Reece Shearsmith (The Cottage) Interview
Describe your character?
In The Cottage I play the, uptight, Peter who is enlisted by his much harder brother to be involved in a kidnapping plot. Because of his brother half-owning their mum’s house and the possibility that the money from the kidnapping will allow him to own the house he decides to go along with it. He’s not really up to the job, neither of them are really. He gets dragged into something that’s not in his world at all. He’s a mild-mannered man that works for a photocopying shop and then suddenly he’s in this nightmarish scene looking after a very frightening, strong woman that he’s helped kidnap and that he clearly can’t control.
You will care about the characters. Paul has written a very good script where the characters are very well defined. We’re not really the baddies, despite the fact that we kidnapped a woman. I think by the end the audience will be rooting for us. Our fates are not as expected.
Does the audience empathise with the brothers?
Hopefully. You feel for them because they get out of their depth so quickly and things only go from bad to worse, and people they enlist to help (i.e. Andrew), are totally incompetent. I think Andy Serkis who’s playing my brother David, is in control in the audience’s eyes really. He’s got the plan in his head. He wants it to be executed properly and without any glitches and yet he’s surrounded by disaster.
I go on a journey. Every step of the way things seem to happen to me. It’s quite relentless once it starts.
Do you like in-camera effects?
Absolutely. That’s always as real as it can be. When it’s really happening it’s much easier to imagine it because it’s physically there in front of you and there’s a lot of blood and gore by the end so it’s great to literally be uncomfortable. You’re so bashed up. It does take it’s toll after a while. Ultimately you just start to feel a bit ground down by it, but it only can help for the part, because if I was fully perky it wouldn’t really be right. I remember one scene where we’re both flaked out on the ground, nearly at death’s door, sticking to the floor with the blood they were pouring on us. It’s all for the good of the emotion of the scenes.
How was working with Jennifer Ellison?
Jennifer plays the victim that we’ve kidnapped but the ironic thing is that she’s not the victim at all. She’s so much stronger physically and mentally than my brother and I. Right from the beginning she’s like a caged animal that we can’t contain. Her language is shocking . It’s so overwhelming and relentless. I, particularly, am so meek in the face of it and trying to be polite about it in that terrible English way. You don’t ever see my wife but I have phone conversations with her and I’m clearly completely under the thumb. I spend the second half of the film with Jennifer. When I think things can’t get any worse, someone worse than her comes along. Her character is very funny but very strong and controlled. In the wake of us trying to be in control, it’s clear that she’s the one that has all the power, right from the start.
How would you describe this film?
It’s a funny mix. I think it is more clever than just a horror film, it’s better written. You spend so much time with the characters to begin with and there’s a lot of heavy arguments and intensity and because of that set up the second half pays off so much more emotively because you care about what happens to us. The second half of the film is a full on horror. I think it’s an obvious thing to try to have the audience care about the characters and then it matters what you put them through. In horror films, people are normally there as a body count and very little time is invested, but I think it matters when we start getting picked off. It’s a surprise that we end up on this farm with this monster, it’s more compelling.
What can the audience expect?
I think they’ll get a really funny film. An unusual film and a really great story. It’s always great when you watch good arguments and fall outs in films. There are a lot of really great arguments in it and they just get comically worse and worse, but also kind of quite serious. I think it is a great horror film as well, and a good new monster. The farmer, himself is a great new kind of Freddy or a Jason, but he’s a farmer. He doesn’t sound that threatening but when you see him you’ll realise.
The Cottage is released in UIK cinemas on 14th March 2008.
