"YOU GET 3 WEEKS OF REHEARSALS AND THEN YOU MAKE THE MOVIE - AND THAT'S NEVER HAPPENED TO ME AGAIN"
As Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator turns 40, IndieWire's Jim Hemphill interviewed Barbara Crampton, who had three scenes in Brian De Palma's Body Double, which she had rehearsed during a three-week period of cast rehearsals prior to filming:
Forty years ago, Barbara Crampton was at the beginning of her screen career when director Stuart Gordon cast her in his debut film “Re-Animator,” a wildly funny and audacious horror movie based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft. “I had come from the theater and it was one of my first jobs,” Crampton told IndieWire. “I had worked with Brian De Palma for a minute and on a soap opera, but I think I was too green to understand that we were doing something special.”“Re-Animator” was something special indeed, a bold and original film that not only ignored the boundaries of good taste but demolished them, yet exhibited an artistry that earned it positive reviews from critics like Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert. “Re-Animator” quickly attracted a cult following, thanks to Gordon’s rollercoaster script, cinematographer Mac Ahlberg’s dynamic and expressive visual style, and performances (from Crampton as well as co-stars Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, and David Gale) that felt more grounded and assured than what one was used to seeing in low-budget horror.
Gordon who, like Crampton, had a background in theater, rehearsed the actors for three weeks before shooting, a choice that Crampton said was instrumental in giving the actors the confidence they needed to hit the ground running once the arduous low-budget shoot began. Because De Palma had been similarly thoughtful and rigorous in his approach when Crampton worked on “Body Double,” the actress was surprised to learn later how exceptional her experience on “Re-Animator” had been.
“Working with Stuart and Brian, I thought, ‘Oh, this is how it is in Hollywood,'” Crampton said. “You get three weeks of rehearsal and then you make the movie. And that’s never happened to me again.” During the rehearsal process Gordon and the actors delved into the characters’ motivations for each scene and over the course of the film as a whole, which helped Crampton stay focused during the long days covered in gore. “Most days we were on the set for a minimum of 13, 14, 16 hours, because Stuart wouldn’t stop filming. Everything on the set was slippery and gooey. But I learned to use that as part of the reality in the moment,” she said.
Back in 2012, Crampton told Fangoria:
Well, I originally had three scenes. They were conversations with Craig Wasson, where he was trying to reconcile with me after we broke up. The day before shooting, they said they were cutting the two dialogue scenes and I'd only have the one; you know which one that is. I was like, "Darn, oh well, it's Brian De Palma; I'm sure it will lead to something." And it didn't; I'm still waiting for Brian to call me with something else. For what it's worth, we did that scene about 60 times, which was sort of interesting.