We were on the red carpet for the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of “Devil’s Gate.”
FBI Agent Daria Francis (Amanda Schull) can’t shake the feelings of remorse stemming from a failed attempt to save an innocent victim while on the job. But there’s no time to wallow. A new assignment has redirected her attention to the small town of Devil’s Gate, North Dakota. A local woman and her young son have gone missing, and all signs point to foul play on the part of her husband (Milo Ventimiglia). But when Agent Francis and the local deputy (Shawn Ashmore) enter his farmhouse’s basement, the case proves to have far wilder implications than they could have imagined.
What inspired the project?
Clay Staub: It’s just something long time coming. I’ve worked on a couple of projects that … It’s not that you’re slower at it, it’s the fact that you’re trying to develop them, and then you realize someone else came up with the same idea … It’s a constant development thing. I got to the point where I was frustrated and I pitched an idea to my co-writer, and I said, “Look it, we got to move on this quick.” We developed it and it just happens to be a byproduct of writing a story. I didn’t go out of my way to start to make a film that’s in this particular genre. The fact is, it mixes genres. I think there’s key moments in the film where it shifts and you’re going to feel the shift. I hope you hold on, because it just changes on you, but it changes in all the right ways, I think. I was looking for that kind of excitement, but I really wanted simulcast. I wanted something where I could sit there and really work with this great crew, and try to really make it interesting and let shots play. It wasn’t about doing quick cuts. It was about letting actors do their job and be great. I think you’ll see a lot of that. The nuances isn’t always in the dialogue, it’s in the manner of what they’re doing. They may be just walking, but you allow them to walk across the room, and that tells you so much about a character. It’s great. It was satisfying to get people like Milo involved and then Shawn’s just awesome, and Amanda and Bridget. Jonathan Frakes too, absolutely. Going down the line, when I think about it, I’ll bring up Spencer Drever, who’s the boy in the film, is a rockstar. He’s a rockstar. They’ll agree, one of the most professional young boys I’ve ever seen that never flopped a line, absolutely gave me 100%, and never got scared doing it. That was good. I would love to have Jonathan here tonight, but obviously he’s directing right now. That was the other thing, having a director on your own film.
Tell me a little bit about your collaboration with Clay on this. What intrigued you about the writing? Why’d you want to be involved?
Milo Ventimiglia: Wow. I saw a dark intense ride, and a journey into a man’s madness that had been plaguing his family for years. I’d understood what Clay wanted to do cinematically with the film, then as the cast was assembled, I knew Shawn was on board, and Amanda was on board, and Bridget was on board. That was automatic, I’m like, “I’ve got to be a part of this.” I’m friends with Sean, I’m friends with Bridget, I’ve been a fan of Amanda’s, I’m like, “I’ve got to do this.”
It seems like the character is very layered and complex. The audience might think one thing, and then people in the story might think one thing. Can you talk about playing those layers?
Milo Ventimiglia: Yeah. It’s interesting when you have to walk that line of are you the bad guy, are you the good guy? Are you looking out for your family? Are you condemning your family? It’s a lot that you have to be responsible for and take care with, and understand that not everything that you see is true. You have to understand that a man wielding the shotgun at a federal agent may just be protecting his family. That’s something about this film, it’s a lot of individual identity and people trying to find out really, truly, what is behind this mystery that is plaguing this town.
My last question is how did you prepare for the role?
Milo Ventimiglia: You know what, the words were on the page. There wasn’t much that I had to do. Jackson Pritchard is a very religious man, so there was some diving into theology, and understanding from a very faith heavy based understanding of God, and the devil and demons and angels. Then beyond that it was just, be angry. Jackson Pritchard is a very angry man. I’d say I wasn’t doing yoga, but hitting a lot of punching bags the whole filming of the movie.
So tell me a little bit about why you wanted to be involved with the project?
Shawn Ashmore: As an actor, I feel like most of my job is really reading scripts, reading material … You have to sort of decipher whether it’s something that you’re interested in, if it’s something you really want to pursue. With Devil’s Gate, I thought I knew what the movie was until I got to about page 20 and then I was like, “Wait this is not what I expected.” And I like to think that I’m good at sort of like, predicting stories and seeing where things are going and this sort of surprised me and then it was like a page-turner from then on. So really it was about the script. I was really interested in working with Amanda and Milo and Bridget and working with Clay, our director. Also Clay presented this really amazing look-book, he’s an artist. He painted a lot of the design of what the film was gonna look like and how he wanted to light it. And I was like, “Wow, this guy’s thought about this a lot.” So he seemed very well prepared, the script was interesting, and it was a character that I hadn’t played before. So all of those things sort of lined up and I thought, “This is definitely something I want to jump into.”
Did you read case studies or maybe talk to a detective for your preparation?
Shawn Ashmore: Well I didn’t do that for this role specifically, but I’ve played an FBI agent in the past and I was at the federal building and taking to some FBI agents so I had a little bit of knowledge about investigation and how the mind of a law-enforcement officer works. Again, this is a very small town. So he’s not a sophisticated law-enforcement officer. He’s very capable and he’s a smart guy but he just hasn’t been put in the situations to really stretch his abilities. So this case … He’s in over his head a little bit and when the FBI agent played by Amanda comes in, I think he welcomes it with open arms, because he knows that he’s in over his head a little bit.
Do you enjoy the thriller genre?
Shawn Ashmore: Love it. I love watching them, I love being a part of it. I love telling incredibly dramatic stories and psychological thrillers and genre work … I think what I like about it … I always say genre stuff in general, you put ordinary people in extraordinary situations and then get to see how they react. So, it’s heightened, which I like. I love heightened, dramatic stuff.
What will you take away from this experience?
Shawn Ashmore: Yeah, the film is very dark. But I made some great friends and we still all hang out. Amanda … I’ve hung out with Amanda, I’ve hung out with Milo … You know, I see these people and we have some great friendships. That’s just from a personal standpoint. And I’m very proud of the film. I think the film’s really interesting. It looks incredible, there’s great tension, and I’m really proud of what we’ve made.
Tell me a little bit about the journey that your character takes in this movie.
Amanda Schull: My character is an FBI agent going to investigate the disappearance of a mother and a child, and nothing goes as she would expect it. From the very first second she touches down in town in Devil’s Gate, she is thrown curve ball after curve ball. She has to try to navigate this and get to the bottom of what’s going on, not just with this woman and her child, but kind of with the town, in general.
Can you speak about delving into this suspense and dark subject matter?
Amanda Schull: Yeah. Well, the set was anything, but dark. We have a great time. We have a lot of laughs. It was fun to go to work every single day, which is refreshing considering the intensity of the material. But for that matter, I think it makes the material that much more intense because you can play when the cameras are turned the other way, and then focus all of the depth and darkness when the cameras are rolling, as opposed to just trying to suck your soul 24 hours into the psychological thriller element, which is the film.
