Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje Interview For ‘The Thing’

Antarctica: an extraordinary continent of awesome beauty. It is also home to an isolated outpost where a discovery full of scientific possibility becomes a mission of survival when an alien is unearthed by a crew of international scientists. The shape-shifting creature, accidentally unleashed at this marooned colony, has the ability to turn itself into a perfect replica of any living being. It can look just like you or me, but inside, it remains inhuman. In the thriller ‘The Thing,’ paranoia spreads like an epidemic among a group of researchers as they’re infected, one by one, by a mystery from another planet.

Palaeontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has travelled to the desolate region for the expedition of her lifetime. Joining a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across an extraterrestrial ship buried in the ice, she discovers an organism that seems to have died in the crash eons ago. But it is about to wake up. When a simple experiment frees the alien from its frozen prison, Kate must join the crew’s pilot, Carter (Joel Edgerton), to keep it from killing them off one at a time. And in this vast, intense land, a parasite that can mimic anything it touches will pit human against human as it tries to survive and flourish. ‘The Thing’ serves as a prelude to John Carpenter’s classic 1982 film of the same name. The film also stars Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ulrich Thomsen, Paul Braunstein, Stig Henrik Hoff and Eric Christian Olsen. ’The Thing’ opens in cinemas October 14th in the US, and December 2nd in the UK.

How was it entering this world John Carpenter created?

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: I was a huge fan of John Carpenter’s original classic, I grew up watching it. I consider myself a bit of a horror snob, in that I like those horrors that have a bit more of a suspense thriller aspect to them – the classic certainly had that. When I read the script for the prequel, it had all of those elements. The fact that David Foster was also the original producer, he was very much shepherding and guiding us with it, that was a huge element for me being onboard. Also we didn’t cast huge names in this film, the story was really about “the thing,” so automatically I knew they were trying to create something a little different. It was quite exciting to be a part of that whole journey.

The nature of this “thing” really lends itself to all the paranoia in this film?

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: I think with this film, as with most good horror, it really speaks to the primal fear we have as human beings about the unknown. Here’s a creature who’s come out of nowhere, it exhumes the human form, so automatically it asks all these questions, it questions every relationship – it becomes survival of the fittest. It really engages the audience to partake in the story because if this happened to your friend what would you do? Would you try to help them, save them, would you torch them? It’s an interesting dynamic, I really liked that element, it creates a dialogue, because even after the movies finished you walk away from the movie thinking, ’Wait a minute, when he crashed in the plane, was he…….’ Those are the movies that have longevity because they create dialogue between the audience – also in the actors, I really enjoy that (laughs).

How was it working opposite the animatronic creatures, with all the transformations – was that fun, disgusting?

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: It was disgustingly funny, honestly it was what I call exquisitely vulgar (laughs), it was vulgarity at its peak. You get your bucks worth if that’s your thing. They went to painstaking details to create these prosthetic creatures, as an actor it really informs your performance. Normally you do these things with special effects and a little green ball, here we had the luxury of these detailed creatures. Right down to the skin texture, it was almost human-like. They were automated, the faces were contort, the bodies were twisted, they would almost scream, and then they would start creeping towards you – when your acting you don’t really have to pretend (laughs), that was a lot of fun.

I’ve heard stories from the cast members about these stuntmen and the fire….

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: There was some great stunts, torching these guys, these stuntmen, they were on fire, sometimes for three to five minutes, the fire came from every angle. This one stunt guy was a ball of fire, then when they put him out he was like, ‘alight, that was good,’ (laughs). The stuntmen done a brilliant job in this movie. If your going to do a horror movie that’s what you want, you want to be in there with some really ghastly creatures, I think these ones in this film really set the bar. The shock and horror is done really tastefully and classy but its still going to scare the whit’s about you. I’m a big guy but I get squeamish every time I see this “thing” (laughs).