In this love letter to 1980s thrillers, Stevens proves just how versatile he can be as David, the Southern gentleman who harbors a dark secret.
In the film, the grief-stricken Peterson family is in the midst of dealing with the loss of their son when a man named David shows up at their door, claiming to have known Caleb when they served together in the military, shortly before his untimely demise.
With his empathetic nature and his knowledge of the familys son in his final days, David is quickly ushered into the Peterson home, and offered a room for the night. However, what starts out as a welcome walk down memory lane turns into a fight for survival when it is revealed that theres more than meets the eye when it comes to their new guest.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with Stevens for a brief interview, in which we discussed taking on an American role, working with director Adam Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett, and why he chose to be involved in a film thats so infinitely different from his previous personifications.
Kalyn Corrigan: You’re usually known for period pieces and stage acting and this is so vastly different from what you’ve done before, it’s like an ’80s-style, action thriller and I was wondering what stood out to you in the script, and made you want to choose this role?
Dan Stevens: It really made me laugh. I think that was the thing, and I knew that I was not the obvious choice, but having done A Walk Among the Tombstones with Scott Frank, and he was a really interesting director, and he’d seen me in a play on Broadway, who actively wanted to see me do something different and try something different with that movie, so coming off the back of that, I was ready to start trying other things. I mean, there’s only so long you can sit in interviews and say, “I want to do different things” before you actually have to go and just do them. So, I read the script The Guest, and I’d seen You’re Next, which is Adam and Simon’s previous movie, which I don’t know if you’ve seen, but it’s just a hoot, it’s a riot. It’s just a very playful, crazy film, and when I saw that, I wanted to meet the sort of mad minds behind it. I read The Guest, laughed a lot, went and met Adam, and he really appreciated that I’d laughed a lot. We share a very similar kind of twisted sense of humor and you know, really sparked with each other, and I met Simon who works very, very closely with Adam, and it was a really unique set in that we kind of knew the vibe that we wanted to create. We knew the sort of tricky tone, but we knew that the kind of tone that we wanted to get with it. It was treading a fine line between comedy and some kind of thriller element to it. We’re all of a similar kind of generation, steeped in similar kind of movies. We’ve grown up loving John Carpenter and the Cannon movies, and Terminator, and Halloween, and all these kinds of things got thrown into this sort of blender. All of that sort of comes out, and it’s really um there’s filmmakers that really love those kinds of movies, and they want to sort of use that passion for those kind of movies and ends up bringing it out on the screen, and without being a parody or a pastiche, it has an essence of all of those movies, while still being set today. It has kind of an ’80s vibe, but it is set in the 21st century, you know, with an ’80s, synth-y kind of soundtrack to it.
Corrigan: Like you said, Carpenter had a big influence on this movie, and I know that Adam mentioned in the Q&A at the Ace Theater that Halloween and Terminator were big influences as far as his directing, and for Simon with his writing. But I was wondering, were there any characters from previous films that inspired your performance?
Stevens: I guess, I mean Adam actually commanded me to go away and watch Terminator 1 and 2 back-to-back, which I don’t think I’d ever done. I’d seen them, but I’d never sat and watched them back-to-back in one sitting, which I really recommend. But yeah, I mean a lot did. Big Trouble In Little China, you know, that kind of Kurt Russell there’s a sort of swagger to those protagonists. I don’t know, there wasn’t really one specific character, but it was just a kind of infusion of a lot of different influences really, and a certain kind of cool that we were playing with, which was fun for me to explore. Adam just kind of let me riff sometimes.
Corrigan: Your character actually reminded me a lot of Uncle Charlie from Shadow of a Doubt, especially with the relationship between David and Anna.
Stevens: Right! Yeah, yeah yeah. Well, that’s a compliment. I mean, all of the relationships are interesting and kind of playing with, teasing the audience a little bit as well, with this kind of Southern charm that swarms into this house, and Anna’s a little bit suspicious and it’s like well, who do we side with here? And I like teasing out the audience’s sympathies and sort of having a bit of fun with the audience really, and just giving people a good time. I remember seeing You’re Next at the L.A. Film Fest last year in a big crowd, and people just really got on board with it, and howled with laughter, you know? They really wanted to enjoy this movie and the experience of sitting in a big dark theater with a group of friends, and just having a wild time. It’s something I remember from growing up and movies like Kill Bill and just really relish that and the soundtrack and the visual element of just sort of immersing yourself in this crazy, playful universe. It was exciting to be a part of that kind of film.
Corrigan: Yeah, your character David figuratively wears a mask. What was it like putting on this mask when you went to work, and getting into this dark role? How much fun did you have playing the bad guy?
Stevens: It was interesting, and there’s a physical transformation. Obviously, for A Walk Among the Tombstones, that element has always intrigued me, but it’s not always been available to me, and it’s much more aligned with feature films, with the time you’re allotted to prepare and the sort of intense focus burst of emotion that you get. So, getting to play a very American kind of role as well, David is not a very British character. [laughs]
Corrigan: Yeah, how was that? Going from working for so long on British productions to working on an American film?
Stevens: It was a very enjoyable challenge, and I think that’s the key word really, now, for each thing that comes along. It’s just sort of looking for the challenge in it, and do I accept that challenge, do I relish that challenge? There were a number of challenges in this. First of all, the physical challenges of getting in that kind of shape, and being able to pull off some of those stunts and some of those action sequences. If you’d asked me three or four years ago, I don’t think I would have been able to do that [laughs]. But it was very interesting, getting my head around the accent helped, the physical preparation helped, the mental preparation…the accent helped some of the physical preparation in terms of this kind of tempo of the guy. It was interesting.
Corrigan: How did you get ready for some of the physical challenges that you were going to have to go through?
Stevens: It was a lot of training, really. It was an intense nutritional program and circuit training; weight training, martial arts, all day, every day, for about three and a half months. It was hard work, but it was fun. I’m just enjoying getting to do things I’ve never done before at the moment, and feeling like I’m pushing myself in all sorts of different directions. Seeing how that leaves me feeling, what it leaves me feeling up for next. So, having just finished a very intense drama, do I necessarily want to go and do one of those again? Maybe not right now, but you know, who knows? Each turn is different at the moment.
Corrigan: Did you do many of your own stunts?
Stevens: Quite a lot of them, yeah. I’ll leave you to spot the ones I didn’t do, but that was a lot of fun, yeah. I did have a great stunt guy who helped out in a few moments.
Corrigan: So, at first, I thought this might have been one of your first horror/thriller movies, but then when I looked back at your acting credits, I saw that you’ve actually done an adaptation of Dracula, as well as one of Frankenstein.
Stevens: Yeah, I mean those are more sort of classic costume drama adaptation types of things, but yeah, I guess I’ve done a bit of gothic horror [laughs], which is different from your type of slasher horror type thing, but yeah, I’ve been lucky. I’ve been afforded the opportunity to explore a lot of different genres so far.
Corrigan: Is the horror genre something you would like to explore more?
Stevens: If the script was right, I think I would, yeah. I don’t think there’s a single genre that I would dismiss out of hand. I couldn’t have dreamed that something like The Guest would come along, and I would struggle to put that in a particular genre box anyway, you know, it’s a genre kind of a film, but it borrows from a lot of different kinds of genres and becomes something in and of itself. So, I’d never sort of dismiss anything just because it was a costume drama, or a whatever. It’s more to do with, “is there something in that script, in that role that fires me up?”
Corrigan: Has there been any talk of a sequel?
Stevens: There has been. I have no idea if there is, but certainly people who have seen it have asked that question, so the answer is I don’t know, and I wouldn’t want to give too much away in answer to that question, but we’ll see. I’d certainly like to work with Adam and Simon again on something; they were a lot of fun.
