK SKIES is a little closer to my heart.

Thanks for talking with us and come Friday everyone gets a chance to be spooked out by seeing DARK SKIES.

In theatres this Friday from director Scott Stewart starring Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton, J.K. Simmons, Dakota Goyo and Kadan Rockett along with Dimension and Alliance Films is DARK SKIES.