You Won’t See Robert Patrick’s Favorite Scene From ‘What Josiah Saw’
Right from day one of shooting What Josiah Saw, Robert Patrick says he knew the stakes were high.
In the title role, he’d have to play the kind of vicious and volatile patriarch that you might expect to meet in a Southern Gothic psychological horror film set on a farm in Oklahoma. He’d also be starring opposite Scott Haze—who plays Josiah’s subdued son, Thomas, and “was so into character,” Patrick says, “that I was like, ‘You can’t let this kid down. You gotta get in there and go for it.'”
The cast and crew ran wild with the energy on set—so much so that some (eventually deleted) scenes went even further than the disturbing material that’s in the final cut. And one of those unused takes, in which Josiah torments his daughter Mary (Kelli Gardner), happened to be Patrick’s favorite to shoot.
“The most fun I had was chasing Kelly around upstairs from bedroom to bedroom,” Patrick said ahead of yesterday’s screening of What Josiah Saw at the Fantasia Film Festival. “There was some pretty bizarre stuff going on. But Kelli endured!”
Watch the whole conversation below:
“There’s a stinger at the end of the movie that we cut—a shot of Robert literally chasing the camera—and it was really terrifying,” adds director Vincent Grashaw. “That just goes to show what the energy was while shooting. The movie’s heavy and we took it very seriously, but everyone had so much fun.”
ALSO READ: ‘What Josiah Saw’ Review – A Disturbing Portrait of Generational Trauma
Gardner says that another deleted scene delved even deeper into Mary’s trauma. “Scott and I had a scene where they tormented me a little bit,” she explains. “We played back the footage and we were like, ‘We cannot show this.’ You think you saw fucked up stuff? We cut some of it out! I was wrestling with Scott for a whole four hours on the stairs. It was exhausting; I had so many bruises and I could not walk the next day. But it was fun! It’s like how I felt when I was a child on the playground.”
Whenever the cast and crew would watch the playback together, Grashaw says that they’d howl with laughter and excitement. Cinematographer Carlos Ritter would jump on his back when they’d wrap each day. “That’s what it’s about,” he says. “When you’re making movies you’re having the time of your life.”
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