THE HITCHER PRESS CONFERENCE

Interviews with Sophia Bush, Zachary Knighton, Sean Bean, and producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller
posted by Wilson Morales

January 15, 2007

WELL, ‘THE HOBBIT’ AND A PREQUEL. THERE WERE A COUPLE MORE FILMS.

SEAN BEAN: I don’t know I would — is Bob (?) here?

THERE’S ‘THE HOBBIT’, AND THERE’S ALSO A PREQUEL, A FOLLOW UP TO THE FILM. THERE’S TWO FILMS THAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT.

SEAN BEAN: Yeah? [LAUGHTER] I don’t know. I mean, this is very much the creation of Pete Jackson’s, so it’s difficult — I mean, it’s difficult for you to answer that question, because I haven’t really heard anything about it. But — you know. It would really depend on many, many circumstances. The director, the writing, the — the whole idea behind it, and what they’re trying to achieve.

NO ONE SMOKED, NO ONE DRANK. THERE’S NO DRUG USE IN THE FILM WHATSOEVER IF I RECALL. WAS THAT CONSCIOUS, OR WAS THAT JUST ?

DAVE: Well, it wasn’t the story of these characters, really. I mean, there wasn’t any need for it. And there wasn’t — I mean, he talks about drinking beers in one of the scenes, you know? But it’s not meant to be conservative. It just — we were focused on other things.

CAN YOU GUYS TALK ABOUT WHAT’S COMING UP NEXT FOR YOU? AND WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO PRODUCE. I KNOW YOU’RE WORKING ON THE ‘FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH’ MOVIE. WHAT’S IMMEDIATELY NEXT ON YOUR AGENDA, AS WELL AS ON THE AGENDAS OF DAVE AND THE ACTORS?

ANDREW: You want us to start? You want us to go down the line?

Yeah.

BRAD: We — we’re right now trying to put together another movie for Rogue, something called ‘Alone’, that we’re trying to get together.

IT’S AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT?

ANDREW: It’s an original script.

BRAD: Yeah, can you believe it? [LAUGHTER] We’ll give you the remakes after that.

ANDREW: And we start production on a movie in three weeks called ‘Horsemen’.

WHICH IS?

BRAD: It’s a ?

ANDREW: It’s a thriller in the vein of ‘Seven’, with Dennis Quaid and Xang Xi (?).

BRAD: And then — you know, we’ve talked about ‘The Birds’. That’s out there. There’s another movie that we might do for Rogue. We might do ‘Near Dark’ for Rogue, which we’re very interested in. We love the Eric Red works. And so. [LAUGHTER]

THOSE ARE STILL LIKELY TO HAPPEN?

ANDREW: Absolutely.

BRAD: Yes.

ANDREW: I mean, you know, they’re — 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. So. That definitely feels like there’s momentum. And is there anything else, buddy?

BRAD: And ‘Friday the Thirteenth’, we’re working on the screenplay. Yeah.

SEAN BEAN: I — I’m not really doing anything at the moment. I ?

ANDREW: Which one of ours would you like to do? [LAUGHTER]

SEAN BEAN: I just finished this film, I was just up in Yangtse (?) doing a film called ‘True North’ with Michelle Yao, which is also about three characters, but slightly different from this sort of combination. So, I was up there for a while. And then — flying around a little bit. And so, I’m - probably take a bit of time off, and just looking at a few things now. So, nothing definite at the moment.

SOPHIA BUSH: Just finishing with the fourth season of ‘One Tree Hill’.

THE HIATUS IS A COUPLE OR A FEW MONTHS?

SOPHIA BUSH: Yeah. It’s — you know, we start on hiatus halfway through April. So, it’s sort of in these next few weeks that we pull all the things that have started coming together and all the things that will be being put together, and figure out what pool we feel like diving in for the summer.

HOW LONG DO YOU THINK ‘ONE TREE HILL’ WILL GO FOR? I MEAN, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE LIFE SPAN IS FOR THAT?

SOPHIA BUSH: No. You know, we never really do. And I think it’s hard to say. It depends on how long kids keep watching it, I guess. [LAUGHTER] How long they keep the teenagers entertained. We’ll see.

ZACH: I’m about to start a job as Sean Bean’s new personal assistant. [LAUGHTER]

THAT WILL BE TOP DOLLAR. [LAUGHTER]

ZACH: A lot of football. No, I’m — I’m currently sort of in the mix for some things, and I’m hoping that something works out. And you know, basically just hanging out on the West side and surfing.

DAVE: I’m just waiting for the movie to come out. And then I think — a lot of times with a first-time filmmaker, they wait to see the film before they decide what they want to offer you. And a lot of what I’ve been offered up ‘til now is sort of clones of ‘The Hitcher’, and I don’t really want to do that. And I’m developing a movie called ‘Witch Hunter’ (?) with Donald and New Regency. And that would be the A-plan, if that actually is green-lit. It’s an extremely expensive film, though, and I don’t know where it stands. But it’s being red. And if that happens, that would be the immediate plan. Otherwise, I’ve got to wait.

SPEAKING OF THE NOTES HERE, IT TALKS ABOUT THE CASTING PROCESS BEING UNORTHODOX. DO YOU WANT TO EXPLAIN ABOUT EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS? BECAUSE I KNOW ZACH HAD TO COME BACK, LIKE, SIX TIMES.

DAVE: I’ll hand that one to Brad.

BRAD: Okay. Well, why don’t — which character? You want me to talk about Zach specifically? Because there’s stories for all of them. But, is Zach the one you’re interested in?

ZACH AND SOPHIA BOTH.

BRAD: Well, Sophia, it was very simple. With Sophia, she was an actress who we had heard about. And for Drew and myself, we seem to get a lot more from sitting down with an actor or actress than actually auditioning them. And that’s how we found Jessica Beale for ‘Chainsaw’, and that’s how we found Jordana Brewster, for the other ‘Chainsaw’. And we had heard wonderful things about Sophia, and she came in and we just kind of fell in love with her. And we just kind of said, you know, “We’re working on this thing, ‘The Hitcher’. It was early on. And when this script was being developed, she was always the person who we had in mind. And we kind of kept her up to speed on what was happening with it. So, it was always Sophia’s movie. I mean, that was kind of by design. She fit the bill for us. And we thought that she was likable, and at the same time, you know, she can carry that gun and blow his head off at the end. So, that worked out. As far as Zach, Zach had a much more torturous process to getting this role. And Zach was a guy who we really wanted to be in the ‘Chainsaw’ movie that we had just finished. And for whatever reason, it came down to Zach and this other guy, and the other guy got the role. And we loved him. And you know, it’s — you gotta choose an actor — I mean, Sophia’s really hot. And you gotta choose a guy who’s — you believe is such a cool guy, that he can get — you know, because she can get any guy she wants. But you gotta get a guy who’s like, a real guy’s guy. And when you’re casting actors, that was always a hard thing for us to find. A guy who you believe is gonna drive a four-four-two, and who can land Sophia, and who can be in those situations. And — it was like, Zach kept coming back. And we didn’t want to cut him, and we kept on seeing other actors. For lack of a better term, bigger names, or other people who are more well-known. Because Zach, to his credit, doesn’t have very many credits. He’s got — 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. And by 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.

ZACH: I think sixty-six. [LAUGHTER]

BRAD: And then — after the sixth time, it’s like, how do you not give the guy the role? He kept coming back. I mean, no one else had that longevity.

ANDREW: Tell him what else you did.

BRAD: Oh, yeah. And there was — well, I’ll let you tell them.

DAVE: You tell us that.

ZACH: Well, I also — you know, was — happened to be in the habit of drinking beers at the time. And I had to drop a few pounds. So I actually lost, like — I think it was, like, 13 pounds in five days.

DAVE: Yeah, it was crazy.

SOPHIA BUSH: Did you stop drinking beer?

ZACH: Yeah. [LAUGHTER]

BRAD: He stopped everything, actually.

ZACH: No, I didn’t — you know, I just — I tried — I realized that I’m not the pretty-boy type, and the type that you usually see in this sort of film. And I just thought that — oh, thank you.

SOPHIA BUSH: But you’re not the pretty-boy type.

ZACH: I just thought, you know, I’d try to improve myself physically and mentally, type of a thing.

ANDREW: For Sean, too? Does anybody — I mean, cause for Sean it was very simple. It was like — for ‘The Hitcher’, we were looking for a Sean Bean type. You know, we never thought we could get Sean Bean. Right, you know? Kind of like, this great elegant actors who’s gonna play this role, who’s gonna play this role. And we had checked on Sean and his days weren’t working, and it wasn’t good. And Sean had just worked with our partner, Michael Bey, on ‘The Island’. And I think Drew and I went to Michael and said, “Come on, let’s get Sean. Let’s try and figure it out.” We moved some dates around, and then his dates opened up, and we just got lucky. I mean, that was fortuitous.

THERE WAS A RUMOR ON-LINE A FEW MONTHS AGO ABOUT NAOMI WATTS BEING UP FOR ‘THE BIRDS’. ANY TRUTH TO THAT?

BRAD: Well, you can’t — no actress or actor’s gonna commit to something without a script. I think concept — you know, 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. You know. But we’re all talking — she’s who we’d like to have as the lead. Right?

ANDREW: Yes.

BRAD: Thank you. [LAUGHTER]

ANDREW: Very well said.

BACK TO DAVE. COMING FROM A MUSIC VIDEO WORLD, AND NOW DOING YOUR FIRST FEATURE, WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST?

DAVE: I love movies. No. Videos is a — well, I mean, I guess the technical description, you’re marketing the product. And that always keeps you sort of removed from the pleasure of the — I mean, there’s MTV Awards and stuff like that that sort of fill the void. You know, but movies, you are creating the product, and you are the product. And you’re creating something that is then marketed. And that allows you to have a much more possessory relationship with it. And — you know, it’s more true to the directing craft.

WHAT ELSE DO YOU HAVE PLANNED FOR THE DVD?

DAVE: I don’t know. Whatever Brad and Drew let me put on there. You know? There’s a lot of material that we can play with.

THE HOTEL SCENE, I GUESS.

DAVE: I would like it ?

ANDREW: All five of them.

DAVE: I think that would be fun to have that. Just to see — we actually have five complete scenes that are, how we address the motel, each with their own flaw.

BRAD: And a couple endings, too. We have a couple endings.

ANDREW: Yeah, we have alternate endings.

DAVE: We have two endings.

REALLY?

ANDREW: Yes.

DAVE: Sean dies in both. But. [LAUGHTER]

BRAD: It’s just how he dies.

DAVE: It’s just how he dies.

ANDREW: It’ll be fun.

SEAN BEAN: What a surprise. [LAUGHTER]

SEAN, DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS TO GO BACK TO THE ‘SHARPE’ SERIES AT SOME POINT?

SEAN BEAN: I don’t know. We did one in India last year. We did a sort of one-off, called ‘Sharpe’s Challenge’, which was a lot of fun. And it would be good to maybe resurrect it one day. It’s just - you know, so long as there’s something to talk about. So long as they’re not just going on for the sake of it, because it was popular and it was successful. But, you know, I’d like to think that there is life in it. As long as it’s meaningful, and we’re not just — you know, repeating what we’ve done already. It’s a particularly — obviously, a favorite of mine.

THE HITCHER OPENS NATIONWIDE ON JANUARY 19TH

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