Sarah Wayne Callies Gives Us the Lowdown on Pay the Ghost
Yeah… you remember her. As Sheriff Rick Grimes’ cheatin’ old lady from “The Walking Dead,” Sarah Wayne Callies definitely carved a name out for herself after a successful run on the hit AMC show, and she is now currently co-starring alongside Nicolas Cage in the supernatural-abduction film Pay The Ghost (review). She was nice enough to take time away from filming to speak with us for a few regarding the role, as well as what she’s got coming up for future projects, so settle in and enjoy!
DC: Can you give us a brief description of the film as well as your character, Kristen?
SC: Well, the film is the most terrifying thing in the world because it’s about parents who lose their son. The two parents have different relationships – the mother is trying to find a coherent life without him and trying to move through that grief; whereas, the father can’t let it go, and I think in a way that these characters have experienced a kind of insanity. During the course of the movie they’ve got to accept and believe in certain things that before they would have thought were complete preposterous bullshit. These are two very rational people – she’s a designer, he’s a professor, and they have to wrap their heads around the possibility that their son is no longer among the mortal world, and that’s one of the biggest hurdles for them.
DC: You had some very emotional scenes in the film – where do you have to go in your mind in order to be able to dig up such raw emotion for a role like this?
SC: I think that a lot of it has to be the circumstances in life – I’m a mom, and also working with an actor of Nic’s caliber. Everyone in life gets broken by grief and loss at some point – loss of a person, or a hometown, and as an actor, you’ve got to pick the right scab (laughs)!
DC: So, what was it like working with Nicolas Cage?
SC: He’s just extraordinary. I mean, I’ve always been aware of his work, and I’ve learned a lot from it, which is a huge part of why I took the job. I showed up one day for a table read of the script, and he’s someone who has a lot of humility and the collaborative spirit, and the professionalism of someone who’s ever worked before – he’s just happy to be there, and on everyone’s team – the first on set. There’s absolutely no thinking, “I’m one of the biggest stars in the world” with that guy, which is extraordinarily rare. I absolutely loved working with him, and we’re both quirky and weird, and the best thing is that Nic doesn’t give a flying fuck about what anyone thinks about him. When we’d gotten together to film Pay the Ghost, he’d had another film that had just come out, and it got absolutely panned, and he was so easy with it, and that in and of itself starts to create the basis for a great actor because he’s going to 100 percent follow his intuition and instinct and do a fantastic job.
DC: Lastly, what’s coming up for you – anything in the works?
SC: I’m in production right now on a new show called “Colony” – it’s Josh Holloway and myself – it’s science-fiction, and I’m so much in love with this story. I’m so proud of what we’re doing, and it’ll be coming out in January.
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