The freaks are coming to town. There’s the bearded lady, Mr. Tiny and Mr. Tall, the Snake Boy, the Wolfman, Monkey Girl, The Puzzle Twins and a few unexpected guests, like say, vampires. In the twisted world first imagined by novelist Darren Shan, anything is possible. And now that the dark world of his young adult series is finally coming to life on screen, what better setting than America’s capital of freakdom at large, New Orleans?
Dark Horizons spent a day on the set of Cirque Du Freak last summer taking in the lavish, colorful circus sets on a New Orleans sound stage. In the course of our visit, we toured the sets and spoke with cast and crew including director Paul Weitz and stars Josh Hutchinson (Steve) and John C. Reilly (Larten Crepsley).
For those unfamiliar with the series, Shan’s collection includes 12 books so far. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, is based on the first four books. Our protagonist, Darren (Chris Massoglia), is a typical suburban kid. He gets good grades and is generally a good kid, except for his occasional escapades with troublemaker best pal Steve (Josh Hutcherson). But Darren longs for something more out of life. When the two boys receive a mysterious invitation to a traveling freak show, they jump at the chance to attend.
Both boys soon find themselves thrust into an exciting and mysterious new world, leaving their suburban existence behind and joining up with the Freaks. Long-obsessed with becoming a vampire, Steve begs 200-year-old vamp Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly) to turn him but gets rejected. Crepsley instead offers Darren the apprenticeship. Soon the two boys find themselves unintentionally breaking a 200-year truce between the rival Vampires and Vampaneze.
Our day begins with a tour of the sets. Assembled in a circle around a central area for performances and rehearsal (and production cameras), the sets don’t look far off from an actual traveling circus of old times. We are lead through the sets by production designer William Arnold (Magnolia, American Dreamz). “The whole thing was about the characters,” Arnold tells press. “[We were] thinking about this very eccentric collection of human beings [and] who these people were. Supposedly the Cirque has been around for 500 years, so we wanted the structures in the campground to have a timeless quality.”
Mr. Tall’s (Ken Watanabe) tent is attached to a fire engine making for easy transportation. His home is ornately decorated inside, looking more like the dwellings of a college professor than the ringleader of a circus freak show. One of my personal favorite set pieces was the Teeth trailer, with its giant-toothed mouth entrance and tongue walkway.
Soon, we take a seat in the home of Snake Boy (Patrick Fugit), complete with a large terrarium, to watch a dialogue scene between Reilly and Dafoe in which Crepsley is placed under arrest. Reilly joins us after the take to discuss his character. The actor was nearing the end of his work on Cirque during our chat, but he has hopes of returning to the role in time. “We’ve shot almost everything. All I have left are a couple of scenes with Willem and some little pieces of things we didn’t get previously.”
While Dafoe bares fangs on screen for the third time, Reilly was a vampire virgin before Cirque. He told press he didn’t feel pressure to compare Larten Crepsley to the plethora of other famous vampire characters, instead relying on Shan’s description as his own personal guide. “You know, this is not a traditional vampire movie because it’s so dictated by the rules of everything in the book,” said Reilly. “I may have taken a different take if I had total creative license. But I felt we should try to honor what Darren created in the books.”
Although Reilly doesn’t always feel compelled to peruse the original source material for his roles, Cirque intrigued his inner child. “I was a big Tolkien fan when I was a kid and I played Dungeons and Dragons. I know how important the screen adaptations of those things were to me when I was a kid. I’m just starting book 12 right now. The movie’s only based on the first four books, but I wanted to read all of them so I had a sense of what readers of these books would want when they came to the movie. I think [the fans] are going to be really happy. Paul has gone to great lengths to make the movie really realistic in terms of what young people are going through during the teenage years of their life. He didn’t shy away from darkness even though it’s not R-rated.”
Director Paul Weitz (In Good Company, About a Boy) was an unexpected choice for fans when he was first announced. Ironically, Weitz had already been contemplating a vampire story of his own when he heard about Cirque. “I’d actually been thinking of doing a movie where a kid gets a vampire as a mentor and growing up is largely having to do with moral ambiguity and gray areas,” Weitz told press.
“Hugh Grant used to make fun of me, ribbing me about the vampire movie,” he adds.
Shan’s story wasn’t exactly the same one the writer/director had envisioned, but Weitz found himself drawn in by the darker material. “There’s some really dark stuff in the books, which is part of what appealed to me about it. In the books, the kid fakes his own death, which is a horrible thing to do to your parents. And Crepsley is completely morally ambiguous. He has taken this kid to be his assistant and mentor without worrying too much about what it’s going to do to his private life of childhood. That aspect of it was what got into my skin. It reminds me of Grimm’s fairy tales where there are horrific things happening, but somehow they make sense, especially to kids.”
In regards to the scope of Cirque in comparison to the director’s previous work, Weitz finds it best to approach the material the same way he always does. “I think, personally, for it to be any good, I have to not think of it as being larger. What I care about is the little personal things in it. I don’t think, for either of us, there’s any ambition involved as far as doing something on a bigger canvas. On my part, I see that this is a bigger movie because it’s a 75-day shoot, which is grotesquely long to me. But I’m trying not to think about it any differently.”
Much like Twilight and Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, Shan has his own twists on the vampire lore. In the trailer, Crepsley tells Darren that the whole turning into bats thing “is bull.” Weitz recaps the rules: “Vampires can be killed, not just by a stake in the heart but they can get stabbed or run over. They are much tougher than normal people. They don’t live forever, but they do age ten times as slowly. They can’t go out during the day. We have rules that we’re adhering to, but I’m trying not to be overly clever about it.”
Co-star Josh Hutcherson’s 17th birthday won’t occur until October of this year (only weeks before Cirque Du Freak hits screens, in fact) but he is already a veteran of the industry with an impressive 28 credits to his name on IMDB. Like Weitz, this is the largest scale production he’s ever been involved with and he’s been having a blast. “This has been the biggest production of any movie I’ve done, as far as crazy stuff going on with all the wardrobe and makeup and Snake Boy and Madame Truska and the beard,” said Hutcherson.
So how does Selma Hayek look with a beard? “I’ve never seen a woman look good with a beard before,” the young actor admits. “It was very odd. You think it’s going to be extremely hideous, but she still looks pretty somehow.”
Hutcherson and star Massoglia bonded quickly when they met on set, which made their on-screen relationship as best pals feel very natural. “He’s a very friendly person and we kind of hit it off right away and became best friends and started talking about baseball, football and any kind of sports. We went and played basketball at the gym a few times.”
When Cirque Du Freak finally does hit screens in October, Weitz believes fans of Shan’s material will be pleased with the finished project. Even with the PG-13 rating, Weitz promises that the movie remains quite dark, but parents needn’t be worried. “I think that kids think about really dark things. Their parents think they are able to coddle them and keep them from thinking about death, but my memories of childhood and school are certainly some horrific times as well as fun times. The books obviously strike a cord with some kids and they are dealing with dark terrain, sort of the death of childhood.”
If Cirque is a box office hit, a sequel is inevitable, especially considering the filmmakers have eight more from which to draw material. Understandably, Weitz doesn’t want to jinx things by counting his chickens too early. “I hope I’m not too concerned about making sequels because I’m too superstitious. But because there’s all these books, I hope there’s not too much of a smarmy wink to the audience like, ‘heeeyyy, there could be another movie. So I’m trying not too stress it too much but also not to wrap things up too tightly.”
"Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant" hits screens October 23, 2009.
