David Arquette: All Freaked Out!
You freaked along with him as Deputy Dewey in the Scream films and watched him romance Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed. He wrestled with a pooch in See Spot Run and now, David Arquette takes on his first "serious" dramatic role... as a dude battling...giant spiders! Hey, according to David, it was as close as he could get to an action hero part!
A lot less wacky and more introspective in person, the actor spoke with us in Los Angeles about playing the hero of Eight Legged Freaks, working with the film's special effects, getting rid of spiders for wife Courtney, doing a guest shot on Friends and his more serious upcoming role.
TEENHOLLYWOOD: How did you get involved in this film? We hear you really wanted to do it.
David: I knew Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich were involved and I've wanted to work with Dean since I met him on Stargate. I read the script and [my character] is sort of a heroic action character which I don't typically get to play. [I knew that] Rick Overton and Doug E. Doug were in the film so they would sort of carry the humor element. Of course I'm not completely straight in this movie. I saw [director] Ellory Elkayem's short film and then I saw that he really understood the tone of this film and how to balance the humor and the scariness of it. At that point I was like I've got to do it. I called up every connection I had at Warner Brothers. I was virtually begging for it. I said, "you didn't let me try out for Scooby Doo so you're gonna have to let me do this."
TEENHOLLYWOOD: Did you have a favorite of those old '50s creature films?
David: I didn't watch any before I did this because I wanted to approach it from a realistic point of view. One of the sort of updated versions before this was The Thing with Kurt Russell. That was a fantastic sort of creature feature kind of movie.
TEENHOLLYWOOD: How do you approach being an action hero?
David: This is as close as I've come but I think I still could go further with my action qualities. You kind of like act cooler. Nothing really shakes you. You've got to put on a calm exterior. Although, this character obviously had different quirks so he wasn't the most action-packed guy.
TEENHOLLYWOOD: There were real spiders on the set. How was that for you?
David: I actually didn't have any scenes with the real spiders but I've held them a couple of times. I didn't think I was really afraid of spiders until I had this big tarantula climbing up my arm and it went [demonstrates with a hiss] and threw up its legs and I was like "take it off me! Take it off me." So at that point my calm exterior crumbled. I'm not really afraid of spiders. Courtney will call me into the room and say "there's a spider" and I'll rush in and say "don't worry." I'm the spider action hero.
TEENHOLLYWOOD: What was actually on set for the actors to relate to? Little x's or stuffed spiders?
David: No, there's nothing. Not even a tennis ball or anything. It's down to such a science. They didn't even need a blue screen. You just react to nothing really. They just say "it's right in front of your face." They did have this big sort of hard-shelled spider. If they needed it to sit in the corner, they'd put it there just to tie in reality with the computer-generated images. That was cool because we could see the actual size of them. Other times you would have to fool yourself into thinking, if you were in that situation how would you feel? Get in touch of how your heart-rate would be and your breathing and your adrenalin and then depend on Roland and Ellory to bring all the elements together that would make it believable to the audience.
TEENHOLLYWOOD: The spiders have personalities. Did you know they would?
David: A lot of these computer animators have really great senses of humor and sci-fi and they're sort of quirky so they definitely incorporated a lot of that. But [the script] read a lot like a sort of Gremlins kind of movie where they definitely have that sort of persona at times. Ellory has told me that there's spiders doing things that you'll miss just watching the movie. It will take getting the DVD and slowing it down.
TEENHOLLYWOOD: Did you ad-lib any of the lines with Kari your romantic interest?
David: Yeah I ad-libbed some of that like "I picked them myself," the flowers, that cheesy line for a cheap joke. Actually that was one of the final decisions we made was what their relationship was and how to approach it. I think it was pretty much Dean's idea to make it as though [my character] couldn't verbalize his feelings for her and it worked well, I thought.
TEENHOLLYWOOD: Would you do a guest spot on Friends.
David: I actually did a guest spot on Friends after I shot Scream but it wasn't a good character. People didn't seem to react very well and it may have been the longest episode they ever shot. It went until like three in the morning because they had to rewrite everything. It just wasn't working so I'm not sure I'm getting that call any time soon. I would love to do it again but I just don't know. I mean they know my number. If they wanted me, I'd love to.
TEENHOLLYWOOD: Have you and Courtney talked about doing anything else together?
David: Yeah. I'm trying to produce something now [knocks on wood] but I always mention things and then they don't seem to turn out. There is something. We love working together so we would love to work together again.
TEENHOLLYWOOD: Is there a thin line between making it funny and yet real enough that people will get a thrill out of it as well?
David: There is. That's like the most important thing in my opinion, just sell it to the audience that you really care for these characters and you feel the suspense of their lives in jeopardy and then you can sort of have fun with the humor aspect once you've completed the rest of it. I think they did a great job in capturing that.
TEENHOLLYWOOD: What is your natural high in life or your anti-drug?
David: I love painting. Painting to me is just the best. I just paint a lot of figurative stuff. Just use a lot of colors. I studied it in high school but I haven't had any college experience. And I love making movies. I mean to be able to do this for a living is just so much fun. You get to embody these different worlds.
TEENHOLLYWOOD: You are in a very serious film. What's The Grey Zone about?
David: It's a departure for me. I started off doing a lot of independent films and I want to get back to doing that kind of stuff. A lot of the reason I do a movie like Eight Legged Freaks is so I can build a name value so I can help with foreign financing to help produce independent films. This one is very serious and dramatic. It's about the Holocaust.
***
Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.
