In his time off from the ongoing Twilight series, Jackson Rathbone decided to dive right into a film about the nature of fear itself: Dread, based on the Book of Blood short story by horror-fantasy author Clive Barker. In the film, adapted and directed by Anthoni DiBlasi, Rathbone plays Stephen, a mild-mannered film student who gets caught up in a classmate's study of fear -- a project that takes an unexpectedly dark and disturbing turn.
FEARnet spoke with Rathbone by phone as he was preparing to play New Orleans with his band, 100 Monkeys, with whom he'll be touring right up to the start of his promo duties for June's The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. (Read our Eclipse-focused chat with Rathbone here) Rathbone discussed his reasons for taking on the part in the gory psychological thriller -- including the behind-the-scenes story of his brush with a live maggot, partially documented on the Dread DVD, out this week -- and how the disparate worlds of Dread and Twilight both fit into his multi-faceted career.
Rathbone also recalled his challenging guest spot on Criminal Minds as a killer with multiple personality disorder and spoke about fight training for M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, his upcoming fantasy-action film. Dallas fans can catch Rathbone in person on April 24, when he appears with 100 Monkeys at the Spencer Bell Legacy Concert in memory of his late friend, Spencer Bell, whose posthumously-released song Beautiful, More So also marks Rathbone's music video directing debut.
Dread is out on DVD this week as part of the After Dark Horrorfest.
FEARnet: How's the tour going, and where are you right now? Do you get pulled back from time to time to do press for films like Dread and the upcoming Twilight film, Eclipse?
Jackson Rathbone: We just got into New Orleans, which is nice because my mom was born and raised here. Well, basically I kind of go back and forth; sometimes we have driving days and literally I'll have one day where I fly back and do some promos. So I can keep both up at the same time. It's fun� I'm always in motion.
What was it about the script for Dread that hooked you and made you want to be a part of it?
I've always been fascinated by Clive Barker's dark, Gothic world, and I was a fan of the Hellraiserseries when I was growing up. When I got the script, I was told it involved his short story so I read them both and I thought, this is much more of a personalized, humanized version of these dark tales that Clive Barker likes to tell. I really liked it because it was something that could happen in real life -- the derangement of a character like Quaid [played by Shaun Evans]-- that was something that was grounded in reality, and I really liked that aspect of it. I was kind of on the fence, so I gave it to a friend of mine to read and he got through all of it, and at the end he was like, oh man, I almost vomited toward the end. That's when I knew I had to do it.
I've always been fascinated by Clive Barker's dark, Gothic world, and I was a fan of the Hellraiserseries when I was growing up. When I got the script, I was told it involved his short story so I read them both and I thought, this is much more of a personalized, humanized version of these dark tales that Clive Barker likes to tell. I really liked it because it was something that could happen in real life -- the derangement of a character like Quaid [played by Shaun Evans]-- that was something that was grounded in reality, and I really liked that aspect of it. I was kind of on the fence, so I gave it to a friend of mine to read and he got through all of it, and at the end he was like, oh man, I almost vomited toward the end. That's when I knew I had to do it.
What was it that you think brought him to that crucial vomiting point?
I think it was the realistic element of the ending, really. I don't want to give away or spoil the ending, but the realistic, visceral imagery of what Anthony was able to pull out of a short story and turn into a full length feature script -- it's one of those things, I have such a strong imagination whenever I read a script, I can visualize things pretty well. A lot of my friends are like that too because they're artists.
In the DVD special features for Dread, there's a behind the scenes moment where we see you eat a maggot. Please tell us there's a good reason for why that happened?
[Laughs] That was kind of a dare; I don't know if they got the entire scene on camera, but you know� In the beginning of Dread, Stephen's only friend is a crow. There are a couple of scenes that I don't think made it into the final cut where I feed the crow little maggots.
So these maggots were on set the whole time, especially towards the end, and people were always joking with one another, "You have to eat a maggot!" They're full of protein, they're actually not that bad for you. So Anthony DiBlasi was holding one out, and I happened to be covered in blood and it had been a long day, and somebody asked me to eat the maggot -- so I did!
The funniest thing about that is that someone's already posted that clip to the 100 Monkeys message board under the title, "Sexiest Jackson Moments�"
You're kidding me! Wow. I'll take it!
Read the rest of the interview here
Via Twilight Guide
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