Q: Dave, CGI in the car sequence?   

Dave Meyers: About 99.9% real. There is no CG at all in it. The only thing that was done was that we broke cameras. I gambled correctly and put the camera right in harms way. So, we shot each sequence with ten cameras. So, four or five of the cameras would be in the other cameras and we had to erase them. It’s kind of just the art of invisibility. There is really only one major CG thing, which was the rabbit, which is pretty much out of the box now, but everything else was the art of trying not to have anything. 

Q: Sophia, how challenging is it to find quality scripts?

Sophia Bush: I think it’s definitely hard to find films of quality that you want to make and particularly even when this script came it’s like; prior to reading it did I really know it was going to be anything other than a typical movie of a scary genre. And as I was going through it did I realize that there was something special here.  Because, not only did that tomboy side of me get to completely freak out and like in my stunt junkie way and do all of these amazing things and watch cars get blown up and watch helicopters fly over our faces and ride around the desert with guns, but there was such a development for this character and a sort of slope for this girl to fall down. And I think that’s it of me is choosing something that gives me some work to do and things that I haven’t done before.  It was something just really very exciting. And the relationships between our characters is phenomenal and real and something that gets overdone in our age range a lot. And to be working with Sean and it was like, ‘Yeah, I want to make a movie with Sean Bean. Totally scary!’  (Laughs.) And it’s so great, because we had a moment in that first sequence, like he says, barely knowing each other and we’re fighting and I’m like, ‘God, this guy is so strong and he has my face in his hand and this is great, this is great.’  And I made some noise that worried him and you looked at me and was like, ‘Are you alright?’  And I was like, ‘OK.’  And you were like, ‘OK!’  And I was like, ‘OK, we’re back in the scene. Beat me up some more.’ 

Sean Bean: You liked that didn’t you? (Laughs.) 

Q: Question for Andrew and Brad – any update on ‘Friday the 13th’? 

Andrew Form: We are working on a script right now. And I think that next year, it’s not in the first two quarters for us, that movie, maybe at the end of the year next year.  But right now we are still working on the screenplay. 

Q: Director? 

Andrew Form: No director yet at all. I mean Jonathan Liebesman is attached to the movie right now, the director of ‘Chainsaw’.  

Brad Fuller: But it really depends on his schedule. He’s got a lot of things rolling around right now. So, if he’s available when we have a script, we’d love to work with him again. We had a great experience with him.

Q: Dave, how did you come to the project and was it something you always wanted to remake?  And Zack, we spoke a little bit last night, can you talk about the cocksock? 

Dave Meyers: The cocksock lives on buddy… Brad, Drew and Michael are big fans of the Hitcher and were sort of circling it and found rights to it. I was circling their operation of sort of being a home for video commercial guys, making that jump to movies. The president of the studio happened ---to a year before do a movie with him. All of these stars sort of aligned. I studied the film and realized like Sophia said, there’s character arcs in there. There is something more special than the typical horror film. It just all sort of worked. And to see a guy with a cocksock. 

Zack Knighton: I always dreamed of wearing a cocksock so it was the perfect marriage of director and actor. 

Q: Sophia, what do you think the fascination with girls kicking ass is? 

Sophia Bush: Sorry I’m still laughing. Okay, I’m good. I’m okay. I think what’s great about is that we’ve seen so many great heroes in men and your iconic with “Indiana Jones” and “Dirty Harry”. You’ve got that and we’re at a point where in our sociology we’ve evolved to realize that women can kick as much ass and want to see it. There’s something that’s a little less expected about seeing the girlfriend end up with the shotgun. It’s exciting and it really gives the guys something to root for, but it gives the girls in the audience something to root for too. You no longer have women being dragged to an action movie by their boyfriend. Couples are going together because they’re both really excited about the film and it’s something I enjoy. I really liked that whole end sequence in the movie. We had a good time with that one. 

Q: How close to the original script did you stay to and how long was the shoot? 

Dave Meyers: Shoot was 44 days. The original script of the remake? 

Q: Your original script of this?

Dave Meyers: The structure of it stayed pretty close. We pretty much improved the whole movie. There was a greenlit draft that had a structure that had certain scenes that are still in the movie.  I think one of the biggest things these movies is creating a believability. Everyday we’d show up and see a block of the scene and go, ‘oh that’s not very real.’ So we’d all go back to our corners and a lot of time it was the cast that would find the soul of it and we’d help guide it. That’s why there is an authenticity in the film. 

Q: Eric Red gets credited on the film. Is that a WGA thing? 

Brad Fuller: We had two writers write on it. Jake Wade Wall and Eric Red. We submitted to the WGA and they came back and gave Eric Red credit. We were surprised by that. We had no idea. That was the last thing we thought would happen actually.  

Q: Any favorite villains of movies past? 

Sean Bean: Other villains? I used to like the old style ones. James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. People like that. It’s quite hard to spring to mind.  I suppose so. Quite rough and ready, no-nonsense gangsters. I tried to play this guy without being too aggressive in a sense. John Malkovich is someone I always admire as a villain. I like him in general, but I think he has an assertive quality about him.  

Q: There was recent talk that they might do a prequel to Lord of the Rings and a movie about The Hobbit? Would you consider coming back if Peter Jackson isn’t involved? 

Sean Bean: Yeah. I don’t know. It’s very much a creation of Peter Jackson. It’s difficult for me to answer that question because I haven’t heard about it. It depends on the circumstances, the many many circumstances. The director, the writing, the whole idea behind it and what they are trying to achieve. 

Q: No one smoked, no one drank, no drugs? 

Dave Meyers: It wasn’t the story of these characters really. There wasn’t a need for it. He talks about drinking beers in one of the scenes. It’s not meant to be conservative. We were focused on other things.

Q: What’s next for all of you? 

Brad Fuller: We are trying to put another picture for Rogue called “Alone”.

Q: An original script?

Andrew Form: An original script. Can you believe it?

Brad Fuller: We start production in a few weeks on a movie called “Horseman”. It’s a thriller.

Andrew Form: In the vein of “Seven” with Dennis Quaid and Ziyi Zhang.

Brad Fuller: Then we’ve talked about “The Birds”. That’s out there. There’s another movie we might do for Rouge. We might do “Near Dark” for Rogue. We love the way Eric Red works.

Q: The Birds still likely to happen?  

Brad Fuller: Absolutely. Yes. In the next two weeks, or the next week or so I think they’ll announce it because they’re starting to talk about a new writer to come on and write that. It definitely feels like it’s moving. 

Andrew Form: And we’re still working on the script for Friday the 13th.

Sean Bean: I’m not really doing anything at the moment. I just finished this film in the artic called “True North” with Michelle Yeoh, but about three characters, but slightly different from this combination. So I’ve been over there for awhile and I’ve been flying around a bit. I’m sick of it so I’m off and looking and just looking at a few things now. Nothing definite.

Sophia Bush: I’m finishing the fourth season of One Tree Hill. We start on hiatus half way through April and so it’s sort of in the next few weeks that we pull things that have started coming together and all the things that will be put together and figure out what pool we feel like diving in for the summer.  

Q: How long do you think One Tree Hill will go for?

Sophia Bush: We never really do and I think it’s hard to say. Depends how long the kids keep watching. How long we keep the teenagers entertained. We’ll see.

Zack Knighton: I’m going to start a job as Sean Bean’s new personal assistant. I am currently in the mix for some things and hoping that something works out and basically hanging out on the west side and surfing. 

Dave Meyers: I’m just waiting for the movie to come out. A lot of with a first time film, people wait to see the film before they decide what want to offer you. A lot of what I have been offered is sort of clones of “The Hitcher” and I don’t really want to do that.  I’m developing a movie called “Witch Hunter”. That will be the A plan if that actually gets greenlit. It’s extremely expensive and I don’t know where it stands, but it’s being read and if that happens then that will be the immediate one. Otherwise, I’ll wait.  

Q: Can you talk about casting? I understand Zach went through a rigorous audition process.   

Dave Meyers: I’ll hand that one to Brad.

Brad Fuller: Zack speficially? With Sophia it was very simple. She was an actress we had heard about and for Drew and myself we get a lot more from sitting down with an actor and actresses then actually auditioning them. That’s how we found Jessica Biel from “Chainsaw.” That’s how we found Jordana Brewster for the other “Chainsaw”. We had heard wonderful things about Sophia and she came in and we just kind of fell in love with her. We just kind of said we’re working on this thing “The Hitcher” and it was early on. When this script was being developed she was the person we had in mind and we kept her up to speed with what is happening with it. It was always Sophia’s movie. By design she fits the bill for us. We thought she was likeable and at the same time can carry thar gun and blow his head off. That worked out. As far as Zack, Zack had a much more torturous process to getting this role.  Zach was a guy who we really wanted to be in the “Chainsaw” that we had just finished. For whatever reason it came down to Zach and this other guy and the other guy got the role. We loved him and you gotta choose an actor, Sophia is really hot and you’ve got to choose a guy who you believe is such a cool guy because she can get any guy she wants. You’ve got to get a guy that’s a real guy’s guy. When you’re casting actors, that was always a real hard thing for us to find, a guy who you believe is going to drive a Ford Oldsmobile 442 and land Sophia and be in those situations. Zach kept coming back. We didn’t want to cut him and we kept on seeing other actors for lack of a better term, bigger names and people who are more well know. Zach, to his credit, doesn’t have many credits. He did one show and that was pretty much it. But, he just kept coming back and every time he came back, he was better and better. At the end of it you can’t think of the role any other way. He was the only guy who nailed it six times. I think you actually did come back six times. How do you not give the guy the role? He kept coming back. No one else had that longevity. 

Zach Knighton: I also happened to be in the habit of drinking beers at the time and I had to drop a few pounds. I actually lost I think I lost 13 pounds in five days

Q: Did you stop drinking beer?       

Zack Knighton: Yeah. I pretty much stopped everything.  I realized that I’m not the pretty boy type that you see in this film and I thought that I’d try to improve myself physically and mentally for the thing. 

Brad Fuller:  For Sean too. It was very simple. For “The Hitcher” we were looking for a Sean Bean type, we didn’t think we’d actually get Sean. We needed this great elegant actor who could play this role. We’d checked on Sean and his dates weren’t working and it wasn’t good. Sean had just worked with out partner Michael Bay on “The Island” and Drew and I went to Michael and said ‘come on let’s get Sean. Let’s try to figure it out.’ We moved some dates around and then his dates opened up and we just got lucky.

Q: There was a rumor online about Naomi Watts being up for The Birds? 

Brad Fuller: No actor or actress is going to commit to everything with a script. We’ve sat down with her and conceptually I think we all want to make the same movie, but until we have a script and a director, I think it’s a little premature. But, we’ll all talking and she’s who we’d like to have as the lead. 

Andrew Form: Yes. 

Q: Dave, what do you like best? 

Dave Meyers: I love movies. Videos, the technical description is you’re marketing the product. That always keeps you sort of removed from the pleasure…I mean there are MTV Awards that sort of fulfill the void, but with movies you are creating the product and you are the product. You’re creating something that is marketed and that allows you to have a much more possesory relationship with it. It’s more true to the directing crowd.

Q: What else do you have planned for the DVD? 

Dave Meyers: I dunno, whatever Brad and Drew let me put on there. There’s a lot of material that we can play with. I think it’d be fun to have that.  We actually have five complete scenes of how we addressed the motel each with their own flaw.

Producers at the same time: and two endings. 

Q: In the rain, when the car comes up? Is that you? Did you enjoy the rain? 

Sean Bean: Yeah, it was quite warm in Austin that time of year. It always feels good to me.

Q: Training to use weapons? 

Sean Bean: Not really. I sort of used weapons a few times before. But they are all the same really. I felt quite comfortable with that. 

Q: Sean any plans to go back to the Sharp series? 

Sean Bean: I don’t know. We did one in India last year called Sharp’s challenge, which was a lot of fun. It would be good to maybe resurrect it one day so long as there is something to talk about. As long as we’re not just going on for the sake of it because it was popular and it was successful.  But I would like to think there is life in it as long as it’s meaningful and we are just not repeating what we did already. It’s particularly, obviously a favorite of mine.
 

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