Quite interestingly Matthew had a quite different approach to his character. He was such a calm and intelligent person and he mingled with the other cast and the crew off set, but once he was on the set he could be as focused and passopnate as Aaron instantly.
Imogen was also very professional, too. Her character was required to express complexity of her feeling to Aaron’s character. She was smitten with Aaron’s character at first chat but she began to suspect he may be a completely different person in reality from how she had imagined, so she is torn with the opposite emotions until the end.
Imogen perfectly expressed it. I also was impressed with Hannah. She had a very good instinct how to play her character, so I was just watching her performance carefully and made just few comments.
Daniel is also a writer so he seemed to have a viewpoint of a creator, so it was such a fun to discuss with him about each of his scenes. He was such a funny and witty guy.
- Chatrooms and cyber bullying is something that is very relevant in the UK at the moment so how much research did you do into this subject.
Yes, the same kind of internet bullying is going on in Japan, too. There is an underground website for middle school students specially created for a school, where a kid can be a victim of internet verbal bullying by his/her classmates, and they can cheerfully communicated the victim at school and at the same time they write terrible cursed words on the victim.
Some bullied kids by this way committed suicides. Without an intense research, this kind of terrible and depressing news are running all over the world now. Please confer the document of my directorial statements as well.
- Chatroom is your third English speaking movie so how have you found the transition away from Japanese movies?
The British way of film making looks like somewhere between Hollywood and Japan. Fortunately I know the both, so I tried to introduce the good aspects of the each way.
I quite enjoyed the shooting process as I was given the creative control on the set whereas the pots production was rather hectic, I would say.
- And are English speaking movies and American movies something that you would really like to explore more? And if so what kind of movies do you have in mind?
I would love to make either a tearjerker melodrama or a Hitchcock style thriller.
- You are very much at the forefront of Japanese horror movies so how do you feel when people call you a visionary and a leader in this genre?
It is the genre that made me famous in the Japanese film industry and it actually gave me the ticket to Hollywood and this British film. So I really appreciate it.
But I have to confess that I have never been a horror film fan. I just did my best to make my horror film look and feel scary. Now I would like to make other kinds of films, too.
- You are famed for the horror movie so what is it about this genre that interests you so much?
As I mentioned above, it was purely coincidental that I became a horror film maker, although I have made other kinds of films they are less known and strangely I made horror films at every crucial point of my career, so I began to think it is my destiny to make the genre film. I might be a reincarnated witchcrafts man... I cannot escape from the fate.
- And you have gone on to influence American horror movie filmmaking so is this something that you are very proud of?
Yes and no. Yes, I am honored that three of my Japanese original films have been remade into English films, when even Kurosawa’s were two, I think. No, because it would have been much better if my films had been released in the English speaking countries first.
- How did the 2002 remake of The Ring come about? And were you happy with Gore Verbinski’s interpretation of your work?
One of the executive producer of The Ring, Roy Lee saw my original film and he thought it would be interesting to remake it, and he ran the screening sessions for the major studios. And then Dreamworks made the fastest and the heist bid.
I think Gore did a very good job and I was very much intrigued by some new scenes such as a horse goes crazy and jumps off from the ferry boat, which was such a gloomy omen for what would happen on the island.
I heard that it took a week to shoot a scene with CGI effects on post production whereas we had to shoot the ferry boat scene within two hours while the boat was just sailing to the island.
I also heard that Gore fought for the scene as the studion wanted to edit out the entire scene. I admire Gore’s courage as it was one of the best scenes of the film.
- Finally what’s next for you?
That's a secret.
Chatroom is out on DVD now.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw