Aaron Stanford on Horror Movies, Filming in Morocco, and Remakes

The 2006 version of “The Hills Have Eyes” is gory and gruesome - everything you’d expect from the remake of Wes Craven’s classic 1977 horror film. Written and directed by Alexandre Aja (”High Tension”), the film stars Aaron Stanford (Pyro in “X2″ and “X-Men: The Last Stand”) as Doug Bukowski, a mild-mannered cell phone salesman who finds himself trapped by cannibalistic mutants when the family trip he’s on takes a deadly detour.

Aaron Stanford Doesn’t Judge a Film by its Genre: Stanford’s built up an impressive resume which includes independent films and big studio projects. With “The Hills Have Eyes,” Stanford adds a starring role in a horror film to his list of credits. Asked why he chose to take on this particular genre now, Stanford explained, “You know, I didn’t necessarily think of it as tackling a horror film. It was more just the way I look at projects. I read the script; I don’t think about which genre it is or what it is. If it’s a good story and it interests me, then I’ll do it. I think that’s the best way to do it and most people will tell you the same thing. Actors, we like stories, we like storytelling, we love being a part of the story, and if you give us a story that’s interesting then we’ll want to do it.”

Aaron Stanford on What Set “The Hills Have Eyes” Apart from Other Scripts: “ I love the whole new thing that Alex [Aja, writer/director] brought to it about the mining families and about how it was these mining families that had been moved off their land by government troops to start nuclear weapons testing, and there was this faction of them that refused to go and they hid in the mines. They stayed there for generations and they mutated and became more and more monstrous until they became what we actually see in the film. Just the idea of that was kind of intriguing to me.”

Aaron Stanford on the First “Hills Have Eyes:” “I had never seen the original film but when they offered it to me, I went and took a look at it. I thought it was a classic horror film. Wes Craven is obviously a horror film icon so I was definitely very interested in bringing something back to life that Wes had created.”

Speaking of bringing something back to life, there are those who cringe at the word ‘remake’. Stanford said, “People say, ‘Oh no not another remake,’ and then they all run out and see it (laughing). So, you know, there’s a demand for it. The bottom line is people like seeing these movies so as much as everyone pretends to hate them, these are the movies they’re lining up to go see.”

Horror Movies Equal Box Office Gold – For the Most Part: Stanford’s not sure about why audiences eat up horror movies. “I don’t know the answer to that. I do know that I’ve read somewhere that it’s been statistically proven that in times of war, horror films are much more popular. I don’t know why that is. You’d think it’d be the opposite. You’d think people would want to escape from it. So I don’t know what the real reason is.

People have always liked to be frightened. People love to feel that jolt of adrenaline. People love roller coasters. People love skydiving. These things that really get your heart pumping, and horror films are sort of a safe way to get that rush I guess.”

Aaron Stanford on His Character’s Transformation Over the Course of “The Hills Have Eyes:” Stanford’s character, Doug, begins the film as a meek cell phone salesman but over the course of the film changes dramatically as the situation dictates. “I loved getting into both sides. I loved the fact that he was sort of nebbishy in the beginning and was this real domesticated homebody who loved his family. He loved taking care of the baby almost to the point of emasculation, you know what I mean? I just really got into that. It was really fun and you know the scene where he’s really excited because he found all this stuff in the old abandoned car lot, it’s just really fun playing that. And then of course it’s fun to become this savage primal killer. That’s just innately fun.”

Aaron Stanford Gets Put Through the Wringer in “The Hills Have Eyes:” After watching the film it’s easy to imagine how physically difficult this role was for Stanford. “It was tough. It was very physically demanding. We shot this in Ouarzazate Morocco right at the tip of the Sahara Desert. The conditions there are harsh to say the least. It was tough. You’re outside every day in the boiling, boiling heat – 115 degrees usually.

You’re doing a lot of running around and you’re covered head to toe in blood. You’ve got a special effects swollen eye on your face and a big gash across your lips so you can’t really move them. You know, it was difficult but at the same time it was such an extraordinary experience that the discomfort kind of takes a backseat to the amazement of being in such an exotic place.”

Stanford said that despite the physical hardships, he never came to a point where he wondered what he’d gotten himself into. “No, I knew what I was in for. There were no illusions,” said Stanford. “When I met with Marianne Maddalena who’s one of the producers on it, she told me right away what to expect. She said, ‘This place is brutal. It’s a very, very difficult place to work so just be prepared for that,’ so I knew what I was getting into. And it was a great adventure. I went to a place that I never would have had a chance to go to if it wasn’t for what I do.”

Luckily the actor was in good shape before filming began because there simply wasn’t any time to prepare physically before production started. “I had no time to prepare physically for ‘Hills Have Eyes.’ I was in decent shape. I had been jogging, I think, recently a little bit but basically I just had to tough it out (laughing). If I was sucking wind after 20 minutes of running, that’s it.

…It works with the character because Doug is a regular guy. He’s not in incredible shape. It’s all about sustaining it. In those running sequences where you see Doug running for 20 seconds, that’s actually Doug running all day for two days.”

Aaron Stanford’s First Impressions of the ‘Mutants’: Stanford asked to not be shown any of the actors in the mutant make-up and effects until he had to shoot his scenes with them. He wanted to make sure his reaction was authentic. “They were pretty horrifying. The make-up is really good; the special effects guys really did their job.

What ended up happening was that I really tried to stay faithful to that and keep it fresh in my mind, you know what I mean? You don’t want to become inured to the terror of what these guys look like. But the bottom line is you’re shooting a movie so I had that fight sequence with Pluto for five days straight, okay? (laughing) So regardless of how much I wanted to keep it fresh and remain afraid of him, it’s unsustainable. You end up eating lunch with the guys in full make-up and sitting around and talking with them. That’s just the way it had to be.”

Aaron Stanford on Sustaining the Level of Tension Throughout Filming: “You just do it. It’s not easy. You just do it. You have to find it in the moment and that’s one of the challenges of being an actor – especially a film actor – is that you have to maintain these heightened emotions for long periods of time. There’s no trick to it. You just have to do.”

Stanford said it’s occasionally tough to shake off at the end of the day. “You always take a little bit back with you at the end of the day. I always put a little bit of myself into the characters, too. You find parallels, points of connection, things like that. But I’m not an actor who gets so incredibly haunted by my characters that I can’t come back.”

Putting Himself Into His Character’s Situation… If placed in the same unspeakable circumstances as his character, Stanford believes he’d think things through rather than immediately spring into action. “I think that I’d analyze it through. It’s such a shocking situation to be in. You know, I don’t want to give too much away but it’s such an extreme, unexpected situation that I think you’d have to think for a couple of seconds, which is what Doug does and then he does react. When he reacts it’s with an incredible amount of rage and brutality. It’s not that he’s weak, it’s just that he’s in a world that he’s never experienced before. It takes a minute to find your bearings.”

Aaron Stanford on Alexandre Aja’s Script: Asked if there were ever any moments when he thought the script pushed things too far, Stanford said, “I’m sure there were moments here and there where I said, ‘No, we’re not doing that (laughing).’ I tried to make sure that any moments that I felt were really clichéd horror film or over the top or one-liners that they wanted… There wasn’t that many of them but every once in a while there’d be something. I’d say, ‘You know, I really think we’re trying to make this not be your average, everyday horror film. We’re trying to make this be something unique and really break a lot of horror conventions.’ Whenever something would happen that I felt was sliding back to really conventional horror, I would take exception.”

Collaborating with Writer/Director Aja: “There was a lot of collaboration on this movie. Alex is very interested in hearing what people have to say and he was very loose with the dialogue. He’s French so he was very aware that some of the things that he wrote were not just the way that we would actually speak. He said, ‘Make sure you make it your own.’ Whenever we had any new ideas, he was always ready to incorporate them.”

Next Up: “X-Men: The Last Stand:” “The Last Stand” is the second “X-Men” movie Stanford’s appeared in and the first film of the series minus director Bryan Singer. Brett Ratner of “Rush Hour” fame is helming what’s been rumored to be the last “X-Men” movie.

Stanford explained the differences between the two directors: “You know they’re both very different people and they both bring something unique to the project that they work on. The thing I really enjoyed about working with Brett is that the man is the Energizer Bunny. I mean, he just does not run out of energy. He’s constantly on. When he comes in, he’s thrilled to be on set. He’s just very excited about life in general. That kind of positive energy on set really helps you out.”

Stanford wouldn’t reveal much about the third film of the series but did say, “I have some pretty fun stuff. There’s a lot of stuff blowing up (laughing).”