Source: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
Date: 5th October, 2006
Posted by: Paul Heath

THE OMEN is out on DVD (region two) on October 23rd, and over the next few days, we have interviews with the cast and the film's director John Moore. Today, we're kicking off with the lovely Julia Stiles. Beware, as there are minor spoilers in the following Q+A.

Q: When you got the role, how did you react?

STILES: I met John [Moore] for a cup of coffee and we discussed the original film, and I had read the script. And at that time they were using the original script, and I had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I was really excited. I thought it would be a wonderful role, but I also was a little wary of tempting the fates. I know that sounds really silly, but I was a little superstitious about it. And also, I was curious about how John planned to update it and make it relevant to today. But I ultimately decided that my superstition was silly, and it was actually a sign that the story is very powerful.

Q: What kind of superstitions do you have?

STILES: It wasn’t so much that, as I thought: ‘I’m a big fan of horror movies and this is certainly classic,’ but I never thought I wanted to act in one, ‘cause I don’t think actors get to do much in them; they usually are just reacting. But this character goes through a variety of different emotions, and she goes from one extreme to the other. I remember seeing the original, and there’s a scene in it where Lee Remick’s character says to her husband that she needs to see a psychiatrist, and almost nothing is said with words but she’s so stone cold, and you can see the division between the two of them. It was very heartbreaking, and I was intrigued by that. I wanted to explore that more.

Q: Are you going to do some more horror movies now?

STILES: Well, I think the reason that I wanted to be in this one -- and who knows what that means for [doing] future horror movies -- is that it’s actually very psychologically driven. It has its fair share of gore, but it plays on your fundamental fears and a fear of the unknown, or a force that you can’t identify, and I think that was very intriguing. I had horrible nightmares while we were making the film, so that is a sign to me that it’s powerful.

Q: What kind of nightmares did you have?

STILES: Every single night for a month, if I couldn’t sleep, I would see the image from the original, which we kept in this one, of the first nanny standing on the roof and saying, “Damien, I’m doing it for you,” and then jumping off and hanging there with the noose. But it would always be somebody that I knew, and they would address me. It was very disturbing, but it means it’s a powerful image.

Q: Did Moore ask you to see the first film?

STILES: I saw the first film when I was a kid, but then I watched it again before deciding to do [this]. And then I also watched it while we were making it, because there was a lot that I really loved about it that I wanted to repeat, but we also wanted to enhance it and highlight it more.

Q: It didn’t influence your performance?

STILES: No, ‘cause I felt like there’s a difference enough in terms of the setting in this film, and also there’s a difference in our ages too, that I could distance myself from it enough, or be objective about it enough. It was really interesting to watch the director’s commentary on the original -- Richard Donner -- because he said he made a conscious decision to let the story work on its own, even if you don’t believe in the religious aspect of it. I’m glad that I was aware of that while we were making the film also, so that I couldn’t just rely on my character reacting to everything that’s going on around her; there really had to be a through line with her character. Just like when I was watching the original; I would see what Lee Remick was doing, I was intrigued by it, but I didn’t feel like it was fleshed out enough. I wanted to know more about what was really going on inside of her that made her go crazy.

Q: What are your favorite DVD special features to watch?

STILES: Directors’ commentary is usually good, [and] the scenes that have been edited out; that’s always interesting to me just to know why people made those decisions, why editors decide to take out certain scenes.

Q: Anything in this one that you’re going to revisit when it comes out on DVD?

STILES: Well, there was a scene that was cut out and I understand why. But it was a scene where that explosion happens, early on, and it was a reaction; Liev’s [Schreiber] character and I are in the middle of packing to leave, and we have a romantic moment, and then you see our reaction to the explosion. That’s why it was cut out, because it didn’t quite make sense how we would see it. But I wish there had been that one little scene of showing the real goodness in our relationship, just to make it more heartbreaking as our relationship deteriorates.

Q: What is your character’s life like, as the wife of an American ambassador in London?

STILES: We talked about that a lot, because the natural question was what does she do for work. But I think the more you make her independence kind of precarious, the more you make her not have a job, and how she’s totally devoted to having a son. I saw it also as she really loved her husband and was devoted to him, and had invested her whole life in that world. It makes it that much [more] difficult for her at the end to stick up for herself. It would have been a little cheeky if she was a working woman; otherwise, why wouldn’t she discipline Damien more, or why wouldn’t she say to her husband, “Something’s really messed up here.”

Q: What do you think of the whole idea of tricking your wife as Liev’s character does when he substitutes Damien for the couple’s stillborn child?

STILES: He wasn’t trying to trick her; he did it in a moment of love and desperation.

Q: What did you try to do to flesh out your character?

STILES: Well, I didn’t mean that as a criticism of her [Lee Remick’s] performance; I think that was more a product of what was written in the script. I mean that what was touching, or chilling, to me about her portrayal in the original was that it seemed like it was such a taboo subject for her to even say that she had mixed feelings about her son, that they didn’t quite go there enough. Now that it’s thirty years later, we can explore the issues of postpartum depression or complications with motherhood; we can explore that more, and also it would be so hard for a mother to come to terms with that. So I think that was a way, a window into how to empathize with my character, and not make her this cold person. But I think at the time Lee Remick did a great job with what she had, [although] they kind of avoided that; they skirted that issue a little bit.

Q: She just got an extreme case of postpartum depression?

STILES: The key is there’s such a miscommunication between her and her husband [and] she doesn’t know that; she’s too afraid to say that she has doubts about her ability to be a mother, and also what her son is doing. But it’s so frustrating to watch, because if she had said anything, then her husband would have come clean about his decision to adopt a baby.

Q: There’s a scene where not only does your character realize that there is something really wrong with Damien, but [says] “I’m not sure that he’s even mine.”

STILES: Right, but she cuts those suspicions off before she can even verbalize them.

Q: She doesn’t ever grab the bull by its horns.

STILES: No, she doesn’t, and I think that was one of the reasons I think it helps that I’m younger, a younger mother. And that’s because, I think, with more experience and more wisdom, I probably would have been able to understand my situation and also stick up for myself.

Q: Are you used to being around kids?

STILES: I have a brother and a sister that are a lot younger than I am, and so I kind of was there as they were being raised; I babysat a lot. But other than that, no. But I can imagine how difficult it would be for a mother to be doubtful at all about her parenting.

Q: What’s your take on God and Satan?

STILES: I think it doesn’t matter, and I’m not just saying that to skirt the question. I think the movie works. It certainly is compelling if you believe in that, the book of Revelation and Armageddon and all that. Even if you don’t, you still have to be afraid of the tragedies that are happening around Damien, and the fear that every character has of this uncontrollable force that you can’t identify; I think no matter what your religious beliefs, you could identify with that.

Q: Had you met Mia before?

STILES: We worked together on a play here in New York right before we started shooting this, and it was strange because we played mother and daughter in the play and we had a very loving relationship. And then literally two weeks later we were in Prague and we were shooting my death scene where she’s trying to kill me! It was very confusing.

Q: What about the eerie coincidences that supposedly happened during shooting?

STILES: Eventually I started to make the connection...I was living in Prague in an apartment that was right near this Jewish cemetery; you feel like there are a lot of spirits and weird energy. And also you’re primed, when you’re making a movie like this, to be looking for coincidences, or think about ghosts and all that sort of stuff.

Q: Did you have any weird experiences?

STILES: A couple of scenes that came back, the footage had smudges on it and weird shadows, like what happens in the film, but I just heard about that. My experience was the first day that I was shooting; it was the scene where Liev hands me the baby in the hospital, and we couldn’t shoot the scene because we were next to a church and the bells kept ringing, and it wasn’t just on the hour: I checked my watch and it rang for twenty minutes, but I realized they must have starting ringing at six minutes after six PM, which obviously freaked me out at the time.

Q: What do DVD bonus features bring to that at-home film viewing experience?

STILES: Now that they’ve started taking older films and putting them on DVD and even adding special features, I love seeing the technology and what they had to do. Like with The Omen -- the original death scene, or the accident scene with Lee Remick’s character -- to know how they actually shot that before they had CGI and special effects: they put the floor on the wall, and she sort of ran against the wall, which I think is fascinating. And in this one, I actually fell off of a balcony and I was harnessed to a machine and we didn’t use any CGI, but it’s interesting to know how they did things before all the technology was available.

Q: Is there a way to make a remake to satisfy everyone, and why do it in the first place?

STILES: We were conscious of updating in some ways, because I think we tried to strike a happy medium. There are scenes from the original, like the nanny hanging herself, that are such treasures, I think, that we wanted to keep them. But then we also wanted to make it relevant to a modern audience, so there are references to current events; and also we wanted to keep that element of surprise, too. So the scene where I fall off the balcony is the same idea, but slightly different. And then also, my death scene is entirely different...we decided to push it and make it much more terrifying for anyone that’s claustrophobic at all, because I’m trapped in the hospital bed and I can see the death happening before it actually does.

Q: Being that the plot remains the same, what novelties were brought to this version?

STILES: There are a couple of things, even aside from the scary aspects of it, with the relationship between the Thornes, the husband and wife, Liev’s character and my character. We definitely tried to make the beginning different, where you see more of a loving, happy relationship, so that there’s more to lose at the end. And my death scene is different, I think, much more harrowing. I’ve seen the original film many, many times and thought I was a film geek about it, but when I saw this version, I was still on the edge of my seat. I think it’s still suspenseful, unless you’re sitting there with the original script.

Q: Do you think it’s a timely film in terms of growing religiosity?

STILES: I don’t know if they’ll like it, but I think that it’s natural that we would at least address [that] in the film because we’re given this vocabulary of good and evil all the time now, and people are clinging to their various faiths. But what I think is really interesting about the story in the film itself is that we also address people that are skeptical of religions. So one of my favorite lines in the movie is when Liev’s character is running through the streets of Jerusalem after having been told how to kill Damien, and he freaks out and says, ‘You’re just [like] every religious fundamentalist who uses ancient scripture to justify killing,’ so there is a little bit of a commentary on all this religiosity now. I don’t know how that’s going to appeal or not, but we’ll see.

Q: Were you concerned that the use of 9/11 footage could come across as distasteful?

STILES: Well, I’m a New Yorker as well. But I think that first of all, it’s brief; but you’d have to ask John [Moore about] that. And when I was accepting the role, I definitely asked him those questions too. Just even the idea of the Antichrist rising in the world of politics, I wanted to know how much they were going to address that, or how directly, because it can be kind of exploitative. I don’t think it was bad to use that imagery in the film, because even those images have been used now for these discussions about good and evil, and I think it’s important to not shy away from it...it’s a very sensitive subject, absolutely, because even though it was five years ago, it’s very recent. But think about all the talk about religion and Armageddon and what the definition of evil is that has come out of that, aside from all the really personal tragedy. I think that it’s natural that we would explore that in the film.

Q: Do you feel this film is aimed at a mainstream audience?

STILES: I think it’s, if anything, a sign that people are curious about those kinds of subjects because of current events. We’ve been talking about them a lot. I think this film is kind of different because there is an underlying political message, but it doesn’t necessarily subcribe to one religion over the other.

Q: What things scare you the most about this movie?

STILES: My character says [that] when she closes her eyes she sees grotesque things. I don’t even know if that line stayed in the film...that’s another difference, actually, from the original. I think John, out of those two, put the audience inside my character’s head more, because I do think they were very worried about making me unsympathetic, which was good. Because, again...it is still somewhat of a taboo subject for a mother to admit that she has mixed feelings about her own child, or no maternal instinct. So in order to not alienate my character from the audience, you wanted to see those images that she was talking about.

Q: There are four previous “Omen” films. Have you seen them all?

STILES: There are five in total. No. I have the collection, [though] I’ve never seen the sequels.

Q: Do you think they’ll make sequels of this?

STILES: I’m dead, so I don’t care! I think if it’s right for the time, maybe; if they could come up with a good story, maybe.