By Sophia Watson
Written and directed by Brit, Abner Pastoll, Road Games follows Jack (Andrew Simpson), a down-and-out Englishman who, after a disastrous summer trip, finds himself hitchhiking through the sun-drenched rural French countryside with nothing but his British passport and free-spirited French femme, Veronique (Josephine de La Baume). Unaware of dangers that are plaguing the roads, they try without much success to get home…which is where Barbara Crampton comes in. The veteran horror actress – who fittingly made her big screen debut in Brian De Palma’s Body Double, before going on to appear in gore-blasted classics like Re-Animator and From Beyond, and modern genre flicks like You’re Next, Lords Of Salem, and We Are Still Here – plays Mary, who (along with her menacing husband, Grizard, played by Frederic Pierrot), instantly sets this already unconventional and off-kilter horror film further off-balance…
Road Games relies mostly on the chemistry and depth of the characters themselves, and how they react to one another. What was that dynamic like?
“It was challenging and fun and interesting. I liked the idea of a close group of characters in the movie, and it was fun to provide the audience with continually changing clues that point you in different directions each time. The role of Mary was particularly challenging, because I was mainly responding to others, rather than making the action happen. That required a lot of stillness and listening – and while it was fun, it relies on you to be completely present. My character is really at the mercy of my co-star’s characters. I very much took my cues from Frederic Pierrot. His character is quite menacing, but off-camera, he’s very silly and funny.”
The film cuts between French and English quite bit…was that challenging?
“It wasn’t too challenging for me. I had actually taken French in high school, so it wasn’t too bad. I had known that I was doing the role about a year-and-a-half before we started shooting, so I had time to learn and prepare. I also have a French-speaking friend who I asked to help me work on my accent. We had consultants on the film who helped me with pronunciation and accent too, but Abner [Pastoll] was okay with it not being perfect, because he had written my character as an American who married a Frenchman, so my character’s French was a reflection of that dynamic. Only about 30% of my lines were in French, so it wasn’t too difficult. But it was important that Mary speak French, because of how the characters all related to each other. It was fun to work on that part of my character, and it was a great device in the film. For example, what is said in front of Jack is often in French, so things are kept from him and he is left to infer and draw conclusions about the people around him without having all the information.”
The film was both written and directed by Abner Pastoll. What was the process like in developing your character with him?
“We spoke a lot by Skype. Abner lives in London, so there were a lot of Skype sessions, and a lot of back and forth on email, so by the time that I arrived, I had a good handle on the character. The characters are so well-written and developed; how the audience journeys through the film really rests on these characters, so they were very layered and complex. Abner’s vision was very strong. But having said that, he was very collaborative – he listened to our ideas and our feedback about our characters that came up as we were playing them, while still preserving his vison.”
Could you share an example of when you had an idea or a feeling about your character that you worked with Abner to include?
“It was lots of little moments, like for example, my character is an artist, and there’s a scene where Jack and I are walking up the stairs and there were some mannequins in the hallway as they’re walking by, and I suggested that maybe Mary should put a sweater over one of the mannequins to highlight Mary’s character. Mary and Grizard collect odd things and they have strange things in their house. I wanted to bring more attention to that, to say and suggest things about our characters that we weren’t saying ourselves.”
The subject matter of Road Games is pretty heavy. How did you cope emotionally with the weight of your character?
“Mary is very stressed and nervous – rightly so when we discover why. Without giving too much away, I had to continually keep her circumstances in mind and live that fear and anxiety that Mary was going through. It was challenging, but at the end of the day, we would all go back to the hotel and have a big glass of wine (or two!) So, it wasn’t too gruelling. The process was very balanced.”
The horror/thriller genre is traditionally unkind to its women, but you’ve given your characters a lot substance…
“I’ve definitely tried to play stronger women, and women that carry the action – even if they didn’t on paper, I would try and inject that quality, especially with Re-Animator and even more recently with We Are Still Here [2015] and You’re Next [2011]. But again, in Road Games, my character has this intensely nervous quality – and that’s actually harder for me to play, because I’m naturally an outgoing person. It’s my instinct to want to help people and to action, so to play a character that isn’t primarily like that is challenging to me. As an actress too, I want to infuse that strength in my roles and give my characters some smarts. It’s good to play the opposite of what the writer has written so that there’s layering – and that’s real life. Everyone has all qualities and characteristics; some are more obvious and dominant than others for whatever reason, but they are still there. No one is ‘just nervous’ or ‘just happy’, so you have to look at a character from an overview: what are their strengths? Their weaknesses? What are their flaws? This is what makes a full and well-rounded character. I really enjoy playing characters that have strength, because a lot of women in horror/thriller movies – not all, but a lot – are positioned so that generally the men are the ones taking charge, and to keep the integrity of the scream queen legacy, my characters are responsibly participating as strong figures.”
How has the whole experience of Road Games been for you?
“It takes a long time to get a film together. I had spoken to Abner three years before the project really began, and before that even, he had been writing and developing the idea for quite a while. Then there are ups and downs throughout the process. They had problems with the financing, and they had lost some of that money for a while, but then they recovered it. Then there’s the actual making of the film, and the subsequent film festivals that go after that…it’s an intense endeavour. It has been a real labour of love and a wonderful journey from beginning to end, and I’m so proud of what we have ended up with.”
Road Games is available on DVD from April 20.
