Actress RADHA MITCHELL in THE CRAZIES

Written by Joseph B. Mauceri

Thursday, 25 February 2010

A FEARS Exclusive Interview Sheriff David Dutton (OLYPHANT) and his wife, Dr. Judy Dutton (MITCHELL), live in a small midwestern town and suddenly find themselves battling for survival when a mysterious toxin in the water transforms everyone exposed into mindless killers in THE CRAZIES. Breck Eisner directs this terrifying reinvention of the George A. Romero horror classic from a screenplay by Scott Kosar and Ray Wright. Starring opposite actor Timothy Olyphant, playing Sherrif Dutton, is actress Radha Mitchell. Mitchell has been seen in such films as “Silent Hill,” playing the lead role opposite Sean Bean; “Finding Neverland,” opposite Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet and Dustin Hoffman; “Man on Fire,” starring Denzel Washington; “Phone Booth,” alongside Colin Farrell; and “Pitch Black,” with Vin Diesel. Her other recent film credits include “When Strangers Appear,” with Josh Lucas; “Dead Heat,” opposite Keifer Sutherland and Anthony LaPaglia; Woody Allen’s “Melinda and Melinda,” with Will Ferrell; “Nobody’s Baby,” opposite Gary Oldman and Skeet Ulrich; Rodrigo Garcia’s; and “Mozart and the Whale,” opposite Josh Harnett. Radha Mitchell, who plays Dr. Judy Dutton, the sheriff’s wife and the town doctor, found the films premise chilling. “Generally the threat in a film like this is coming from outside,” she said. “In this case, the story is set in a small town where everybody knows everybody else, and the threat is everybody around you. Taking what’s familiar and making it unfamiliar is always an interesting tactic.” FEARSmag had the chance to talk with Ms. Mitchell about her work on THE CRAZIES, as well as her feelings on the contagious aspects of the film and her career. FEARS: You have quite a few films to your credit, and a good share are genre/action films like “Silent Hill,” “Rogue,” “Phone Booth,” and “The Surrogates.” Is there a bit more of an edge to genre films that attracts you to them? RADHA MITCHELL: I think that someone actually pointed that out to me. I sort of have an instinct for projects that are a bit left of field. I do think that in independent or genre films there’s a space to write some interesting female characters that don’t always appear in the mainstream. I also like some of these writer/directors who come up with these kind of insane ideas. They really get to explore the fantasy aspect of film, particularly in the genre. That’s always attractive to me. FEARS: In regards to THE CRAZIES, it is a remake but what attract you to this retelling? RADHA MITCHELL: I was in India at the time, working on another project, when I received the script. Then I spoke with Breck (Eisner), the director, but at that stage I really hadn’t a lot of time to read over the material and he need an answer quickly. In speaking with him he did say that he was going to go far with the effects, which I thought the story kind of needed. He felt there should be this restraint in the performances that would polarize that. I thought that it would be interesting to watch. I really like the relationship between the husband and the wife, and the idea of these two adult characters in a horror movie on the run as a couple was intriguing to me. The fact that she is pregnant and there is this idea of the family unit, what that represents and how far people will go to defend it, was very interesting to me. FEARS: You’ve had the opportunity to work with some great leading men like Bruce Willis, Sam Worthington, Colin Farrell, and Denzel Washington, to name a few. In THE CRAZIES you star opposite Timothy Olyphant, and I’ve been a fan of his since “Deadwood.” What kind of energy does he bring to his performance and how does that allow you to create your performance? RADHA MITCHELL: He is a very energized and passionate actor. He is committed to all the roles that he plays and I think you can see that in all of his performances. Obviously he is very good looking and it’s always fun to act with someone who is cute. But… he has this macho quality that I think you need to have for these action roles. At the same he is this good-looking guy so he has both these qualities going for him. You need that especially for a role like this. As a person, he’s also this lovely man, a family man, and just a good person. FEARS: This reworking of the original film’s themes takes elements to new extremes. As you were working on the film do you feel it might have changed your thoughts on germs and germ warfare? RADHA MITCHELL: It is interesting, while we were shooting the movie Swine Flu was just coming into the media. They were talking about how they didn’t know where it was going to go in the world or how it might mutate. It was certainly very topical. It’s amazing how these things spread. The other day I was having lunch with a friend who had a cold and then two days later I got sick. Then there is this horrible story where I went to a friend’s dinner party a few nights back and she cook some food and eight people went down within 24 hours. They were throwing up and one went to hospital. It’s just amazing how fast these things can spread. That’s a reality and the movie alludes to that in an obvious way. What’s also very interesting is that part for the campaign the project, Participant Films, one of the producers of the film, are encouraging people to participate in an action to get their senators to make chemical plants safer. Apparently there are some 300 hazardous chemical plants that are high risk and are putting something like 100 million Americans at risk if anything were to happen at one of these plants. It’s great when a movie can encourage you to do something to make the world a better on some level. FEARS: Given the physical demands of the films you’ve appeared in like “Rogue” or “The Surrogates,” does THE CRAZIES match up to or exceed the level of action you’ve need to do in your previous films? RADHA MITCHELL: Well, I’m always hoping for more physical roles! For the most part I’m usually cast in these normal roles but I want to play the superhero, especially if you’re going to be in an action movie. I did get to do a fair amount of action with Bruce Willis in “The Surrogates” and that was fun. In this movie I get to fight a bunch of the crazies and shoot one of them. For me, those are the highlights of the film. However, these movies always feel more real when you characters that are not super human in them. You have to create a reality to it. Those are the fun scenes. FEARS: Given the wide scope of the characters you’ve played and some of the action that you’ve had the opportunity to do, and now taking on lethal hordes of maniacs in THE CRAZIES, is their a role you’ve yet to tackle that you’d like to? RADHA MITCHELL: Hum, well I recently played a character in a tv pilot, and I’m not sure what’s happening with that yet, and that is the kind of character I would like to play if it comes up again. It’s kind of like a “La Femme Nikita,” a Luc Besson type of movie. It’s a chick with a gun, wearing heels, under duress and having to murder people. That to me is an interesting, complicated, fascinating character and I would like to play something like that again if that arises. FEARS: So until that role comes across your desk, what can fans be on the look out for in regards to your acting? RADHA MITCHELL: There is a movie that I produced and we shot it in Calcutta, India. It’s opening in Australia in the next couple of months and I not sure what’s going to happen with it here in the States. It’s a movie called “The Waiting City” and it’s a really interesting little piece, written and directed by Claire McCarthy. LINK THIS ARTICLE

 

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