By Kevin Finnerty
Kristen Connolly stars in the new horror movie The Cabin in the Woods playing the key role of Dana, the “good” girl of the group of friends staying at a remote cabin where cell phones don’t work, creepy stuff like devil worship artwork is stored in the basement, and strange things rise out of the ground. I caught up with her during the press junket and had a chance to ask her about the making of the film.
What can the audience expect when they see Cabin in the Woods?
Kristen Connolly: “I don’t think you can expect anything because the movie is full of so many twists and turns, any expectations you have going in are going to be wrong or turned on its head. What you can know is that it’s a horror movie like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It’s nothing you could ever expect from a horror movie. It’s really funny and I think it’s a real roller coaster ride.”
Tell us about your character, Dana.
Kristen Connolly: “Dana is just a regular college kid who has a really great group of friends that mean the world to her, and she gets placed into a crazy situation and handles it the best way she can by just flying by the seat of her pants.”
How was it auditioning for the part and getting to read such an original script?
Kristen Connolly: “When I went in the first time I had not read the script and didn’t know anything about it, which is kind of a hard thing to do when you’re auditioning for a movie…to not know anything about the story, it’s like going in blind. And even the scenes they gave me to read were fake – none of them were in the movie. All of us had the same situation. We all had crazy scenes. I think I was running from pterodactyls. Yeah, [Chris Hemsworth] and I had a scene where we were running from a pterodactyl. Fran, [Kranz] who plays Marty, had a scene where he was running from the Clickity Klack man.”
What was it like working with Joss Whedon? Was he on set much?
Kristen Connolly: “Joss is a wonderful guy. He wrote and produced the movie. He was around and on set for most of the filming of the movie. He’s really smart and funny. He sort of inspires a work ethic in people, and just being around him you want to do your best work.”
What was the hardest obstacle you and the rest of the cast experienced during the making of the film?
Kristen Connolly: “The biggest obstacle we faced was probably on the very first day of shooting. We were supposed to shoot a scene at a gas station outside; it’s supposed to be summer and we got hit with a blizzard. We were told it never snows in Vancouver. That it won’t snow even though every TV weather report said it was going to snow. And we’re looking it up online and every report on line is saying snow and everyone is guaranteeing us, ‘Oh no, it will never snow.’ Sure enough, we woke up the next day to go shoot the scene and it looked like Christmas morning. [Laughing] We had to drive an hour away and we were all like, ‘I know they said it doesn’t snow but that sure looks a lot like snow to me.'”
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The Cabin in the Woods hits theaters on Friday, April 13, 2012.
