Insidious Chapter 2 – Q&A with Jason Blum, Leigh Whannell, Patrick Wilson, Lin Shaye, Barbara Hershey and James Wan
Steve Barton
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Hot on the heels of yesterday’s Insidious Chapter 2 set visit, we now have a Q&A for you to dig on! Check it out!
Jason Blum: (kicking things off) How did the story come about for part two?
Leigh Whannell: Um, well the first film made some money and then you said write a sequel (laughs). Well, it’s hard to go into the usual answer of what’s different about this without ruining anything. What’s different about it is it’s a continuation of the first film; it picks up from where the other one left off and it’s the second half of the first film.
Question: So this one goes into the past a bit, lending itself a Godfather Part II feeling?
Leigh Whannell: Yeah, with the first film there was this single driving force they were trying to fix and this film is bigger than that.
Lin Shaye: Part two is also a bit of a murder mystery as well, which I thought was a wonderful addition to the story; in addition to being supernatural, it’s also trying to solve this crime too.
Patrick Wilson: Because we established the rules and you have to assume not everyone has seen the first one, you’ve got those little nods of like, this is where we go, and this is what happens, because we had done all of that.
Selfishly, for me, it was exciting because at the end of the first one, my character has done what he’s done so now it’s either he gets cured or he’s fighting his way back; clearly, there’s a duality of “what happens to Josh” here and it feels like an adult drama gone wrong with a supernatural element. Probably even more so here because of the presence of Barbara a bit more; it’s not just a clashing of the husband and wife, but of the son and the mother. It’s exciting to play and explore and with the two movies Leigh has written, we get the language and world we’re in.
Leigh Whannell: One of the interesting things about the first Insidious is just the reaction from people; the first half of the film sets up a fairly traditional haunted house film and it’s really well done. Then it starts to go into “The Further” and these outlandish concepts; James and I have noticed the film is fairly polarizing, because we’d always hear, “The film was great up until this point.”
We always said, when we were doing press for the first film, we want to throw everything and the kitchen sink with these crazy moments; we could not have made the first half of the film for the whole movie. We kind of liked that it descended into chaos and what’s interesting about the sequel, everyone knows that about the movie – The Further and these crazy ideas – these are already established–
Patrick Wilson: Or you and Angus (laughs).
Leigh Whannell: Yeah, people would be like, “The movie is great until the Ghostbusters show up!” (laughs)
Jason Blum: That was me; I was wrong. Leigh, the movie is great but you have to cut yourself out (laughs). But I have to tell my story a little bit better and properly give Leigh credit. I saw Insidious at James’ house and I loved it, I thought it was scary, but I said to Leigh, “There’s just too much Specs and Tucker.” Leigh was a huge sport about it and James cut it down a bit.
Leigh Whannell: Like a true Hollywood producer, I believe you were like, “You’re too good in the movie; you’re too funny.”
Jason Blum: Yeah, we screened the movie before a test screening and the best reaction we got was for Specs and Tucker and I asked them to put it all back in the movie (laughs).
Question: Barbara, we’ve learned that there are going to be flashbacks to your character when she was younger; did you work with Jocelin Donahue at all (who plays your younger self) to help her find the character?
Barbara Hershey: Yeah, we got into a conversation but I don’t think I had to tell her much. The script was really good and I just supplemented it for her.
Patrick Wilson: She just gave her a copy of the first one and said, “Watch this!”
Barbara Hershey: Yes, copy me exactly (laughs). But of course, she was great.
Lin Shaye: It was interesting for me because when they said they were finding actors to play us young, the idea of me being objectified- well…As an actor, I spend a great deal of effort to never objectify myself because I can’t look at myself and to all of a sudden see James go, “Yeah, we need someone a little bit quirky like Lin,” I’m thinking, “Oh my God, what do I do?” It was interesting to have that element added. But I think both actresses definitely embodied a feeling of who we both are and they did a good job.
Question: James, what was behind your decision to come back for a sequel?
James Wan: I had such a good time working with these guys on the first one. Leigh and I always joke that the first Saw where we shut the door with Jigsaw that it was the end of that film, you know? For this one, we had other plans and ideas with it so we thought we’d see how the first Insidious goes and if we had the chance, we’d pull out that second storyline we had in mind and continue on from there.
Question: Is this a tighter production than the first Insidious where you have 25 days to shoot?
Jason Blum: Honestly, this is like Transformers compared to the first one; the first one was 20-21 days and we have a few more resources this time.
James Wan: It still has that same indie spirit as the first film and I think keeping it in line with the first film is the right spirit.
Question: James and Leigh, what keeps your creative partnership fresh?
James Wan: I try to get away from him actually (laughs).
Leigh Whannell: I don’t know; I guess when you have the same things going on and similarities with the same stories exciting you, we’re pretty in sync with one another when it comes to the horror stuff. We’ve spent years telling ghost stories together and because film is a collaborative medium, you’re going to end up working with a lot of people. But I think, for me, it’s been really great to work with James. Someone to–
James Wan: Bounce ideas with.
Leigh Whannell: Yeah, bounce ideas back and forth.
Lin Shaye: And they’re both good listeners as well as talkers; I see that in you two, you spark ideas in one another.
Barbara Hershey: And there’s trust.
James Wan: But it’s strictly platonic (laughs).
Question: So James, what keeps you coming back to the genre?
James Wan: So yeah, I think I sort of just fell into it because my first film out of the gate was financially successful. I definitely do want to do something different; this might be my last horror film.
Jason Blum: James!
James Wan: For now.
Question: So are you closing this off to Chapter 3 then?
Jason Blum: We’re not even done with Chapter 2 yet; we can’t think that far ahead.
The famed horror team of director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell reunite with the original cast of Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye, and Ty Simpkins in Insidious Chapter 2, a terrifying sequel to the acclaimed horror film, which follows the haunted Lambert family as they seek to uncover the mysterious childhood secret that has left them dangerously connected to the spirit world.
Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions is producing (with Alliance financing). FilmDistrict will distribute the film theatrically in the United States, with Sony handling the majority of domestic ancillary rights. Alliance will distribute in Canada, the U.K. (through its Momentum Pictures subsidiary), and Spain (through Aurum); and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions will distribute in all other international territories.
Be sure to “like” the original film by visiting the Insidious Facebook page, and follow along on Twitter at @InsidiousMovie.
Look for it on Friday, September 13th! Stay tuned for more as it comes.
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