There’s no sleep walking through anything. Nicholas McCarthy: Taylor is a very serious actor. What was it like seeing her go from that dark comedy role to this horror mother role? Josh Weiss: Everyone knows Taylor Schilling from Orange is the New Black. He began to call this "the comfy stare" because I guess it was comfortable on his eyes. One of those characters was just working with him to relax his body and relax his eyes because I saw that if he just remained very still and didn’t blink, but didn’t have any kind of tension in his body, there was something eerie about it. What I did with Jackson was essentially work on what became three different characters for him to switch in and out of. Nicholas McCarthy: There is a lot of preparation and a lot of rehearsal, and I would communicate with his mother who would run lines with him when he was back in their hotel room. Josh Weiss: You basically just answered this, but did he need many pointers on set? He really is an actor in every sense of the word, and he becomes an arsenal of these other characters right before your eyes when the camera’s on. at that moment that there was absolutely no one else more appropriate for the role. He walked in the room and sat down and was just a regular wiggly little kid with a smile on his face and then I asked him, "Ok, are you ready?" He said, "Yes" and then I just watched him transform into this character.
#THE PRODIGY FILM MOVIE#
So, I began to send emails to his mom and dad to give Jack notes on his performance, and I had him audition several times that way.Īnd finally, he came to Los Angeles for his final audition and I wrote a special version of the hypnosis scene in the movie for him-sort of like a PG-13 version of it. His mother and father sent in his audition from where they live and I immediately saw there was something to him, but we needed to work together. He was just another of hundreds of kids who self-taped auditions for the role. Nicholas McCarthy: It was hard for me to imagine him delivering what is probably a much more three-dimensional performance as Miles. Josh Weiss: Did you see Jackson Robert Scott in It: Chapter One before casting him? The influence on The Prodigy wasn’t the stuff in Linda Blair’s bedroom when she’s possessed, it’s the first half of as Ellen Burstyn is dealing with her child who’s sick. I do rewatch it on a fairly regular basis every couple of years and there were moments in The Prodigy that I directly drew from The Exorcist, but not the scenes that maybe that film is most famous for. I’m helpless to the impact that movie had on me. I think you’re gonna helpless to being influenced.
Nicholas McCarthy: The Exorcist will always been an influence. Did those influence you or did you want to avoid repeating what’s come before in the creepy kid genre? Josh Weiss: I definitely picked up Exorcist and Omen vibes when watching the movie. As soon as I read it that first time, I went from saying, ‘Oh, this is fun’ to then saying to myself, "Oh gosh, I gotta make this movie, because of where it goes."
It wasn’t a movie that ends with an exorcism and a bunch of flashing lights-it went to someplace that felt more real to me. The script had this kind of dark sense of humor and then it just went into this very shocking place and it was really the third act that got me. When I read Jeff Buhler’s script, he found this new way into it, which was unexpected.
I think my favorite the original Village of the Damned, which is a kind of classic of the genre. Nicholas McCarthy: I’ve always had an interest in making a horror movie that centered around a kid and there have been so many good ones. Josh Weiss: What drew you to the project in the first place?