“I thought the story was an absolute rip-snorter, and amazingly intricate and quite heartfelt and spiritual, and just bloody fun,” enthuses Australian actress Claudia Karvan about her latest film Daybreakers.
The follow up film to Undead, Michael and Peter Spierig’s low budget, and wonderfully tacky zombie splatter fest from 2003, Daybreakers is a big budget production with a B-movie sensibility. Shot on the Gold Coast, it boasts better production values, and an international cast that includes Willem Dafoe, Ethan Hawke and Sam Neill.
The film is set in a dystopian future of 2019. A virus has turned much of the human population into vampires. An international corporation headed by the sinister Charles Bromley (Neill) captures humans and stores them to use as a blood source to ensure the continued survival of the vampire race. But now blood stocks are running low. A scientist (played by Hawke) is experimenting with blood substitutes, but so far without success. Then a couple of vampire slayers (played by Dafoe and Australian actress Claudia Karvan) show him that there might be a cure that can reverse the process and restore the human race. With plenty of blood, gore and exploding bodies, Daybreakers is a film that gleefully puts a bit of bite back into the popular vampire genre.
Karvan is probably best known to local audiences for her roles in light romantic comedies like the classic The Big Steal, The Heartbreak Kid and Paperback Hero. But more recently she has gained wider exposure through her roles in the successful television series The Secret Life Of Us and Foxtel’s Love My Way. So how did a self-confessed “wanky art house film watcher” become involved in this gory but hugely entertaining horror film?
“Michael or Peter were Love My Way fans,” Karvan explains, “and that’s how I came upon their radar. They asked me to do an audition, and I leapt at the opportunity. I think they’re fantastic guys, they’re really dedicated to what they do. They’re smart and sophisticated and really thorough, and I knew I would be in really good hands. And I thought the story was an absolute rip-snorter, and amazingly intricate and quite heartfelt and spiritual, and just bloody fun.”
“A lot of people feel there’s quite a cynical exercise of cashing in going on, admits Karvan. “But Daybreakers was actually made before Twilight.
“Vampire films have always been popular and sustaining since Nosferatu,” adds Karvan as she explains the enduring appeal of the vampire film over the years. “I think its because the fable itself gives itself up so well to re-interpretation, it’s such a kind of flexible myth,” she explains. “There’s so much history and fun associated with them. And there’s usually such a great sexuality associated with vampires. But the Spierig brothers haven’t gone there. They’re quite sexless these ones, but they’ve got other things going for them.”
Karvan admits to not having been much of a fan of horror movies in the past. Part of the preparation for her role as a kick arse vampire slayer included some weapons training, as well as a crash course, swotting up on a number of classic vampire films, like Shadow Of The Vampire, Underworld, Blade, etc.
The Spierig brothers have a unique working relationship on set. “They’re really approachable, they have a really open and transparent method of communication, they call each other ‘dickheads’ and argue about decisions. But really there’s a hell of a lot of respect underneath all that. They’re very serious filmmakers, and very thorough about every single aspect of story boarding. They’re very thoughtful, and they really put each other’s ideas through a fine toothcomb, and it makes both of them better filmmakers. It was a very beautiful relationship to watch, and I really loved being directed by them. They were hilarious.
“Undead’s pretty hilarious,” she continues. “It was the first foray into film making by mad computer nerds. But The Making Of Undead shows you just how talented and determined these guys really are. It’s really hilarious, they do some really dangerous things, it’s illegal, really guerilla film making. It’s fantastic!”
With Daybreakers the film making siblings had a bigger budget to play with. “They utilised that money in an extraordinarily economical way, and made $20 million look double or triple that.”
Asked about the special effects in the film and whether much of it was done in post-production or with the use of a green screen, Karvan confesses to being a bit of a luddite when it comes to that sort of thing. “I don’t remember that, I didn’t do any stuff in front of a green screen,” she explains. “It was just visual effects done after. They did so many of the computer graphics themselves, which was painstaking and took months and months out of their lives. I’m the wrong person to ask about that. I know nothing.”
Karvan worked on George Lucas’ Star Wars Episode III, which was filmed in Sydney, and much of that was done using the green screen technology. “Oh yeah,” she laughs, adding further: “but I only had one tiny little scene. It’s all imagination isn’t it? Sometimes it makes it easier if you’ve got props or you’re actually in the environment, you’ve actually got the rain falling on you, the wind actually blowing in your hair. But really it’s down to using your imagination. So whether it’s a green screen or you’re actually in the desert it just asks that little bit more of you. I just think you have to stretch your imagination that little bit further.”
Daybreakers did extremely well at the US box office, grossing over $40 million, a result that pleases Karvan. “It’s so exciting!” she enthuses. “Those boys really deserve that recognition. They’ve worked really hard and waited so long. They’ve been very patient. It’s been two years since we finished shooting it, and they’ve been in a sort of career limbo until this moment and it’s paid off beautifully.”
Karvan shares the screen with two Hollywood stars in Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe. Dafoe has a bit of a reputation for being very intense while on set. “He’s got a really direct focus,” Karvan admits. “He has an intensity like no other on camera, but as a person, he’s very approachable and warm and adorable, and professional. He was incredibly supportive of the Spierig brothers who were really novices, in comparison to Willem’s experience. Willem and Ethan had a lot more to lose than the Spierig brothers, yet they supported the brothers and all their decisions, and thought that they were working with world class directors.”
And Karvan admits that she would jump at the chance to work with Hawke again. “I miss him. He’s adorable, he’s hilarious. He’s a filmmaker in his own right, and he brought some really inspired ideas to the script. He sacrificed a lot of really heroic moments that his character could have had, but he doesn’t let ego in the way of those kinds of decisions. He’s more interested in the film as a whole than his own vanity. That takes a certain largeness of character to behave like that. I think he’s wonderful, a really exceptional human being.”
And Sam Neill is quite reptilian as the villain of the piece here, sniffing a glass of human blood like it was wine. “He’s also one of the loveliest humans on the planet and I think he really had to stretch deep inside of himself to drag that mad character out. His voice was just fantastic, he was like a snake, a lizard, and just repulsive. He really relished that role, and he’s started playing a lot more bad guys since. He does it well.”
The film’s ending hints at a possible sequel, and Karvan would happily love to be involved if it eventuates. “I’ll see the Spierig brothers when they come back from on tour in February, and I’ll buttonhole them. Fingers crossed that it’ll happen.”
Karvan’s greatest successes have been through her work on the local television series The Secret Life Of Us and Love My Way, which was produced for pay television. Karvan has directed some episodes of the series, and is also credited as co-creator and has helped develop some of the story arcs. “It goes beyond acting and it encompasses everything,” she says of her work on those two series. “Love My Way was very much informed by my own friends and life experiences. I was involved as both a producer and story teller. I’ve just completed a third series, which is a complete departure. We’ve taken a bit of creative licence and gone off into unique supernatural territory. I feel really lucky to have that kind of consistent work and to be able to play those kinds of characters that can be developed and live such full lives. It’s a privilege.”
Asked whether she was interested in further pursuing a career as a director, Karvan was quite candid. “I don’t know if I’ve got the head for directing really. It’s like a brain teaser some of those set-ups.”
Daybreakers is a great example of a genre piece and commercial cinema of the sort that the local industry doesn’t make enough of. Karvan agrees that there is a place for more of this kind of film making in Australia. “It’s a commercial enterprise and there’s a huge audience for films like this,” she says. “So marry that with great film makers like the Spierig brothers or Greg McLean, who made Wolf Creek, and I think we should be encouraging these kinds of films, all different types of films. But we do need to ensure that we keep a strong variety and keep our industry as strong as possible. This kind of hybrid American and Australian co-production that has resulted in Daybreakers does feel like a sign of things to come. There is this potential to make these kind of hybrid stories that really know what they are but don’t have to be country specific because they are pretty broad imaginative stories.”