Never Sleep Again: A Talk with Directors Daniel Farrands and Andrew Kasch
With production on Never Sleep Again under way, this writer had a chance to check in with the documentary’s directing team of Daniel Farrands and Andrew Kasch to see how things are progressing with their project that explores the Elm Street legacy.
“Never Sleep Again is going amazingly well,” said Farrands. “It’s funny, but this feels like everything is coming full circle. I did a Halloween movie when I was younger, then I spent a few years in the Friday the 13th universe. So now I am working with Nightmare on Elm Street, and it’s definitely a dream come true.”
Generally, when creating a documentary, you tend to miss out on a lot of stars who maybe are reluctant to talk about past projects. This is not a phenomenon that Kasch and Farrands are experiencing at all with Never Sleep Again. In fact, the duo have found themselves elated at the outpouring of support from past Nightmare stars.
Kasch said, “The crazy thing is when you do a project like this, you always make your wish list of who you want to hear from. Maybe you only get around 25 percent of those people, but we are finding with Never Sleep Again we are at around 80 percent of the interviewees we wanted.”
“Everyone has been more than receptive to come in and talk with us. We are exploring everything related to Nightmare on Elm Street from all different aspects so that we can give fans something really cool and different than anything they’ve seen or heard before,” Kasch added.
Of course, the one interview that most Nightmare fans are anxious to find out the status of is none other than Captain Jack Sparrow himself, Johnny Depp. So, will one of the most recognizable stars on the planet be featured in Never Sleep Again?
“The word is definitely out to Johnny,” explained Farrands. “We haven’t received a ‘no’ from him either, but we are just waiting on his schedule at this point to see if he’d be available. Because Johnny is who he is and since he still holds Nightmare up as something he’s proud of, we’ve been told he’ll do it if he can.”
So now that interviews are fully under way, what kind of interesting new tidbits have the team behind Never Sleep Again learned so far? Well, both Kasch and Farrands were reluctant to give up all the goods, but they were gracious enough to offer some.
Farrands said, “We learned that Heather and Johnny hung out at the Griffith Park Observatory on an informal date to get to know each other before the first movie, which I thought was kind of cool. Also, I just learned that Daryl Hannah’s brother plays the kid who reads from Hamlet in the first film.”
“We’ve had a lot of ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’ moments, too, with all the cast members. You find out who auditioned for what parts in the series – like Mark Patton (interview here) auditioning for the Depp role in the first movie. We also realized through the documentary process that several of the NOES scream queens were on a sitcom together (for the record, this writer was a huge fan of Just the Ten of Us, which featured Heather Langenkamp, Brooke Theiss, and JoAnn Willette, as well as Sid Haig for three episodes.),” Kasch added.
“I feel like it’s sort of an end of an era with the new Nightmare film on the horizon so I hope the documentary can be a living document on the original series that we all grew up on and loved,” said Farrands. “This has been an amazing experience for all of us to get to make this so I hope it survives the test of time like the original movies have done.”
Directed by Daniel Farrands and Andrew Kasch, this comprehensive look at the Nightmare films is written and produced by Thommy Hutson with Heather Langenkamp serving as executive-producer, Buz “Danger” Wallick serving as director of photography, and Bill Philputt and Steve “Uncle Creepy” Barton serving as associate producers.
For more on this project check out the official Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy website and the official Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy MySpace page.
To join in on the live fun as it happens, simply follow @ElmStreetLegacy on Twitter!
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