Exclusive: Patrick Muldoon Talks Spiders 3D
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A being veteran of such films as Starship Troopers and Ice Spiders, Patrick Muldoon is certainly no stranger to batting giant bugs. His newest film, Spiders 3D is currently creeping its way into theaters. Giant evil mutated spiders from space? Just another day at the office.
Recently Dread Central had a chance to talk with star Patrick Muldoon about Spiders 3D, his first time working in Bulgaria, his previous on-screen battles with giant bugs and more! Check it out!
Dread: How did you first hear about and get involved with this project?
Muldoon: I do a lot of work with Millennium, I also work on the production end with Eclectic Pictures, it’s kind of all within the Millennium family, and I heard about the project from the other side of the desk. I’ve also worked with the director Tabor Takács in the past. When I heard about this movie I’m like “Wow, giant spiders from outer space? That’s right in my wheel house!”
Dread: What was it like for you to shoot this movie with the cast you had and in a place like Bulgaria?
Muldoon: At the time we did it was really beautiful. It was kind of cold, but not quite snow weather just yet. It was gorgeous. Millennium has their own studio in Bulgaria. It’s weird because you have a really L.A. like studio in the middle of this eastern country. It was my first time out there. The remarkable thing is that you have this gigantic studio in a place you wouldn’t really expect it. A lot of big movies are shot there, and here we are with this tiny little sci-fi movie. It was really great.
This was one of those movies where you don’t really want to come home afterwards. Bulgaria was beautiful, everybody really got along. Whenever we wrapped for the day we met at a restaurant and talk about what went right and what went wrong that day. This movie was a lot of fun for all of us.
Dread: When you hear about a movie called Spiders 3D you immediately imagine it to be some kind of over the top camp fest. And, while this movie it a lot of fun, it also takes itself fairly seriously. How are you able to balance keeping it fun, but not be winking at the camera all the time?
Muldoon: As an actor you have to relate to the human element of it. You have to be rooted in the human element. This story is all about parents trying to save their child. That’s what the characters are doing, if you’re rooting in that, that’s what the audience will attach to.
When you’re doing a movie like this and you’re trying to stay alive you can’t worry about CGI, about how things look, you have to be invested in the story. Whether the audience is conscious of it or not, no matter how crazy the story is, if the human element feels real then they’ll attach onto it.
Dread: This isn’t your first time taking on giant bugs from outer space. How did your experience differ from making something like Starship Troopers to making Spiders 3D?
Muldoon: Starship Troopers was all kind of our first big movie, so everything was kind of brand new. And the tone of that was a little more of a soap opera in space. It’s kind of campy. Spiders 3D is a little darker in tone, more dramatic, closer to home. It’s about New York in jeopardy. It sounds a little crazy to say but Spiders is a little more based in reality than Starship Troopers, it’s a little more realistic. *laughs*
A lot of this movie like this sinks or swims on the post. We don’t see that when we’re shooting. The CGI in Spiders are really well done. That’s the fun of a movie like this. The spiders are scarier than hell.
Dread: I talked to Tabor recently, and he was telling me about the previous film you worked on together, Ice Spiders, and some of the trials you had in getting that movie made. How did making Spiders 3D differ from that experience?
Muldoon: Ice Spiders was specific and funny. It was about spiders eating skiers on a ski slope. If you’re trying to do a serious drama about spiders killing skiers on a ski slope it’s going to be stupid. I read the script and it and it was hilarious. The night before I was supposed to leave I got a bunch of revisions; all the jokes were taken out of the movie. The company didn’t get the jokes. I was like “We can’t shoot a serious movie about ice spiders. I can’t get on a plane and do a drama about ice spiders.” We fought for it and we ended up getting some of the jokes put back in.
Spiders 3D was a totally different situation. We’re shooting a 3D movie, it’s dark in tone, how it’s shot. There’s a real mood to the movie. You kind of get a sense that bad things are going to happen and they do. With Spiders 3D, the vision didn’t waver, we knew exactly what we were going to make.
Synopsis
Following a crash of an old Soviet space station in New York City’s subway tunnel, a new species of poisonous spiders is discovered. Inadvertently the spiders mutate to gigantic proportions and wreak havoc on the entire city.
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