Anna Friel & Rafi Gavron Interview Books of Blood

Anna Friel & Rafi Gavron Interview: Books of Blood

We interview Books of Blood stars Anna Friel and Rafi Gavron about portraying their characters, their familiarity with the source material, and more.

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Anna Friel & Rafi Gavron Interview Books of Blood

Hulu brings back horror anthologies on October 7 with Books of Blood, based on Clive Barker’s work. The production strings together three different stories, one of which stars Anna Friel and Ravi Gavron as a mother in mourning and the pseudo-psychic she hires to reconnect with her son.

The stars spoke with Screen Rant about what inspired them to join the film, as well as how they worked with director Brannon Brega to create fully-fleshed out characters amidst the classic horror tropes.

Anna, let’s talk about your character, who suffers the tragic loss of her son, Miles. Can you talk to me about how her state of mind when she’s seeking out some of these frauds?

Anna Friel: Yeah, very good question. I think she doesn’t realize how vulnerable she is – like many people who are suffering from extreme grief, they don’t quite know what stage they’re at. Whether she’s got to the stage of acceptance, I don’t know. I think in meeting Simon, it’s the angry stage of grief that’s brought out in her. You can mess with her, but you don’t mess with her son.

Rafi, I wanted to ask you about Simon. There’s a lot of twists and turns in your story arc. Simon meets Mary for the first time, and he’s very charming. Talk to me about what Simon’s done in his past to lead him to meet Mary in the film?

Rafi Gavron: That’s a good question. I think, ultimately, Simon’s had a huge amount of life experience that has probably been quite negative and traumatic for him. That allows him to be very in tune with emotions, very in tune with pain – because he has his own, and he has his own trauma. And he understands it so well that he’s able to prey on it. Some people just have a sixth sense where they’re just super in tune, but it has to come from life experience and problems -almost always in childhood. Being left, being abandoned, and then being able to prey and use those things going forward.

It’s fair to say, though, that this isn’t the first time that Simon has done something like this.

Rafi Gavron: Mmhmm.

Books of Blood is a great anthology series, but it also was a Clive Barker book. How familiar were you with Clive Barker’s work before getting into this project?

Anne Friel: I knew that he came with the label “cool.” I hadn’t read Books of Blood, but I thought that it’s now the time to bring something new forward, which I think is that retro genre. Clive is kind of retro, and sometimes, when everything has been repeated and copied continually, it’s better to go backwards and see what we were doing rather than what we are going to do. That’s as much as I knew.

Anna Friel & Rafi Gavron Interview Books of Blood

When you first started diving into the script, what were the first things that jumped out about the roles to you?

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Ravi Gavron: The human aspect. That same stuff you asked me about earlier, me and Anna both agreed that to us it’s more of a drama. Especially within our short film, and that’s what moved us.

I remember saying to Anna, “Why did you do this?” And she said, “That’s an interesting question.” And what I meant by that question is neither of us do genre in this sense. I mean, I’ve done one horror film, but it wasn’t something I wanted to repeat. And Anna quite eloquently told me that there was just something about it. That doesn’t sound eloquent, she put it better than that when she told me.

There was something that we connected to, and I think it’s that human aspect. I think it’s the writing, and I think it’s all about character. If you go back and look at both of our trauma – assuming our characters had that, which I would say we they did – that’s what makes it interesting. And then if you write that and get it right, which [Brannon Brega] did, there we are.

I couldn’t agree more. If you take the horror elements out of it, this works as a mother that’s going through her own traumatic experience with the loss of her son, and a guy that walks into her life that you can’t necessarily trust. What did you want to bring to the performance of Mary and Simon that wasn’t necessarily on the page?

Anna Friel: I think with any character that you play, you just want to ground it in naturalism. Sometimes there can be a tendency, particularly with the genre, to heighten the performance. It was just keeping everything as realistic and as truthful as possible. That and quick, sharp, fast dialogue.

Rafi Gavron: I think, for me, it’s one of those things where there’s a reason you get a role. And as far as I know, and not because I was any better necessarily. There wasn’t a huge amount of competition, and what I mean by that is because there probably wasn’t a huge amount of pain. There’s a lot of pain inside of me, and I know Anna has experienced that too. And that hopefully makes a character more interesting, if you bring that. But I think that was it, which is, “Okay, I can bring the pain. I can bring the trauma. I can bring them manipulation as a result of trauma.” And that’s why it worked, and that’s what drew me.

Brannon Braga does a great job of really exploring these characters and giving them human elements. Can you talk to me about the collaboration process with Brannon?

Anna Friel: It’s what made me do the film, really, apart from working with Rafi. It was his gentleness and his eloquence; he was really very good on the phone and said what he wanted to do. He said, “I’m going to hand it over to you guys. The biggest, most important thing with making any television or film is the casting. If you get the casting right, then you’ve kind of done your job.”

He would just guide. It was quite specific, but also encouraging. Because I think some of the basic thing that some directors can forget is that if you make an actor feel comfortable, they’ll give you anything and do anything you want. If you say “Well done,” it’s great, because it’s all about competence. He very much does make you feel competent, and he really appreciates. He goes, “That was just great. That was amazing.” You know, I’m just doing my job, but it’s really nice to hear the words thank you.

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How about for yourself, Rafi?

Rafi Gavron: I didn’t know Brannon. He was a friend of a friend, and he had called the friend and said, “How was Rafi to work with?” And the friend said, “He’s the worst,” and Brannon hired me.

But it’s that same thing that Anna said. When I did finally sit down with him and meet him, it was basically like, “Hey, there’s a reason you’re here. I look forward to working with you.” There was an immediate trust, and he has such a gentleness about him, which I feel is really important. As Anna said, it just made it so easy to just do that.

He allowed us freedom. The reason for that is because he didn’t come with a fucking ego. He just said, “It’s yours too.”

Anna Friel: He is fiercely intelligent, so that helps. Off the scale intelligence.

Were there more practical effects on this than normal?

Anna Friel: Everything was practical.

Rafi Gavron: Everything was real makeup. I was in seven hours of makeup in the morning, I was in a suit that was made of latex that was pre-prepared for me and cost a couple hundred thousand dollars. It was one of the biggest makeup jobs they’ve done. It was absolute madness. It was very uncomfortable; I don’t wish it on myself again at any point. But obviously, it was central to the movie. I worked with the best people makeup wise and they were amazing.

Anna Friel: Rafi had to contend with the ever-changing temperatures of Nova Scotian winters, so if we were on set and indoors, it could be very hot and would make him sweat. And if we were then in that cold room when the beginning, when she finds you naked on the floor, you were so cold. We’d just rush in and put a dressing gown or a towel on him just to keep a little bit of heat. But you did so well; I was really proud of you.

Are there any small Easter eggs that you think fans are gonna pick up on? Fans of Clive Barker’s work or even stuff that Brannon or you wanted to put in the film?

Rafi Gavron: Well, there might be another one.

Anna Friel: Brannon said he’d like to do some kind of prequel, so we’ll see. That’s always in the hands of you guys. If you guys want more, then more will come. And if you don’t, it doesn’t.

Rafi Gavron: There’s a lot of little plants. You know what I mean? They were there.

I want to see what Simon was up to with Mary’s ex-husband.

Rafi Gavron: Yes, Good thinking.

Anna Friel: And when did she discover that Simon was a phony, or did she always know?

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/books-blood-show-anna-friel-rafi-gavron-interview/

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