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By Suzanne

Interview with Rupert Wyatt of "The Exorcist" on FOX 9/21/16

This show is very enjoyable; it was great to speak to the Executive Producer and director of the first episode.  He was very nice on the call and eager to share his experiences with us. Sorry this is late...we received it late. I hope you get to see this wonderful show!

Final Transcript
FBC PUBLICITY: Conference Call with Rupert Wyatt
September 21, 2016/3:00 p.m. PDT

SPEAKERS
Erin Moody
Rupert Wyatt

PRESENTATION

Moderator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Conference Call with Rupert Wyatt. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session, instructions will be given at that time. [Operator instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to our host, Miss Erin Moody. Please go ahead.

Erin Hi, everyone, thanks for joining us today to talk with Rupert. As you know he directed the pilot and is an executive producer on the series, which premieres Friday evening on Fox. So, with that, we will go ahead and turn it over for Q&A.

Moderator Thank you, one moment please. [Operator instructions].

Our first question comes from the line of James Ruby. Please go ahead.

Jamie Hi, it’s great to talk to you. Thanks for taking the time today.

Rupert Oh, hello. Hi, sorry [indiscernible]. Hello, hi, how are you?

Jamie Good, you?

Rupert Good, thanks.

Jamie So, can you talk about—I mean obviously this isn’t the same story as the original. But is it sort of like a sequel, or is it just in the realm of the original story? Can you talk about that and how it’s similar to the original?

Rupert Well, the inspiration, I think, derives from the source novel [indiscernible] Peter Blatty novel. What Jeremy, the creator of this show, looked to do was place the events of our show and the series into a contemporary context and, of course, the Friedkin original dealt with events that happened in the early 1970’s. So we are forty plus years after those events, but those events exist and occurred within the realms of our mythology. But we are dealing with wholly new characters.

Of course a different location, our film is set in Chicago. The similarities, I guess, are in the sense that demonic possession is something that is an event, and is a sequence of events, that begin to happen within the context of the small family unit, and also the city, the wider city as a whole. So, really, that’s where the similarities lie, specifically. Other than that, it’s a completely new narrative with new characters.

Jamie Okay, cool, and I do enjoy it so far. I was also going to ask why did you guys decide that now was the time to do this rather than a year ago or a year from now?

Rupert Well, you’d have to ask Fox that question, specifically why they chose to greenlight it, but I would say from my perspective, it’s always interesting to me when the world is in a place socioeconomically or politically where there are, I guess you could say, world events that play in to the notion that evil is becoming more pervasive in our society and we as a society are dealing with things in a very real-world sense up close. Whereas 10, 15 years ago, that was less the case, we were living in more of a golden era. And I think, inevitably, what happens is entertainment and art form mirrors that.

So, the idea for me and why I was a big proponent and driver of setting the film in Chicago, because I thought it was a great ground zero for a large, historically vibrant American city that is predominantly—that has a big Catholic community. The church is very powerful there, but at the same time it is a church that is dealing with modern controversies and scandals. It is not the great institution that it once was and then on a political level there is aspects of corruption within Chicago. There has been historically, of course, going back to Al Capone. And then in terms of the violence, you only had to pick up the newspapers to see the murder rate right now is that of Los Angeles and New York combined this year.

So, it’s a city where, if you were to say the devil were to infiltrate our world and start and look to proliferate on a pandemic level, Chicago would be it.

Jamie Okay, great. Well, thank you so much, I’m really enjoying it so far.

Rupert Thank you, thanks, good talking.

Moderator Our next question comes from the line of Suzanne Lanoue with The TV Megasite. Please go ahead.

Suzanne Hi, good evening.

Rupert Hi, good evening, hello.

Suzanne I enjoyed the pilot, I watched it last night and I’m glad it didn’t give me nightmares, I was afraid it might. I really appreciate the fact that it’s not like horrifically violent or gory, even for a network show. Some of those shows I have trouble watching. Was there a conscious effort to make it more scary and creepy than gory and violent?

Rupert Yes, I mean, I think if there was ever a hope on my part it was that we would be able to follow the rules of the original, which is the tone—is being able to create a tone and a sense of the worlds rather than look for jump scares and the more contemporary forms of horror. And actually, score [ph] something that was a bit more psychological. So that’s what I was trying to do.

There’s always, I guess, a pressure and a desire from certain people or a percentage of the audience where they want that, and so it’s finding that balance I guess. But for me as a filmmaker and a story teller, I was really interested in the characters and where their stories went moreso than the splatter effects.

Suzanne Can you talk at all about the casting and whether you got the people that just came in or you looked for them or how that all came about? Because you have some great cast.

Rupert Yes, sure, thank you. It was a really—I mean overall, I have to say just the experience of making this pilot was really, really fun and, creatively, really inspirational for me. And that doesn’t always happen when one does a pilot. As a director, you’re coming into something that’s preconceived and you are—it’s different to making a film on a number of levels, and I would say with this, interestingly, it actually was the closest I’ve felt for a long time to making my first film. I had a real opportunity on a creative level to collaborate with the showrunner, Rolin Jones and the creator, Jeremy Slater in a really equal way, and it was much to do with them that they allowed me that.

So casting wise, the brain trust that was us, essentially got together and really looked to find really interesting character actors like Alan Ruck, who’s wonderful and an amazing actor; and Ben Daniels, who plays Father Marcus, was an actor I’d seen on House of Cards and I checked out Flesh and Bone as well. I just loved him for—we wanted an older man, but at the same time a man that had a youthful physicality, but a world weariness in terms of his soul and he kind of imbued that brilliantly. So, we pushed very hard to cast for him.

Alfonso, I’d seen on Sense8, and really loved him and we thought—we wanted to find an actor that represented—and the character was written somewhat in this way—but represented the modern Catholic Church. When you travel around Chicago, you see a lot of the old blue collar, immigrant neighborhoods that were, and still are, fundamentally Catholic. And whereas 40, 50 years ago they were Polish or Irish, they’re now predominantly Mexican or Latino in general and so we decided that would be the best face for the modern Catholic Church. So, Alfonso was it. And then Geena needs no introduction. So, she was just—Geena was just incredible that she stepped up when we asked her to and said yes.

So, yes, as an ensemble, it was actually very easy to cast in terms of the choices that we wanted, we were lucky enough to get. But, yes, we wanted a real diversity in an ensemble.

Suzanne Well, thank you. It was a really great pilot and I especially loved the ending when the music came in, that was just, I was like oh yes, that’s great.

Rupert Thanks, no, we didn’t intend to put that in actually. When we started, we thought, well we’re not going to use “Tubular Bells” because we didn’t want to be derivative.

Suzanne Right.

Rupert And when we were cutting it, it was actually me, and I went to gage my initial gut, I wonder if we’ve earned it, I wonder if it works here, and it just played brilliantly, in the final moments it seemed to work. It seemed to work for the purpose of our story, as much as the original. So, for that I felt like it was justified.

Suzanne Yes, it was just awesome. And I look forward to the rest of the series, thank you for talking to us.

Rupert Thank you, thanks for taking the time.

Moderator Our next question comes from the line of Talya Gonzalez with Talk Nerdy With Us. Please go ahead.

Talya Hello, how are you doing today?

Rupert I’m good, Talya, how are you?

Talya I’m doing great. If it’s okay, I have two questions for you.

Rupert Of course, yes, please.

Talya My first question is, Linda Blair has recently expressed interest in having a cameo in the TV series. Have you thought about doing cameos with some of the past actors and actresses from the original movies?

Rupert I don’t know. I mean Jeremy—that’s a better question for Jeremy Slater, our creator, because he’s more across that. If there were something that were to be relevant to Re [ph] MacNeil, then absolutely. But I think the whole intention for this show was that we would be looking to—whilst we are following on from the events of the original film, but we are 40-some years later. So, yes, I think it’s a tough question to answer because it was never something that we discussed, to be honest.

Talya Okay. My next question is, what do you feel has been your greatest challenge bringing the world of The Exorcist from the big screen to the small screen?

Rupert Well, I never saw it as a small screen. I kind of think the best stories these days are told on television and they’re incredibly ambitious for all good reasons and it’s a shame, in many ways, that modern, mainstream cinema is gradually being eroded and taken over by TV, in my opinion, because I still love going to the cinema. But I do think it’s the golden age of TV.

And I think one reason for that is it’s becoming inherently more cinematic in terms of the making of it, and so the process of making this pilot was really wonderful for me because I was given a really good amount of time and I was given a decent budget and I was given wonderful actors and an incredible crew to mount something. So I approached and shot this as if I was making a feature. And the same narrative tropes as I would if I were making a theatrical feature were played into this as well. So it was always my intention to light it and design it and shoot it in as ambitious a way as possible because I think that’s what modern television audiences expect these days.

Moderator One moment please. Hello, one moment please, we’re having some technical issues. Please hold the line one moment please.

Erin —broke it. Oh, no.

Moderator Okay, our question-and-answer screen has technically gone down at this time. The suggestion that I can make is I could open up the lines fully interactive and then ask, people could ask a question at a time. They’d have to be courteous of the person that’s asking the question. Would you mind us doing that?

Erin No.

Rupert No, that’s absolutely fine. Are they on the line now, can I speak to them?

Moderator Yes, they’re on the line. It’s just that our Q&A, our question-and-answer screen went down. And then also if you’re not speaking, ladies and gentlemen, please mute yourself so there’s no background noise. So, I’m going to open up the lines fully interactive and then you can ask one question at a time and I certainly apologize. Just a moment please.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, your lines are now fully interactive. So if you would like to ask Mr. Wyatt a question, please feel free, one at a time and we would advise that if you’re not speaking to keep all background noise at a minimum and mute yourself if you’re not speaking. But, now all lines are open. Please go ahead.

Art Hi, this is Art Shrian from myNewYorkeye. Hello?

Erin Oh, go ahead, Art.

Art Hi, thank you. So, congratulations on this pilot. I watched it last night and loved it. You are the master of reboot after [indiscernible] and Planet of the Apes was amazing. You give of a new life to this, congratulations for that.

My question to you is, you are also a writer and a director, so how was the topic of working on this in terms of collaboration? Did you bring in new writing as well or how was the writer’s room for a show like this which people have preconceived notions of? How was that in terms of writing process and working with the writers for you?

Rupert Well, thank you. I mean, to be honest with you, it’s very nice of you to say I’m the master of the reboot, I would love not to be thought of that because rebooting is, well, this is not rebooting, this is not recreating the mythology, this is basically just telling a wholly original story that is 40 years after the event of the original.

So, I never saw this as a reboot, I never approached it as a reboot. I came onto it—I was looking to do a television pilot this year and the way the process works as a director is one gets sent the scripts that are looking to be greenlit or are greenlit and one reads them and one pins one’s sort of desires to the one that one likes the best and if you’re lucky enough to get the job, then that’s great and that’s exactly what happened with this.

I read it and found it to be, in my opinion, by far and away the strongest piece of writing from all of the other scripts. So I was reading and it was a story that I could visualize and that’s key, obviously, if I’m going to be approaching it as a filmmaker. It just inspired me so for better or for worse, that’s what drew me into it. Maybe I’m naive, but I never really once considered or wanted to consider the notion of anyone’s preconceived notions of The Exorcist as an intellectual prophecy. It was not—that didn’t interest me very much.

Art Right, right. I meant like after The Planet of the Apes and The Gambler, which I really loved as well. There’s other franchises or series there [indiscernible]. And my last question would be, working on a project on demonic possession or something, does that impact you in any way, your impression of—what’s your faith system about supernatural and has working on this project impacted it in any way?

Rupert That’s interesting. I mean, I’m an agnostic personally and I approached it as one when making this. I didn’t ever want the characters in the story to react to anything supernatural in a way that they had any sense that it was normal. I wanted them to sort of look upon any supernatural world as something that was entirely unexplainable. So I came at it from that approach and as far as how it affected me, I think if you immerse yourself in any subject matter, and then obviously in this case it was demonic possession, it can’t help but not affect you in some way.

It’s funny, when I started working on it, a few friends of mine joked about the curse of The Exorcist and that I better watch out. I think it cannot helped but it affect you in some ways because, of course, you’re looking over your shoulder a little bit. But I think what’s interesting to me is it does, it sort of possesses you in a very particular way, which is when you spend a lot of time researching and immersing yourself into a subject matter like this, then of course you start to have nightmares, of course you start to have certain thoughts, because it’s like being a homicide cop and dealing with that on a day-to-day basis. It starts to affect you psychologically, but that’s the extent of it, I would say.

Kate Hi.

Art Thank you, thank you very much.

Rupert Thank you.

Kate Hi, this is Kate O’Hare from Patheos.

Rupert Hello, Kate.

Kate A few years ago, can you hear me?

Rupert Yes, hi.

Kate Great. A few years ago, there was a movie made for Showtime about the original Exorcist story and I remember seeing where Timothy Dalton in his full gear as the priest in his Seminarians in their gear were coming down the hall and there was a full-on hero shot. And in this case you’ve got guys who are fighting ultimate evil. So in a way, they’re sort of the superheroes of these movies. So, talk about the idea of conceptualizing the priest as the hero, with whatever powers he can bring to bear, fighting against evil and how you want that to look and feel.

Rupert Yes, I think what you’re saying has some relevance for sure in terms of how we approached it, particularly in terms of Father Marcus, we explored the idea that those that work for the Vatican and train within the Catholic Canon and become immersed in the whole notion of exorcism and start to actually carry it out, they are recruited individuals, whether it be orphan boys like Father Marcus, or people from different walks of life. And they would be trained to carry out these actions and they would be—and this is in keeping with real life, a lot of these people that do that job are very secretive people, they keep themselves to themselves, they don’t advertise what they do. It’s a bit like working for the secret service, I guess, in some ways.

They do that, specifically, not because there’s any supernatural repercussions, but it’s more to do with the idea that they don’t want to be hounded by people whose family member might be schizophrenic or they might be dealing with people with alcoholic or drug problems that aren’t, in fact, in their eyes possessed but actually are more mentally ill or physically ill. And so they’re very, very fascinating people, the priests that do this job and they are very much, very often lonely people who live very solitary lives and they travel the world, or their diocese rather, carrying out these acts. So, yes, we approached it a little bit like a religious James Bond, if you know what I mean.

Kate And also you have Father Marcus, who we think at some point probably volunteered to become an exorcist. So, he’s a volunteer, but on the other hand you have Father Tomas, who’s kind of a conscript. He wasn’t walking around going, gosh I think I’ll deal with demonic possession, it just kind of fell on him.

Rupert No, exactly.

Kate So what are the two different approaches with how they cope with what they’re facing.

Rupert So, yes. Tomas is drawn into the world and Marcus who’s actually already very much a part of it, and you’ll see as the show develops, we get a really good and better understanding of who they are as men and where they come from. And they’re very, very different. They come into our story from very, very different places. So, whereas Father Tomas has a recent history that deals with infidelity, without giving too much away, just certain personal controversies that have put him in this rather rundown church on the South Side of Chicago, he’s a bit of an embarrassment to the church.

He was, at one stage, the poster boy for the modern Catholic Church and he’s now been [indiscernible] out to the suburbs and he’s going through a crisis of faith. He’s trying to find out what’s important in his life and that was fascinating to be able to explore that character. He’s a fallible man, he’s a very vain man, and he’s all of the sort of things that, if one were the devil, would see as catnip. He’s a very attractive human to try and draw into one’s web and Marcus is the opposite. Marcus is, on a moral level, very, very strong, but he comes from a very broken past and that’s ultimately what got him recruited into the Vatican to become an exorcist.

Kate All right, thank you very much.

Rupert Thank you.

Stacy Hi, this is Stacy from CTV.CA, how are you, Rupert?

Rupert Hi, I’m good thanks. How are you?

Stacy Good thanks. A question for you. The Exorcist, as in the film, the novel has remained extremely popular over time. Why do you think people are so fascinated with this story?

Rupert I think just like all great stories, it’s a great reflection of us as a species and also us as a society. We’re telling a story that is very much of the now, is 2016, and what I think I was saying earlier about a city that has a great history, a very rich and varied history, but ultimately a city that is somewhat coming apart at the seams. It seemed wholly relevant to start from that place and then grow from there.

When Friedkin made the original film, the United States was going through various financial crises and was going through the early years of Vietnam. It wasn’t a totally different world, it was similar in many ways, and I think the people sort of look inward to that particular moment in time and, of course, the notion of good and evil becomes very prevalent for a lot of people. So it’s appealing.

Stacy And also, earlier, you talked about the cinematic quality and the treatment that you gave the pilot. Was that very important to do that, seeing that many people’s first experience with the story was through film?

Rupert I guess so. I certainly didn’t look to engineer it for that reason alone. I mean, I wanted to—like any film or piece of television that I’m looking to be involved in, it’s utilizing every aspect of the medium from sound design to who one casts, who is to be the cinematographer and the lighting. I wanted to find a city in the middle of winter to give it—I didn’t want any varnished look. I think a lot of network television can sometimes have a gloss to it, for better or for worse, but certainly in the case of The Exorcist, I did not want that. I wanted to find something that was really unvarnished and light it in that way and so Chicago in February was perfect for that.

Stacy Well, it had, I felt like I was watching a mini movie and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series, congratulations

Rupert Thank you, great, thanks so much.

Kathryn Hi, this is Kathryn from SciFiNow. I’m calling in from London.

Rupert Hello, Kathryn.

Kathryn Hi, there. Carrying on in that thread, in the cinematic thread and the—any influences or artistic influences. The image of Father Merrin in the original Exorcist was inspired—where he’s standing in the beam of light, was inspired by a Greek [ph] painting. Have you drawn inspiration for your first episode from any artistic or cinematic influences?

Rupert I mean, yes, many. To be specific, I’m trying to think where we—I mean we looked to a lot of films, specifically shot in Chicago in the winter, Road to Perdition. We looked to The Wire, interestingly, for the notion of the inner cities and Baltimore, obviously in that case, but just the more rundown nature of the modern society or the more low income neighborhoods. Specifically for around the church, that was helpful for me when I was scouting.

Then, there was a Pablo Larrain film, this name escapes me, but made relatively recently about some defrocked Catholic priests that are living down in Chile on the coast. I referenced that—

Kathryn Oh, okay.

Rupert —from a costume point of view, just for the retreats where the priests…yes.

Kathryn The priests were sent there because they’ve abused people.

Rupert Not all of them, but that was yes, certainly those places exist. Catholic seminary retreats where those that commit those acts, that in a normal civilian life would possibly put them in prison, they get sent there when they’re the church.

Kathryn Just one more thing, I read in an interview with Geena Davis that she was asked for some feedback regarding her character. How did you two work together and was there that back-and-forth between you in that respect and what did she feed back into her character?

Rupert I’m sorry, I don’t fully understand the question.

Kathryn When you were directing Geena Davis, she says in an interview that she was giving feedback on her character. When you’re working together, what kind of conversations were you having?

Rupert Sorry, when she was interviewed she said she was given feedback or she was giving feedback?

Kathryn Giving.

Rupert Giving feedback.

Kathryn Yes.

Rupert I don’t understand what you mean. She, sorry can you—

[Overlapping voices]

Kathryn I’ll just leave that question. Someone else can ask something, thank you.

Rupert Okay.

Rebecca Hi. This is Rebecca Murray. I was just wondering if you could tell me if because this is such an interesting ensemble of characters, is there one in particular that you as a storyteller has really latched onto and you hope that audiences maybe also find this character really fascinating?

Rupert Yes, the exorcist himself, I thought, was incredibly fascinating. Not only in his back-story but also just in the notion of what it means to be an exorcist and what it involves. We researched it in as grounded a way as possible. We talked to a priest who wanted to remain nameless and said he’d witnessed various exorcisms. I think he had, himself, done some but he wouldn’t say whether he had or not.

He just talked us through the procedures and the challenges faced. A lot of exorcisms go on for weeks, sometimes months. It’s a religious form of therapy in many ways.

Ben, who played Father Marcus, and I, we really got into that and dug in deep in terms of how we could then relay that and put that on the screen. I think the war wounds, the scars that one carries from the experiences of looking to save that many people over that many years would really start to take their toll. So, in as many sequences [ph] as we could, we tried to convey that with his performance.

Rebecca Great, thank you so much.

Curt Hi, Rupert, this is Curt Wagner. I’m calling from Chicago.

Rupert Hi, Curt.

Curt I found it very interesting what you said about Chicago. No hard feelings.

Rupert I’m going back to make my next feature there. It’s my favorite city so please take all of that as a compliment, I find it fascinating.

Curt Okay, all right. I have a two-parter. These kind of possession shows, a lot of times it’s a single possession and they get stuck in the bedroom or the house or whatever. I was wondering if you could talk about how you’re going to get out of the Rance household, and how did you evolve this into a show that could run multiple seasons? Will there be more than one specific possession?

Rupert I can only tell you what I would like and feel as a director of the pilot, first and foremost, and for anything else you need to talk to the showrunner, Rolin and the creator, Jeremy, to get more specific thoughts on where they’re going to go.

I can tell you what we discussed and what to me was very appealing because it’s a good question. One of the first questions I asked was how does one achieve a series out of The Exorcist? Certainly no one was ever looking or setting out to do exorcism of the week, it was not that whatsoever.

It was much more of a slow burn build of the idea where if—and I don’t know if you know much about this, I didn’t actually and just—I mean I’m not Catholic. The Catholics don’t believe in the devil. They believe in demons. There is no such thing as one particular sentient demon that controls others, like Lucifer. Lucifer exists in their belief system, but he was just another demon.

So, Judeo-Christian lore, like a film like The Omen, for example. That deals with Satan. What I thought was fascinating as a result of that is a member of the church, possibly Father Marcus, begins to believe and consider that that is actually true, that The Catholic Church has got it wrong, there is Satan, there is such a thing as a yang to God’s ying, if you like. Satan has intention to basically strike now at this particular moment in mankind’s place in the world and our moment in history. It’s the perfect opportunity with the world of violence that we live and what is going on in the world to start to essentially expand from a ground zero.

Chicago was our choice, with apologies, but it was the idea that we would start there. If you consider a show like The Walking Dead and the pandemic that has become The Walking Dead itself, consider that, but on a possession level. So my thinking is, and you can write this on my behalf, I’m not speaking for the show itself because I don’t know, ultimately, where they’re going to choose to go, but my desire and hope for the show is where we build out so that by season two we’re entering into towns or cities that have become [indiscernible]. It becomes a pandemic. This is just very much the Arab Spring spark, I guess, of demonic possession.

Erin Okay, everyone, we have time for one more question. Is there someone that still has one more to ask? Or are we wrapped [ph]?

W I’d love to ask another one.

[Overlapping voices]

Erin Okay wait, we’ll do two more, okay? So, go ahead.

W I’m intrigued by the idea of possession as pandemic because I don’t know—

Rupert Hello?

Erin Oops, did we lose that person? Okay, actually, Kathryn, did you get to ask your other question from SciFiNow?

Rupert I think she did.

Erin Okay. Did we lose everybody?

W Hello?

Erin Okay. .

W Hello? Hi.

Erin Hi, go ahead.

[Overlapping voices]

W Sorry, who’s speaking?

Erin Hello, who is this?

[Overlapping voices]

Erin If there’s maybe someone who hasn’t asked a question yet, if you haven’t asked a question yet.

[Overlapping voices]

M I haven’t asked a question yet.

Adam Grant Adam here with ScarePop.

Erin Okay.

Adam First of all, kudos to you and the rest of the cast and crew. We saw the pilot, we thought it was great, really well done and really scary. I have two quick questions.

I would say as we’ve covered so much here in this and thank you. What was your favorite scene to film in the pilot?

Rupert Good question. They’re not always the most interesting scenes, my favorite ones to shoot. The most challenging, the most satisfactory was actually—well they all—I’m not being glib, but I would say that the entire shoot was a pleasure and a lot of fun to shoot.

Shooting in Mexico City was very interesting for me. I’d never been to Mexico before and we shot this vast favela—can you hear me?

Adam Yes, I can. Thank you.

Rupert All right. Yes, we shot in this vast favela in the suburbs of Mexico City and there’s a lot of challenges, both in terms of just personal safety, and I don’t mean that because we were going to get mugged, but more because just the place itself is very dangerous in terms of lots of just very, very steep climbs and long drops and things like that because we found this great house that worked perfectly for the building of the possessed child.

So, that was great. That was two night shoots we did right at the end of our shoot. I had a great time down there. I love Chicago, as a city, I fell in love with it. The light there, in the winter, was great. I know that doesn’t really answer your question, but—

Adam No, that’s fantastic. Like you said, it just played out and as a viewer it looked all of so [ph] cinematic as opposed to just a regular television show. That’s what really got our attention right out of the gate. Mexico City is a great location.

Then, my second question is, some diehard fans, or purists say, may be hesitant to tune into the TV series, others who say [ph] it will taint the original movie to them, what would you say to them?

Rupert There will be some that don’t listen to me whatever I say, so [indiscernible] in that respect. What I would say is, we’re not repeating, we’re not going over old ground, we’re not remaking anything, we’re not rebooting anything. I never came and got involved in the show in the first place, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it if that had been the case. This is a completely original story set in the modern day that happens to be 40 years after the events of the original.

I personally, as a fan of the original, am interested to explore and get to know more stories that deal with the world that was created back in the early ’70s with the Friedkin film. I think, frankly, the best storytelling these days, like I said earlier, it mostly on TV now. So on form [ph], television has become the new novel in many ways. It’s a great way to really explore characters over a period of time and get into complex narratives that one can’t always achieve, certainly in mainstream cinema over the course of two hours.

Adam Perfect, thank you so much.

Erin All right

Rupert Thank you. Thanks, guys.

Erin I think that’s all that we have time for, you guys. I’m so sorry, but thank you for joining us.

[Overlapping voices]

Giselle Can I ask a last question, please?

Erin What? I’m sorry, what was that?

Giselle It’s Giselle, from Brazil. I did not have a chance to ask a question.

Erin Oh yes, sure, go ahead, please ask one last question. This will be the last, one, everyone. Sorry.

Giselle Okay, thank you. You’re delivering [ph] this show for an audience that used to see stories with demons and exorcism. What do you believe this show brings different or new for this audience?

Rupert Sorry, can you repeat the question?

Giselle Yes, you are delivering the show to an audience used to stories with demons and exorcism. Why do you think the show stands out, what this brings different and new for this audience?

Rupert I think there’s no show now or even, I can’t think of a contemporary film that’s recently explored demonic possession in a grounded, real-world sense, and that’s what we were attempting to do.

Giselle Okay, what are your references in the horror genre in films and TV shows?

Rupert I would say Don’t Look Now was a very big reference for me, the Nicholas Roeg film with Donald Sutherland, in terms of the atmosphere. I would say Jacob’s Ladder, to an extent, was a big influence to how we approached this film, in terms of, again, the grounded nature of the setting. Yes, those two.

Giselle Okay, thank you so much.

Rupert Thank you.

Erin Thanks, everyone for joining us again. Feel free to email me if you need anything else. Rupert, thank you so much for your time today. Again, everyone please tune in and put on your pieces tune-in will be Friday, September 23rd for the Exorcist. Thank you!

Rupert Thank you, guys. Thanks, Erin.

Erin Thank you.

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