Final Destination 5: "We're all gonna die!"

We’re in Beverly Hills again gathering with the fun cast of the latest FD film. (You know, the horror flicks where everybody cheats death then dies one by one in very creative ways). Cast members Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, Tony Todd, Miles Fisher, Jacqueline Macinnes Wood, Arlen Escarpeta, P.J. Byrne, Ellen Wroe and Courtney B. Vance talk bonding as a gang in Vancouver over potluck dinners and told us that the set prankster was P.J. while veteran actor David Koechner was so non-stop funny between serious scenes that it was wicked hard to keep a straight face.

The film is actually shot in 3-D by director Steven Quale who developed the current process with James Cameron on Titanic and Avatar. No tacking on the 3-D afterwards. The cast commented on how huge the 3-D camera was and that every little detail shows. Miles, who plays “bad guy” Peter, said "I spent a lot of time hanging on a wire from a bridge 2,200 feet tall. Finally, we got the shot on the tenth take. Cars are falling off and things are exploding just right and the director says “We’ve gotta do it again”. A single, individual strand of my hair came out right into camera and threw the whole 3-D focus out. A lot of re-dos”.

Emma: It’s so detail-oriented. There would be so many emotional scenes and they’d be like “We have to cut. You have one hair out of place”. You’re like “really, I’m crying right now. I don’t care about the hair” and they’d say “but you don’t understand. It’s like the hair is just coming out of the screen at people”.  Okay, fine. The beauty and hair team was on call at all times.

P.J.:  There’s a giant 3-D TV on set for us to check out how the scene went. Just really cool to see the playback on that. I want that TV so bad. 

TeenHollywood: Everybody, what is your personal worst death dread? What is the way that you just do not want to die?

Emma: A slow, painful illness. My grandfather had Alzheimer’s.

Nick and P.J.: Dying of starvation.

Tony: Trapped in the middle of a race riot.

Jacqueline: Buried alive.

Ellen: Burned alive.

Miles: Just to die young.

Courtney Vance and Arlen:  Drowning.

TeenHollywood: Ooookay. On to a lighter subject. Miles, you wrote, produced and got practically the whole cast involved in a hilarious music video. Talk about that.

Miles: I’m a musician as well and I had this idea. We all hit it off so I thought it would be funny to have Final Destination-esque deaths in a totally different world so how about a ‘90’s sitcom (a la “Saved by the Bell”). I thought it would be funny to mix the two genres. We put it up online two days ago. The song is “New Romance”. It’s really fun and the music is on i-tunes.

TeenHollywood: I saw it. It’s a riot. Jacqueline, your Lasik surgery torture scene has been in the trailers and it is just creepy. How did that go for you on set? It looked horrible!

Jacqueline: That eye speculum (prying her eyelids apart) was in and out of my eye from six PM to nine AM about 70 times. They numbed my eyeball and my head was in a vice. I wasn’t ready for that. One shot I was freaking out. There was a contact over my eye with slices in it. I’m trying to get myself out and I hit the speculum and it popped out of my eye, the contact popped out and I thought “Holy s**t, did I just cut my eyeball in half? I was told to be careful. I was stunned and in shock.

TeenHollywood: That one qualifies as my most dreaded death. Serious question for all. Do you believe in fate or that we are each responsible for when and how we die?

Arlen: I’m a strong believer in fate. It was late and I’m in a parking structure and I see this guy walking behind me and he has this crazy look in his eye. I’m pretending to be talking to someone on my headphone and turned around and went right past him, face to face and he went on past but he was going to do something to me. If it wasn’t my time, it wasn’t my time.

P.J.: I don’t believe in fate. I think if you drink and smoke, you’ll die earlier. If you drink and drive you have a high chance of dying earlier. You can do things to extend your life, but random things happen.

Jacqueline: I think you can’t change it. When you’re gonna go, you’re gonna go. But I believe in gut and instinct and your intuition telling you “Don’t leave your house just yet”. Little things. You also could be on a plane and it’s the guy next to you’s time and there’s a crash and you’re gonna go down with him. I was riding my bike and saw a car driving really fast down the street and thought “That would be crazy if I got hit by a car. I should slow down”. I did that and a car whooshed by. It would have hit me. I think little premonitions are trying to help you. It’s not your time.

Ellen: This movie has changed the way I react on a day-to-day basis. I see things and I’m like “I could die from that” like my curling iron which could fall into the water in my sink.

Tony: I think it’s more important to focus on life. If you do good acts and affect and change people then death won’t be so tragic. I don’t believe in fate. Just live fully and everything else will take care of itself.

Nick: I like this question. I read something like “history can’t seem anything but fated after it’s happened” but, at the same time, we are able to make our choices and you have to choose to celebrate and not think about the end. It’s an unanswerable question but I love the idea that we are both totally involved in every choice we make and yet something brought us to that point.

Emma: I think it’s a very personal thing. I believe that whatever happens is supposed to happen in that way at that time. It’s about the choices we make and actions we take around that circumstance that dictates what will happen next.  It’s a balance between fate and our own responsibility. It’s a give and take. If it’s your time to die, it’s your time.

Example, the movie 127 Hours. He’d done that hike a million times and now he’s stuck but the choices he made to get out of that situation forced him to learn a lot of things that he was missing in his life. That had to happen to him for him to learn those things. He could have chosen to give up and die rather than (cut his arm off).  He chose to move forward.

Miles: This movie raises questions. Humans want an answer for everything; fate, religion. If there is an answer for everything, there is such a thing as asking too much. Trying to create your own answers can cause as much harm as good. Just continue to learn and be open-minded.

TeenHollywood: Emma and Nick, you make a cute couple in the film. Had you met before or did you just show up and get thrown into your first scene?

Emma: I came into the film very late so luckily, we had a week of rehearsal. During that week, we were able to get to know each other. It was risky but we didn’t have a chemistry read. We didn’t know if we’d even like each other but we did and had a really good time. Hopefully that shows.

Nick: We had a great time.

TeenHollywood: Emma, your character Molly is kind of set in her ways or is a smalltown girl who doesn’t want to uproot to go to Paris with Nick here. Are you like that?

Emma: Oh no. I’d totally go to Paris! I did grow up in sort of a small town in rural New Jersey but I could be in New York City in sixty minutes so I loved having both. But Molly is a nester. She’s in her groove with no aspirations to get beyond that. Whereas Sam (Nick’s character) wanting to do all these big, grandiose things, was frightening to her.

TeenHollywood: Nick, you are the guy who has the vision of the accident in this one. Had you seen the other Final Destination films? Did you check out the performances of the other characters who had visions of death?

Nick: Yeah, definitely. I watched Devon Sawa (first movie). I think tonally, it’s more like ours. They wanted this film to capture the essence of the first one. I wanted to bring the suspense and pro-active element he had. I hope we have that. I tried to put myself there every day. You have to bring it on every take.

TeenHollywood: Tony, you’ve been doing these films on and off for years. Who is The Coroner character really: Grim Reaper, death’s assistant…. what?

Tony: I think he’s not what he seems to be. Everybody I talk to has a different sense of who he is. If I do my job right and I’m the glue in the midst of a cast that has to work much harder than I do, then I add a little spice to the mix. Nobody will give me an answer as to who he is. You have to be grounded and I work it that way.

TeenHollywood: Do people recognize you and not want you on their airplane?

Tony: (laughs) Just coming here, I went through TSA and they think they recognize you from something but they’re not sure. “That looks like the guy who tried to bomb San Francisco” so they take you to a room, strip you down and then it’s “Oh, okay. You’re that Final Destination guy. I’m sorry. I really liked your work”. 

Nick: It’s just not a real Final Destination movie until Tony steps on set and lays down that bass voice. Then you say “Uh oh. This is real. We’re all gonna die”.

Arlen: I was in high school watching the other Final Destination films. Now it’s a new generation’s turn. You have new customers to satisfy as well as the original fans.