Authors: Hans-Ake Lilja
Lilja:
I’m very happy that you stuck to the original ending and not a happy Hollywood ending.
Frank Darabont:
Thank you, me too. I still don’t know what the other ending would be.
Lilja:
No, I don’t think there is another ending that would actually work. It’s like you say in…I think it’s in the commentary, that every century needs a movie like
Night of the Living Dead
,
where everybody dies in the end…
Frank Darabont:
Yeah, that’s what Stephen King said to me when he read this ending originally. I was very concerned. You know, the ending was taking a chance, taking a risk, and I wanted to make sure it was in Stephen King’s language as well. I wanted to know that I had his approval on something like that, and that was his reaction. He said, “I love this ending, I’m sorry I didn’t think of it,” and “Every generation needs a movie like this where nothing turns out well.” This is a horror movie. It should horrify and disturb the audience.
Lilja:
And the fact that you placed the woman who leaves the store in the beginning of the movie as one of the survivors makes the end even more chilling.
Frank Darabont:
I loved that touch. That was not my idea. I have to give credit to Jeffrey DeMunn, one of my actors in the film, who plays Dan. Wonderful actor, I work with him all the time. And the woman who played that scene in the market, she was so good that a few days after she did it Jeff came to me and said, “Boy, she was wonderful, what do you think of the idea of maybe having her there at the ending?” And I just thought it was a fantastic idea, so I stole it. [laugh]
Lilja:
[laugh] Yeah, it was perfect seeing her go by.
Frank Darabont:
And that is credit to Jeffrey. And also credit to her, to Melissa, because she was just wonderful in that part.
Lilja:
When I saw the movie I actually think it benefitted from being a low-budget movie and done very quickly. Is that your feeling too now that it’s done?
Frank Darabont:
Definitely my feeling, and it was even my feeling when we were shooting it because there was so much wonderful ragged energy going into the filming even as we were shooting it and I thought, “This is wonderful, that we’ve done it on this basis,” and the truth is that I wanted to embrace the aesthetic of the low-budget horror movie, so we embraced it on a very practical level which is, “OK, well then, let’s do it really low budget.” [laugh] And we have. Some of my favorite movies in the genre were made that way and it felt like an honest way to do it.
Lilja:
But it’s not the usual way for you to make your movies?
Frank Darabont:
No, completely different, completely different style, completely different approach. It was very exciting for me to do something completely outside my previous knowledge, to get me out of my comfort zone of what I do and what I know how to do and try something completely different. And part of what allowed that was indeed the low budget, because if I had twice the money maybe I would have been a little more careful in how I shot it. As it was, I had no time to be careful at all and that, I think, brought this wonderful energy into this thing. And it was really fun to do it that way, I have to say.
Lilja:
It was really fun to listen to your commentary to the movie, especially when you describe how easily and with quite small means got the right feeling and the effect that you wanted.
Frank Darabont:
We had such a wonderful team in place. Greg Nicotero, Everett Burrell and so many other people I’ve worked with in the past on low-budget films. And it’s, in a weird way, very liberating to have to come up with clever solutions rather than just throw money at a problem. You have to come up with a clever solution on how to do something, and when you have a team like that it’s marvelous because we’re all working towards the same goal.
Lilja:
And now that the movie is done, is this something you wanna do again with another movie or is it back to your normal way of making movies?
Frank Darabont:
Well, I don’t wanna do it all the time [laugh] cause it’s a tremendous challenge. I’d like to have a little more luxury of time next time, but when I do
The Long Walk
that would be even more low budget than this one was, I’m certain of it.
Lilja:
Do you have any plans for
The Long Walk
now? Are you working on it at the moment?
Frank Darabont:
It’s on one of the burners on the stove, you know? It’s not on the front burner at the moment, but I imagine it’s going to be something that I’ll do probably within the next five years. I don’t have any immediate plans…
Lilja:
It will be very interesting to see that one made into a movie.
Frank Darabont:
That one will be very, very faithful to Stephen’s story, even more faithful than
The Mist
was. But it doesn’t bear a huge budget because it’s a very existential strange little story. To do it faithfully, then it winds up being a strange little movie, so not a blockbuster, just a very interesting film, I think.
Lilja:
I think that it could potentially be a very good movie if it’s done right.
Frank Darabont:
Thank you. Well, I think it’s one of Steve’s best stories; it’s so strange and brilliant, isn’t it?
Lilja:
Yeah, it’s amazing to be able to make a story about people who are just walking.
Frank Darabont:
Exactly! And what it is, is Stephen King meets Eugene Ionesco, and I definitely want the movie to have that same feeling.
Lilja:
I did an interview with Stephen King earlier and he mentioned that you wanted him to play a part in
The Mist
.
Frank Darabont:
Yes, I did. I wanted him to play the biker. I wanted to really get a performance out of him and really treat him like any other actor in the piece rather than “Oh, here is the Stephen King cameo,” you know. So, I wanted him to grow a big biker beard and when I mixed the film and the sound I’d pitch his voice just a bit lower so you wouldn’t necessarily immediately recognize his voice. I wanted to see if I could fool the audience into thinking it was just another actor…
Lilja:
It would have been very nice to have seen him in that part.
Frank Darabont:
Yeah, I was really looking forward to that, but he didn’t have the time to do it, I’m sure he told you…
Lilja:
Yeah, but you got a lot of references to him anyway; the books,
The Dark Tower
poster and a lot of other things.
Frank Darabont:
Absolutely. And also, the good news of not being able to use Steve is that I was able to use Brian Libby, who is a very old friend of mine and he is a very good reference to Stephen King because he was in
The Shawshank Redemption
and he was in my short film
The Woman in the Room
years and years ago, so it was wonderful to work with Brian again and give him an opportunity on screen again. He’s just a terrific presence.
Lilja:
Yeah, very nice. OK, thank you very much for doing this interview. I hope we’ll talk soon again.
Frank Darabont:
Very soon, I so appreciate it.
Lilja:
Alright, take care, bye
Frank Darabont:
Take care, bye.
****
Marsha DeFilippo
Posted: June 9, 2008
Lilja:
Hi Marsha! First, I want to thank you for taking the time to chat with me. I know you have a lot to do. A little over four years ago you granted me an interview about what it’s like to be Stephen King’s assistant. Do you do interviews a lot?
Marsha DeFilippo:
No, I don’t often do personal interviews.
Lilja:
I know from emails I get and from reading Stephen King’s official message board that people are quite interested in you as a person as well. How do you feel about the fact that people take an interest in you that way and not just as Stephen King’s assistant? Do you like it or is it something you could do without?
Marsha DeFilippo:
It still surprises me. I do try to interact through the message board as much as possible as I feel that it’s important to maintain a sense of community on the board and I enjoy being a part of that. I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting a number of fans in person over the years.
Lilja:
We covered a typical (if there is such a thing) day for you at work in the earlier interview, so I won’t ask you to repeat that now, but I do want to ask you if your work assignments have changed during the last years?
Marsha DeFilippo:
For the most part things have not changed in the daily routine, but for the past year, we (the website team of Brian Stark, Jordan Hahn, Judy Hahn and myself) have been working on a complete redesign of Stephen’s website. This has been a massive project, in large part due to the sheer volume of information that we are trying to incorporate into the site as well as to make it a more user-friendly site in terms of how the material is organized.
The Dark Tower
portion of the site has been launched and we hope to have the core site ready to launch soon, although there will be other interactive components added later.
Lilja:
I can imagine that since most people now have Internet access the official website and email take up more and more of your time?
Marsha DeFilippo:
Yes, there has been a noticeable shift from physical mail to messages received through Stephen’s message board. The latest version of the message board has only been active since the end of December 2007 and has already had over 78,600 posts.
Lilja:
Has it [the Internet] made your day easier or has it given you even more work?
Marsha DeFilippo:
It’s a bit of both. I have more work to do as Ms. Mod, but the Internet has made my job easier in terms of how I communicate with others when performing my personal assistant duties, and more importantly, how I communicate with Steve as he is in Bangor much less than he was when I first began working for him.
Lilja:
Is it frustrating that there are so many fansites out there that are able to (and probably do) publish any news without checking first if it’s true? I guess you are the one who gets all the questions if someone publishes that Stephen will do this or do that, right?
Marsha DeFilippo:
Yes, honestly it is frustrating even when it is news that’s true. I understand that it’s become part of the age we live in that people have come to expect to have the news as soon as it’s available, and if it’s not on Stephen’s site, they wonder why not. There are often legitimate reasons for why we haven’t posted it even though it’s on a site somewhere on the internet. Because it is Stephen’s official site, we feel we have even more responsibility to only report news when it has been authorized by all the appropriate parties. There have been occasions when information has been leaked that wasn’t signed off on by everyone and that then makes my job harder because I have to do “damage control” either to ask the other site to remove it and/or explain it on Stephen’s site.
Lilja:
Since our last interview,
The Dark Tower
has been finished. I imagine that has eliminated quite a few questions? Do you miss them?
Marsha DeFilippo:
It’s eliminated some questions, but has started a round of new ones, mostly to do with movie plans. The Marvel Comic series have also kept the interest alive.
Lilja:
Speaking about the Internet, do you spend a lot of time acting as a watchdog online? I know that there have been people using Stephen King’s name on both Facebook and MySpace.
Marsha DeFilippo:
I honestly don’t have the time to play watchdog—it could be a full-time job doing just that.
Lilja:
How do you handle things like that? Do you actively look for these things or do you act on tips from fans? What do you do when you find someone using Stephen’s name or violating his rights in some other way?