Crimson Peak Set Report: What is Going Down in Allerdale Hall?

• Jessica Chastain is Lucille Sharpe

Lucille is Thomas’ older sister. “I see her as someone who actually has suffered a lot.” Chastain noted the scars on her face and back and further explained, “She had a very difficult life that she’s come from and so all she’s trying to do is preserve her happiness, because she’s a woman who’s had little happiness in her life.”

del Toro gave his cast extremely thorough character biographies and Chastain opted to share a few details from hers. She read, “‘Positives: Loyal, determined, intelligent, meticulous, decisive, observant, eloquent, artistic, passionate, sensitive, delicate, protective, unwavering. Negatives: Insular, narcissistic, violent, domineering, possessive, agoraphobic, germaphobe, vengeful, jealous, manipulative, depressive, demanding, suffocating. Secret Dreams: To never leave Allerdale Hall.’ He goes even into descriptions like, ‘Likes: The smell of good tobacco, the taste of very bitter chocolate.’”

In addition to all the character details that del Toro gave her, Chastain also did a good deal of research on her own. She recalled watching Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and Misery. “I love the idea of someone being helpless and also Kathy Bates in Misery, I actually feel for that woman when I watch the movie because you think like, ‘God, she’s so pathetic.’ And there’s something about her, she actually just wants love, so I tried to surround myself with films like that.”

Even though Lucille certainly isn’t a hero in the movie, Chastain still needed to empathize with the character and believe in what she was doing. “If someone is your everything in life and the only reason for happiness, you’re gonna be possessive of it, because to lose that is to die. I don’t see that as a negative thing in her because any negative quality that she has, everything comes from love.” She laughed and added, “Everything she does is to give love and to receive love. She might be going about it the wrong way.”

At one point in the film, Lucille plays a lullaby on the piano and Chastain was kind enough to play it for us on a keyboard she had in her trailer. And, for what it’s worth, Chastain also cryptically teased, “[Lucille] doesn’t believe in ghosts.”

• Charlie Hunnam is Dr. Alan McMichael

Expecting to see Hunnam play another tough guy who saves the day? Think again. He laughed and admitted, “Because of a lot of the work that I’ve done, I wouldn’t be an obvious choice for kind of a quiet, shy, stolid, taciturn type of doctor who doesn’t get the girl.”

Dr. McMichael and Edith have been close friends their entire lives, but, as Hunnam explained, “He certainly has aspirations to be in her life romantically.” He continued, “They’ve been friends for their whole life so it’s always somewhat awkward to try to articulate that one’s feelings have evolved into something else and so he wants to do it slowly and subtly and tactfully, and then this other guy kind of swoops in.”

When Dr. McMichael isn’t busy pining for Edith, he’s working as an ophthalmologist. In fact, Hunnam even researched ophthalmological sciences to prepare for the role. “I am a doctor who studies in ophthalmology so I kind of explored a little bit of the nature of that and was really more interested in why he would have chosen that as a profession.” He added, “Guillermo and I, again, discussed a little bit of that and the idea of the eyes being the windows to the soul.”

The role also called for Hunnam to dive into some Conan Doyle. “This idea of [Dr. McMichael’s] interest in Conan Doyle really informed the character a lot for Guillermo and I.” He continued, “There were only four novels, but there’s a huge catalogue of short stories and so I’m about maybe 25 short stories and two novels into reading the complete adventures of Sherlock Holmes. And you can’t read that stuff without starting to fancy yourself a bit of an amateur detective, and I think it’s more that part of his personality that comes into play during the second half of the film.”

However, don’t expect Dr. McMichael’s detective work to lead to very much action. “Thankfully, this is much more of an intellectual exercise for me. It’s probably the least physical role I’ve ever done.” Hunnam laughed and recalled, “I had to do a little bit of a stumble. I went to a stunt rehearsal for this [and said], ‘This is ridiculous, guys. You’ve worked with me before.’ Really, I got out of bed to come, literally, stumble a couple of steps backward and said okay. I mean, the rehearsal was three and a half minutes.”