Anybody could have a dark side: Catherine Hardwicke

March 17, 2011

Red Riding Hood is a fantasy thriller that explores the darker realms of the classic fairytale with the inclusion of a werewolf. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke of Twilight fame, this film too is in-keeping the young audience in mind. The director talks about her childhood fascination with the fairytale that she has transformed on the screen adding the thrill quotient to it.

What attracted you to the idea of adapting a fairytale?
They’re creepy and scary and fairytales give you that chance to face your fears and hopefully fight and conquer it. But I loved this fairytale right from the time when I was five. I’d love the idea of going into the dark woods and I made my mom make a cape and I’d wear it for Halloween (laughs). But Leonardo Di Caprio’s production company came up with this idea to go back to the older version of it where there was a werewolf involved. Somewhere from the 1500s, and give it this twist and I just loved what they had created– this crazy mysterious world. 

Why did you want Amanda Seyfried to play Valerie in the film?
She was my instant choice because when I was visualizing the film she came to me as a fairytale creature, she looks like she’s out of a fairytale. She’s very capable of showing all the emotion, the fear and the vulnerability, which is why I loved Amanda. Then I involved her in the casting of the men that she has to interact with so we had a couple of chemistry reads to see who she had the sparks with.

How did the characters of Peter and Henry factor into the original tale?
In the original fairytale, the little girl red riding hood comes across a fork in the road and she has a choice to keep on following her pleasure picking flowers, or go straight to her grandmother’s house. So in a way the two men represent that. One of them is the guy she’s really physically and mentally attracted to like a soul-mate, that guy is Peter. The other one is the more safe and the good man her mother wants her to be with. So the two men represent the duality of the pleasure principle against the reality principle. It’s a difficult choice for Valerie!

What was it like to work with Amanda Seyfried?
Amanda is just like a ball of fire, she’s like a wild cat. She’s super funny, sexy and unpredictable. She’ll just do a lot of crazy stuff but at the same time she’s also very professional. Even when you have only five minutes to shoot and wrap-up, still she’d be like ‘Ok let’s do it, I’m up for it!’

What was it like to work with such iconic characters as Julie Christie and Gary Oldman?
I was so fortunate to work with two legends. Julie Christie who’s an Academy Award winner with so many movies behind her and still she’s whip-smart, wicked, funny and hot. Then we had Gary Oldman who everyone on the set worshipped and had a big crush on.  Every moment when the camera is on him he’s there and he makes it convincing and believable. Even if he’s doing a supernatural film like Harry Potter or Batman or Red Riding Hood he takes you right there and you’re in it with him.

Why did you format this story as a thriller?
I love the idea that anybody that you know could have a dark side. They could be going and doing something on the internet in the night. So it’s like a modern parallel. So Father Solomon (Gary Oldman’s character) comes in and he tells the villagers that even he was deceived by his wife and `the wolf could be someone in the village’. People start suspecting each other. It’s not just the filmmaker telling you the story but each character doing what they’re doing.