Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on March 9, 2012, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Many actresses have played the Final Girl in horror films, but Elizabeth Olsen is one of the few to be the Only Girl. She portrays Sarah, who is front and center throughout all 88 minutes of the real-time chiller Silent House, which she discusses with FANGORIA below.
In Silent House, a remake of the Uruguyan horror film a.k.a. La Casa Muda, Sarah is helping her father John (Adam Trese) and uncle Peter (Eric Sheffer Stevens) with an old family home they’re preparing for sale. Before long, she is trapped inside alone, pursued by a person or persons unknown as her plight is captured as one long, unbroken take (see our review here). It’s Olsen’s second straight venture into psychological fear after her breakout turn in last year’s Martha Marcy May Marlene (which, like Silent House, premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival), though as Olsen explains, the two parts were very different…
Your role in Martha Marcy May Marlene was very much about withholding and controlling her emotions, whereas in Silent House, you really let them all out.
That was the main difference. When people say, “Don’t they seem like the same type of thing?” I’m like, “No.” One woman is aware of everything going on in her head but will not say a word about it, and one girl has no idea of what’s going on in her head and is just in fear for her life.
On the other hand, there are some great moments of withholding, like when you’re under the table trying not to scream because that would alert the person stalking you. Were those moments particularly difficult?
You know what’s funny? I never plan for what will be the hardest moments, or what’s going to be the pinnacle of fear or anything like that. I plan things based on beats and trying not to repeat things. The way I imagined everything when we were going through it was like, “How far is the person I’m running away from?” So the closer they got, the higher the fear, and that’s just what ended up happening on my face [laughs]. There was no direction or description saying, “This is where she silently screams.” It was just what happened while we were doing it.
It would seem you had one advantage over actors in most horror films, which are shot out of sequence, making it something of a challenge to figure out what level of fear to show in a given scene. Here, you got to build the fear up chronologically as you went along.
I tried to. I had to create an arc and pacing without editing. We had to do it while we were working, which was why we had to go back and do reshoots after Sundance because we had to fix a couple of things. We couldn’t just cut pieces out; we had to stitch them in seamlessly. It was a whole other experience doing those reshoots instead of just being like, “Oh, we’ll just take this out here, speed that up there…” We couldn’t do any of that.
So you and the filmmakers had to go back to the same house location and dress it all back up the way it was?
Yep. And I had to put on that same exact outfit once again. Same bloodstains everywhere, and I really did not want to. I had left the movie like, “I need peace in my life!” and I totally unwound and it was great. Then I was like, “What? We’re doing reshoots? I have to go back to that mindset and that house?!” Because it was draining. But we just went and did it.
I imagine it was difficult recovering from being in that pitched state of fear for the duration of the shoot.
Yeah, I became naturally more sensitive in my day-to-day life. Right after filming the movie, I had a meeting with somebody at NYU because they were charging me for a semester I withdrew from. And I was like, “Wait, you can’t ask me to pay for a semester that I filled out all the paperwork for successfully and turned them in on time! I didn’t attend one class.” I was so confused. And instead of having a normal conversation, I just started crying [laughs] because I was so sensitive. My muscles had been exercised to be pushed really easily, and when continuity is based on your fear and tears, it becomes this easily accessible thing. I was like, “I’m so sorry, I don’t usually cry in meetings!” It was so embarrassing.
How long did it take you to come down from the whole experience?
Well, we finished in November, and I think I felt sane after the New Year. So two months.
You spent the holidays in that place?
Yeah, I had anxiety in my life that I’ve never had before. It was also, just being a young woman in my early 20s, a lot of people deal with anxiety for the first time during that stage. It was a whole transition in my life where I was just kind of, “Yoga, yoga, yoga…” [Laughs]
What was it like watching yourself go through all that on the big screen for the first time?
Well, the first time I saw it was at Sundance; I went to the press screening at midnight and no one knew I was there, and it was my first time ever seeing myself on screen. I’d never seen myself in anything else, because Martha Marcy May Marlene was the next day. So I was sitting low in the chair, hoping no one knew I was there, and also dealing with seeing myself for the first time on the big screen in every frame of a film, which was overwhelming.
But when I saw the new cut recently, which was just a month ago, I took my best friend with me, and it was so much fun sitting next to someone who didn’t know what was coming next. The reason I love scary movies and seeing them with audiences is that everyone screams together and jumps together and laughs together, or you have those people who don’t like being scared and just nervously giggle all the time. So I had such a good time watching it again, and I also think it’s much better than the cut we had at Sundance.
How was your experience working with your two co-stars, Adam Trese and Eric Sheffer Stevens?
Every time they were on set, I was so happy. I couldn’t care less what the content was; I was just so thankful that there were other actors with me [laughs]. Those guys are so funny and great to work with, especially Adam, who plays my father. And Julia Taylor Ross, who plays Sophia, is now a good friend of mine. I was just so grateful to have other people to work with. The funny thing is that my friend, when we watched the screening together, told me he felt such a relief when I got in the car with Peter [played by Stevens]; he was like, “I’m so happy you had someone else to act with!” Not because he felt some sense of relief from the tension building, but he was glad I got to tell someone what was happening. I also think that’s a really great moment in the film.
Did you see the original Uruguayan Silent House?
I did; I was curious to see what it was like, and I think our movie’s so different. It’s the same concept, obviously, but the way the ending comes together is very different.
And a lot better.
I agree; I thought the ending of the original was kind of confusing and not clear enough. I don’t believe ours is going to be one of those things where you leave the theater like, “What happened?”
You have a number of little performance moments throughout the film that give clues to your character and the story’s ultimate resolution. Was that stuff you brought to it, or was that planned and scripted beforehand?
I don’t recall if it was all planned. There were definitely moments I made a choice for and didn’t talk to anyone about, suggesting something to the audience. I tried to layer those things in and then forget about them. It was like, maybe somebody will notice it, maybe they won’t, or maybe they won’t realize they notice it and it’ll be a subconscious thing.
Were there any physical moments that were especially tough? Did you ever get hurt in the scenes where you’re running around and getting beaten up?
Yes, I actually documented my bruises throughout this film. Because I was in tights the whole time that were colored, no one could see what the bruises on my legs looked like. There was one long take that started with me hiding underneath a table and then being grabbed. That’s how the shot began; no matter how many times we got through all of it, it didn’t matter, we attempted the whole thing 20 or 30 times. So crawling from underneath the table, first off, was just hard on my knees with no padding, and then bumping into the table or a chair next to me, and also having someone grab my leg while I struggled? After we did it about 15 times, I was like, [whispers] “Could you actually not grab me so hard next time?” because I ended up having this humongous hand bruise on my leg. I had bruises everywhere; I looked like a leper. The makeup lady and I loved taking pictures of them because they were so gnarly.
It’s been reported that you’re going to be taking part in Spike Lee’s Oldboy remake.
Maybe.
Have you seen the original?
The original’s one of my favorite movies. I think it’s one of the most perfect films; I love it.
Anything else on the horizon genre-wise? Do you want to take part in more horror films?
I’m just interested in changing things up all the time, so my next project is a small supporting role in a great ensemble story about Allen Ginsberg [Kill Your Darlings], set in 1940s New York. That’s gonna be fun; I’m in five scenes. Then I’m doing a full-blown 1860s French story [Therese Raquin] with Glenn Close. I haven’t done a period piece yet, and it’s also an affair story and I haven’t done that yet, so I’m trying to change it up as often as possible just to keep myself interested. I know there are going to be hits and misses along the way, so as long as I know as a person and actor why I choose to do something and what I hope to gain from it, whether it’s a hit or a miss, I still know I’ll receive something for doing it, so I can’t have that taken away from me. I’m just trying to choose things right now based on what’s the most interesting and stimulating and challenging.
