Video:Trick r Treat - Brian Cox Interview, Comic Con

Transcript:Trick r Treat - Brian Cox Interview, Comic Con

Brian Cox - Trick 'r Treat

What's the appeal of this genre for you?

Brian Cox: "I think with Michael Dougherty, who wrote and directed it, it's really taking the genre and doing it to the maximum, but also it's great storytelling. It's told in the form of four separate stories which come together. It's a very ingenious script, and it's an original script. It's not a script that's a remake of anything. It's not a script that's a rehash of an old idea. He's really taken the spirit of trick or treat in all its almost pagan aspect and kind of retold as for the now. It's fairly graphic, but it's also quite funny. It has quite a dark sense of humor about it. I just was interested because when Michael asked me to do it, I said, 'Okay,' for me it was an experiment. Normally when you get involved in a project you do this and you do that, and I didn't have a lot of time because I was doing as it were in between several other things that I was doing. So I said, 'Okay, Michael, let me design the makeup and then you tell me what to do.' So I showed him what I wanted to do with the makeup. I'd read the script but just very cursory, and I said, 'Now, I will come on the set and you just tell me what to do and I'll treat it like I was in a silent movie.' And it was great fun. You kind of abdicated complete responsibility to the director and he loved it. It was great."

It sounds like something you don't get to do very often.

Brian Cox: "It was great. The only thing was it was nights, and I hate filming nights. But apart from that... And actually it was the best thing to do when you're filming nights is just to put yourself at the director's feet and say, 'Come on. Get on with it.'"

You weren't worried that this was his first feature film?

Brian Cox: "No. I always try and make a point of working at least one novice first-time directors once every two years. I've worked with a lot over the last... I've worked with a lot of first-time directors. Quite frankly, they're great to work with because they have the enthusiasm. I mean, they're great to work with if they got the skill, but Michael does have the skill. He's a very good writer. He's an animator, as well. He understands picture so in a sense, he's very much coming from that point of view. That's really, really, to me, a great way of working."

Doing that once every two years, that's a huge leap of faith on your part. How do you know for sure that you're putting your career, basically, in the hands of a good guy or girl?

Brian Cox: "Or girl. Actually, there are not enough girls, quite honestly. I wish there were more. I'd love to work with more first-time women directors. I haven't, sadly. It's been mostly men. But the thing is when you work with first-time directors, doing what I've been doing over the years - the kind of mainstream films I've been doing - I just think it behooves you, it's not experimenting as such but giving people a chance. Giving your name to something which is tried, it's not tested, but it's being tried and hopefully, you know, I've been very lucky. A lot of those first-time directors have gone on to do better things and great things. And I worked with Wes Anderson in his first mainstream film which was Rushmore, and that was a great experience. I worked with a very good director recently called Rupert Wyatt, fantastically good director. I worked with Spike Jonze on his second movie, so there's been a kind of history of that."

You're just good at picking directors, too.

Brian Cox: "Maybe, maybe."

I'm just amazed with the reviews of this movie that it didn't get a theatrical release. Do you have any idea why we're not seeing this in theaters?

Brian Cox: "Well, I think it's the old story of the nervousness of the studio. Studios all sort of do their bit. From time to time we get examples of like Slumdog Millionaire, I think this is what happens quite a lot. I think there's a timidity. The film industry has certain problems. It's kind of like it's created a many-headed monster with the kind of films that are being done that require more bangs, more special effects. And I think there's a simplicity that's being lost in the cinema. And I also think the audiences feel it, too. The audiences can get satiated. It's like living on a diet of rich food all the time. You want sometimes things which are really good cuisine. And so I think the studios need to rediscover that again."

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