Video:Devil Interviews-Geoffrey Arend, Bokeem Woodbine, Sam Mercer

Transcript:Devil Interviews-Geoffrey Arend, Bokeem Woodbine, Sam Mercer

Rebecca Murray from About.com Hollywood Movies at the World Premiere of Universal Pictures' Devil.

Geoffrey Arend - 'Vince' in Devil

You had to film in a confined area. How was that?

Geoffrey Arend: "Awesome. It was amazing because I come from a theater background so it's really nice to not have to worry about running from cars or anything. It's like we're stuck in an elevator. We have to listen and pay attention to and respond to four other people, five other people. So it's like a dream."

How do you keep you up that level of adrenaline?

Geoffrey Arend: "Awww, acting!"

Is that what it is?

Geoffrey Arend: "That's what it is. It's like you've got to exercise and stretch your muscles."

Are you a fan of movies with the devil in them?

Geoffrey Arend: "Yeah, I love The Omen. The Omen is amazing. That's probably my favorite devil movie is The Omen. I haven't seen this one yet. I haven't seen Devil yet and I'm very excited. I really have no idea what's going to happen. I'm very, very thrilled and excited."

You could possibly be the devil.

Geoffrey Arend: "I could be the devil. I mean I don't know."

Because those clips don't give anything away.

Geoffrey Arend: "Which is great. Isn't that great of a trailer?"

For once we don't know everything about a movie before we see it.

Geoffrey Arend: "I sit down and watch trailers and I'm like, 'I saw the whole movie."

And being a part of an M Night Shyamalan project?

Geoffrey Arend: "It was awesome. I mean Night was there overseeing certain periods; he wasn't there all the time. It was more of a Dowdle brothers movie. And that was an incredible experience. Those guys are very smart, very giving, just like Night. They worked very together. I've got to say it was one of my favorite experiences. I'd just gotten married and then two weeks later I'm in Toronto shooting this movie and it was just fantastic."

Was this tightly scripted?

Geoffrey Arend: "All tightly scripted. When you're dealing with, I think, with a story like this more than any other, when you're dealing with a story like this you really have to have a fine script, and we had an amazing script. Improv'ing might be welcome in certain brief moments but not when you're trying to tell this type of story. This is a fast-paced movie. It runs an hour, 20. I haven't seen it but I remember the script and I was like, 'It's a page-turner.'"

Was it a fast shoot?

Geoffrey Arend: "It was a fairly fast shoot. It was a great experience. I loved it."

Scary movie sets are supposed to be freaky.

Geoffrey Arend: "They're never freaky because everyone's always making jokes. It's like you're having gallows humor the whole time. It's like watching your best friends die... I don't know."

Bokeem Woodbine - 'Ben' in Devil

Tell me about accepting a script where you're going to be stuck in an elevator for all of the filming.

Bokeem Woodbine: "I knew right off the top that this was going to be a challenging one, the lack of set changes, close proximity to your fellow actor day after day after day, the nature of the material. There's a lot of challenges in this script but I knew that the payoff would be something that was well worth all the efforts that I would have to bring to it. I'm beyond pleased with how it turned out. I think people are going to genuinely be scared. There's no doubt that coming to work to the same set day after day lent a certain type of eerie feeling to the whole atmosphere. So it was a new type of genre for me to work in, supernatural, and it was a new type of experience. I just went in and went for it and we all did, and I'm proud of what we did."

Is this the type of movie that normally you'd be paying your $10 to go see?

Bokeem Woodbine: "You know what? Generally, I don't necessarily visit the horror genre that often. But this film is unique because it challenges you to think. It's almost like a puzzle. It's frightening in a way that's not fraught with gratuitous violence and blood. It's more of a psychological terror so I would go see this type given the type of information that I had about it prior to going to see it. I like trying to solve puzzles and I like all that kind of stuff."

This is the type of movie where you can't give anything up about your character without giving something away, right?

Bokeem Woodbine: "Unfortunately I can't really say too much because I don't want to take away from any of the surprises that are in store for people. But I stand behind the film. It's definitely worth the price of admission and I think it's really dynamite and I think it stretches the boundaries of what the so-called horror genre can do. I think we really pushed the envelope and I'm proud of the creativity that went into it."

Devil Producer Sam Mercer

Tell me about this whole Night Chronicles thing that you're doing here.

Sam Mercer: "Well, you know, it's kind of a special event tonight. This is the first of hopefully many more Night Chronicles films."

Do we know how many more yet?

Sam Mercer: "No, we don't. At least two more in the making right now. And hopefully two more will become two more and two more. But the whole kind of birth of it was to come up with edgy, dark, kind of supernatural ideas that could be shepherded through by Night and his production team, that other writers and other directors and other collaborators would all come together."

Night comes up with the idea, but everyone else does the work. How do you decide who's doing that?

Sam Mercer: "He's doing some heavy lifting too. Very involved with all the major creative decisions - script, casting, budget, and all those things."

Do you think maybe he's a little jealous he's not directing it?

Sam Mercer: "No, I think it's his way of branching out and finding an avenue that he can get more ideas out into the marketplace. It's hard as a director to make more than three or four movies in decade, it takes so long to produce and market and finish."

More on Devil:

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Devil Interviews, Poster, Trailer, and Cast List