Burying the Ex – Red Carpet Coverage
Joe Dante’s much anticipated horror-comedy Burying The Ex (review) had its red carpet Los Angeles premiere at the historic Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, Thursday, June 11. Dante himself was in attendance, as well as the cast and a few fun special guests.
Dread Central was on hand to take pictures and talk with the stars as they entered the theatre for the big debut.
Alan Trezza – Writer
Dread Central: We talked to Joe the other day on the phone about Burying The Ex, and he said he has not seen your previous short film of Burying The Ex yet! What’s up with that?
Alan Trezza: I totally respect the fact that he didn’t want to see it because he didn’t want to be influenced by it.
Dread Central: What about now?
Alan: He keeps on trying to schedule a time but we just can’t seem to get it in the books. But I totally respect Joe’s decision to do that. What makes him Joe is that he has a very particular style and a very particular vision and he didn’t want to be influenced by what I was doing or the shots that I chose or the direction that I wanted to use so, I respect that decision and I think it worked for the better because this is ultimately a Joe Dante film.
Dread Central: Is this short available for people to see? Will you be putting it on the DVD with the feature?
Alan: We are currently working on it. There are some rights issues that need to be sorted out in terms of music and everything else, but we’d love nothing more than to include that in the DVD or Blu-ray.
Dread Central: How did you and Joe first meet and come together to create this film?
Alan: Joe and I meet, believe it or not, about four years ago and when I had finished writing the feature long script. I sat down and read it and said, “Am I really the right guy to direct this movie or is there someone better?” and when I read it I realized that this was a Joe Dante movie; it not only had elements of horror but it had great elements of levity and comedy; and no one does that better than him. So, I sent it to his agent and heard back very quickly. We met and I was ready for him to have dozens and dozens of notes on how to change things and get rid of things, but we really saw eye to eye from the beginning and he didn’t really want to change that much. A great partnership swung out of that and here we are now, four years later.
Dread Central: Congratulations! So, all those little inside nerd nods like… I love the I-Scream flavours and all the puns; was that you or was that Joe, or did you come up with that together?
Alan: No, that was me because I am a horror geek at heart; I make no bones about it. It’s incredible having the film play here because I’ve spent many lonely nights watching Mario Bava marathons and Dario Argento double features and even one midnight showing of a Coffin Joe film called This Night I’ll Possess your Corpse. So, yes all the little nods and Easter eggs that are in the movie were in the script.
Alexandra Daddario – Actress
Dread Central: I saw the movie, and I must say: you are much geekier in the film than you are here. Which one is the real you – horror nerd, or red carpet glam?
Alexandra Daddario: I feel that I am acting here now than I am in the movie. But I think I am a combination of both. I feel like I like to play characters and bring out different parts of myself, but I felt really comfortable playing that character because it’s a part of me I don’t get to bring out a lot. I feel like I’m always trying to control how geeky and nervous I am, so it’s nice to just let that come out.
Dread Central: Tell me a little about what it was like to be directed by Joe Dante. I mean, he’s a legend.
Alexandra: Yes, it’s amazing. I was extremely excited about joining the project to work with Joe Dante. He is someone who is able to communicate so well, he knows exactly what he wants, he’s extremely kind, he’s extremely funny and generous and taught me a lot about what directors can be and it was an honor. It was really amazing.
Dread Central: What’s his directorial style? Does he tell you the scenario that he wants to see from beginning to end, or does he watch what you’re doing and see if he likes your choices?
Alexandra: A little bit of both I think; we did do some discussion before we got into it but he very much allowed us to play with our characters on our own and allowed us to create what we wanted for the characters. And he knows what he wants, so he moved on very quickly once he got it. There was a very strong confidence in his directorial style as far as… sometimes you’ll have directors who want to be cruel and [make you do scenes over and over] but when he got it there was no messing around. The crew and everyone was really happy. We had nice short days and we loved what we were getting and we had a ton of fun.
Dread Central: It does look like a lot of fun in the film, but your character goes through the wringer. Not as much as the zombie girl, but tell me a little bit about what your favourite crazy scene was to play.
Alexandra: I really liked the graveyard screening scene. There’s a scene towards the end where we get into a really big fight, and I thought that was really cool. I thought that watching the transition and Ashley Green had to go through a lot of make-up and contacts and that’s a very difficult thing to do. But I know she’s done it before from Twilight, so she was obviously great with it, but it was fun to watch her transformation and see it and be terrified by it and see her walk in the make-up room and then a few hours later come out a completely different person. I thought that was super cool and I think that one of the things about this movie is it’s very relatable even though it’s fantasy world. I thought that it was very true to how relationships can be and being stuck in a relationship can be, so, I liked the authenticity of my scenes with Anton and how real that felt.
Anton Yelchin – Actor
Dread Central: Joe said that he was unable to out nerd you in the movie department; are you really that big a film freak?
Anton Yelchin: No, I think Joe is being incredibly modest and talking me up. Which is wonderful for me to be talked up by someone like Joe, who essentially have the most encyclopaediac knowledge of cinema out of everyone I have ever met; probably him and Scorsese are like the heavy weights of cinema trivia.
Dread Central: Yeah. I mean, he’s the guy behind Trailers from Hell. That website is just a wealth of information.
Anton: It’s wonderful.
Dread Central: Have you done one yet?
Anton: No I haven’t. I don’t think I’m at that level.
Dread Central: Joe Dante is singular kind of director, so what would you say are some of the hallmarks of him as a filmmaker as they come together in Burying The Ex?
Anton: I think that one of the things that Joe tends to do is use genre, classical genres, to reword them to analyze certain ideological things that he is interested in; he does it in Gremlins, he does it in all his films. It’s a trait of his to deconstruct and then reconstruct the genre according to what he wants and to be incredibly self-referential about the film as a film within the genre, and so that’s all over in Burying The Ex. It’s about a kid who loves horror movies and then wakes up in a horror movie. If you see the film there are other films peppered throughout it onscreen. In most of the scenes there are other films playing, so it is very much a Joe Dante Film.
Dread Central: And you get to work with Dick Miller!
Anton: Yes. Dick Miller which is incredible. I was pretty stoked on that. He was wonderful in the film. I am in a Joe Dante film with Dick Miller, so I feel very fortunate.
Dick Miller – Actor
Dread Central: How has the documentary about you (That Guy Dick Miller) affected your life?
Dick Miller: Well, it was three years in the making. It was an exciting thing to see myself; living, reliving a fifty year old career.
Dread Central: Tell me little bit about what it is about Joe Dante that keeps you coming back for these cameos?
Dick: Well, Joe’s a sweetheart. He’s a great director, he makes it easy on actors and it’s just a pleasure working with him.
Joe Dante – Director
Dread Central: The actresses in this film really are stunning in their everyday lives, but in Burying The Ex one of them is a nerd and and one of them gets kind of gross as a zombie.
Joe Dante: Well, Ashley Green plays the kind of character who is decomposes during the movie because she’s dead, so there is layers and layers of make-up that have to go on her and because we couldn’t shoot it in sequence then we had to decide what level of disintegration she do has in any given scene. She was such a trooper about sitting in that make-up chair, coming in really early, like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein and getting this stuff applied to her and then working all day with that stuff on her face and then at the end of the day having it taken off, which is another hard process. She just gets kudos from me for being a trooper. Also she manages to find a level of this character that’s not cartoony and that’s actually crazy and unexpected and she has these mood swings because she’s dead. I was just really pleased with her performance.
Dread Central: Who did the make-up on her?
Joe: A guy named Gary Tunicliffe who is very good and he’s was working under, I won’t say duress, but the world’s most unlimited budget and time. He really came through, really did a great job. It’s not the world’s biggest movie, it’s not winning a lot of Oscars but it’s a movie that I’m very happy about. I think we really did a good job under the circumstances.
Dread Central: When you first read the script to when you saw the final cut of the film, how close are they?
Joe: They’re very close, the actors tended to adlib somewhat and so there are a lot of little tensions that weren’t in the script and I added my own. Well we can add a clip from a movie here to explain what we’re doing, I give a little of that but I would say it is 85% of the script and the rest of it is just little embellishments.
Look for the film on June 19, 2015, via RLJ/Image Entertainment in the UK and the US.
Directed by Joe Dante and written by Alan Trezza (TV’s “Sanctuary”), Burying the Ex stars Anton Yelchin, Ashley Greene, and Alexandra Daddario. The film follows Max (Yelchin), an all-around nice guy, and his overbearing but incredibly beautiful girlfriend, Evelyn (Greene). Their relationship takes a nosedive after they decide to move in together and Evelyn turns out to be a controlling, manipulative nightmare. Max realizes it’s time to call it quits, but there’s just one problem: He’s too afraid to break up with her.
Fate steps in when Evelyn is involved in a freak accident and dies, leaving Max single and ready to mingle. Several weeks later he has a chance encounter with Olivia (Daddario), a cute and spirited girl who just might be his soulmate. But that same night Evelyn returns from the grave as a dirt-smeared zombie, and she’s determined to live happily ever after with Max…
Burying the Ex is produced by Mary Cybriwsky, Carl Effenson, David Johnson, Frankie Lindquist, Kyle Tekiela, and Alan Trezza.
Photo Credit: Suzanne Tenner
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