Jaime King, over the phone at least, is like the nice, popular, pretty girl in high school who you'd like to hate rather than be jealous of her, but you can't really find a flaw. She's been a star since she was a teenager, when she started her career as a model, and lately she's been one of Frank Miller's many muses, appearing in both Sin City and The Spirit.
Tomorrow she hits theaters in a very different kind of role-- the strong-willed, smart girl eluding the serial killer in My Bloody Valentine 3D. King, who says she's a tech geek, was intrigued by the idea of a horror movie done in 3D, and also said this was a different kind of horror movie than the ones she's usually offered. Read below for her stories about how different it is acting with 3D cameras, and how filming My Bloody Valentine and Sin City were kind of the same, actually.
What made you interested in taking this role to begin with?
This movie really changed my perspective on horror films in a big way. I never realy liked horror films that much, because I have too big of an imagination, and my mind goes wild. I was never the person who wanted to sit and put all those images in my head, for fear of not being able to get them out. I was constantly getting scripts of the horror genre, and none of them that I particularly liked. [When I got the script] my friends--they flipped out. 'You don't understand, this is a cult classic, this is the first horror movie I ever saw!' It's an amazing throwback.
Was the 3D part of the appeal?
It sounded really cool. I'm really into all the cool tech stuff. I've done a quite a lot of films that used technology that hasn't been used before. That's my nerdy side. I love the idea that we can tell stories and make films and move people and have them be entertained in a whole different way. When I saw the tests from our dailies, it blew my mind. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
Was it more challenging acting in front of the 3D cameras?
There wasn't anything different we had to do with our acting. The only thing diferent was it took a hell of a lot onger, and it was frickin' bright. It's just about adjusting to how bright and hot it is. Normally our days are crazy long-- people think it's really glamorous, and it's not that glamorous. It added 30% more to our days. Nobody had used the cameras before. We ended up shooting 6 days a week, minmum 18 hours a day.
And how about when there would be the 3D stunts, like eyes poking out of the screen?
I've kind of gotten used to that kind of acting, after The Spirit and after Sin City. That, you're faking. The guy's in front of you, and nothing's happening to him. You're literally reacting to something that's not existing. More and more that's happening. One of my best friends is Selma Blair, and she did Hellboy 2. [She told me] 'I had to do this whole movie with these monsters that didn't even exist!', and she was nervous. I went to the movie, and she totally kicked ass. I felt for her, because when I'm doing it, you feel like the biggest idiot. I remember it when I was doing Sin City. No matter who you are, when there's nothing, you've just got to make it up.
Do you have a preference for that effects-heavy kind of filmmaking, or would you rather do something smaller and more intimate?
I love both of it. It's just such a different experience. When you're doing a film, that's acutal people and actual sets, sometimes it does feel a bit more organic. What I do like about acting in grenscreen, I don't feel bound and limited by my surroundings. I hesitate to say that I prefer, but sometimes I really do prefer the greenscreen background rather than an actal set. Sometimes my imagination is so much greater than a physical chair or a physical desk. It allows me to free. You're also not having to deal with the elements of the weather, so you can continually shoot. There's something to be said about being able to continually shoot, and just stay in the character and just knock it out.
