‘Devil’s Workshop’: Radha Mitchell Reveals Why It’s The Scariest Film She’s Ever Made [Interview]
We recently had the opportunity to sit down with horror icon Radha Mitchell (Silent Hill, The Crazies) to discuss her terrifying Lionsgate release Devil’s Workshop. Mitchell addresses why this is the horror film of her career that scares her the most and gives us the scoop on what it takes to play such a menacing role.
In the film,
“Struggling actor Clayton (Timothy Granaderos, 13 Reasons Why) is desperate for a role as a demonologist. But he has hostile competition with his long-time rival, Donald (Emile Hirsch, Into the Wild). Determined to get the role at all costs, he contacts Eliza (Radha Mitchell, Man on Fire), an expert in devil lore, to help him prepare. Spending the weekend at her home, Eliza forces Clayton to confront his troubling past through the practice of dark rituals. Does she want to help Clayton, seduce him – or destroy him?”
Dread Central: How would you describe this film?
Radha Mitchell: I think this film is like a conjuring. It’s like a conjuring of dark energy and a kind of mirror to that. Mirror to our own dark energy and kind of an opportunity to have fun with that concept.
DCl: Did you do any research specifically for this role?
RM: Yeah, I looked at things that I’d done in my own life, travels I’d done in India, and I looked at sort of Aghoris who are athletes who give up… all their worldly possessions and kind of explore other dimensions. I looked at this Indian goddess, Kali, who annihilates people’s egos… Kind of like a maternal goddess, a bit of destruction. And I just looked at a different kind of shamanic kind of teachers and then looked at some kind of witchcrafty kind of stuff. And honestly, I was referencing an acting coach that I had in the past who wasn’t a Demonologist, but she had that kind of mentor… She was a bit of a mentor to me, and she fulfilled that role. And I think in the way that Eliza does initially with Clayton in terms of nurturing his creativity and his sense of being an actor.
DC: Prior to this role, had you ever been drawn to the occult or anything like that? Or was this new territory for you?
RM: No, I would say I’ve been repelled by the occult. But I mean, looking at this, I think even sort of spiritual practices that are meant to bring you into the light. It’s very much about conjuring, either conjuring light energy or conjuring dark energy. And this movie, certainly they’re facing a certain kind of darkness. But in a way it sort of looks at performance as a kind of conjuring, actors and acting. You’re conjuring character and I think she’s kind of trying to demonstrate that with what she’s teaching him.
DC: Why do you think stories like this resonate so deeply with fans?
RM: What’s most terrifying is what’s inside of ourselves. And I think we create our gods, we create our demons, and the more we focus on them, the more energy they have, the more real they become. And so I think looking at that can be quite confronting because it’s kind of the same principle really.
DC: You’ve led a number of beloved cult horror classics. What is your personal relationship with the horror genre?
RM: I think what’s great about the genre is it can be very experimental. It can be a lot of fun, and it’s a bit anarchistic. So people like to break rules or play with conventions and even experiment with how stories are told. So the filmmaking can be quite innovative. So I think that’s the space that’s interesting to me, that it can be quite creative. And obviously, an opportunity to look at one’s own kind of demons and play with them.
DC: Silent Hill is so important to so many horror fans. Why do you think that is?
RM: Well, I think it’s close to the game, which I think was always the intention of the director. And also it operates on a kind of subliminal level. It’s not literal storytelling and it’s not half-baked either. There was a decent budget behind it to execute the visuals, to execute the ideas. So I think it is the embodiment of what it intended to be, which is often not the case when things are experimental. Often there’s not enough money to create that idea. And in this case, it was quite an extravagant project in that sense. It was a little bit plotless, and as I said, it operated more with the unconscious than with the conscious mind.
DC: You’ve done a number of very frightening projects. There’s Pitch Black, Silent Hill, The Crazies. Out of all of your horror films, which one scares you the most?
RM: I think Devil’s Workshop. Honestly, it’s the only movie that I’ve ever made where we were all a little bit creeped out. There’s a lot of fun in the storytelling and it seems like fun, but there were things that happened that were a little eerie. I think one night, me and Tim and someone else was on set, we all came to set the following day and were like, ‘Did you feel like someone touched you on the shoulder in the middle of the night?’ We all had this sort of similar hallucination and maybe we were just in that kind of head space. So we were creating those experiences, but whatever we were doing it felt like we were pushing some kind of boundary that maybe we shouldn’t have been. Yeah, that’s the only time I’ve ever really felt like that.
DC: Growing up, was there ever a film that really scared you? Horror or otherwise?
RM: There was some movie that I saw that I can never remember what it was called, but there was a kind of guy in a nurse’s outfit floating around at the bottom of a swimming pool or something like this. And for some reason that always stayed in my mind, but other than that, I saw, I think a double feature once of Cat People and Hunger at this sort of vintage cinema that I used to go to. And I think I accidentally was at that screening because I was too young to be there. So I’ve always had visuals from those movies in my mind kind of as style pieces. But when I was small, I was very concerned that there was a leopard or so some kind of cat under the bed at night for a couple of months after seeing Cat People.
DC: In Australia, what’s the public relationship to Halloween? Is it a part of the culture?
RM: Beginning to embrace it, but not traditionally. But I think they feel like they’ve been missing out. Halloween’s starting to get some sort of play, but when I was growing up, it was a sort of… We did Halloween when I was little, but not everybody was doing that. We just used to do it.
Devil’s Workshop is out now from Lionsgate and comes to Blu-ray and DVD November 8. Let us know what you think of this devilish title on Twitter via @dreadcentral. We’re always around to chat about all things Lionsgate horror!
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