The Spotlight of Suspicion: Devil Is Developed
For Shyamalan, the process of choosing the writers and directors for The Night Chronicles became an expanded and comprehensive education in film. As he began his search, he uncovered a trove of talent. He notes: “I was able to watch every cool, scary thriller and horror movie that hasn’t come out yet and get to talk to these filmmakers and figure out how they think.”.
Once the series was established, Shyamalan searched for a writer to execute the treatment he created: five strangers who are connected by a common thread become stuck in an office building elevator in Philadelphia. Unfortunately for four of them, one is the Devil himself. Given such a simple, yet chilling, premise, Shyamalan wanted a screenwriter with the precise sensibility to flesh out his idea and run with it.
He found that voice in Brian Nelson, whose script for director David Slade’s provocative Hard Candy helped launch the career of a young actress named Ellen Page. “I loved Brian Nelson’s Hard Candy,” he commends. “It was brilliantly written, so I hired him as the writer for Devil. He turned my 14-page treatment into a fully developed, exciting screenplay.”
Now that the script was written, it was time for Shyamalan and Mercer to decide on the director for Devil. When word went out that The Night Chronicles was looking for talented new filmmakers to balance human stories with drama and thrills, the company was inundated with submissions.
Shyamalan recalls the process of selecting brothers John Erick and Drew Dowdle for the project: “I was sent a really disturbing movie called The Poughkeepsie Tapes to watch, and this movie was the first I saw in my new house. It was a terrible decision, because it just scared me so much. I loved the filmmaking in it, and I thought these guys were amazing. I heard they were making another movie, so I begged Screen Gems to show me Quarantine before it came out.”
The level of fear the brothers were able to elicit with the thriller astonished him. Told from the perspective of a news crew that is embedded in a cordoned-off Los Angeles apartment in which the tenants have contracted a horrific contagion, the film became a successful new entry in the horror canon. “I loved Quarantine and felt the combination of these two movies gave the Dowdles the perfect point of view for Devil,” Shyamalan offers. “They’re the nicest guys you’ll ever meet, have a really good edge, a great sense of humor and they’re smart.” He adds: “And they’re just crazy and deranged enough for the job. When the lights came on I thought, ‘These are the guys!’”
Stepping out of the directorial chair he used to oversee such hits as The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs proved to be both “harder and easier” than Shyamalan expected. He admits: “I’m used to being the sole person on my movies. So it’s very healthy to be able to let go. The process is a whole lot easier having complete confidence in the filmmakers I’ve hired, and it’s been fun because I’m learning from other people’s strengths.”
John and Drew Dowdle collaborated at every stage of development, casting and filming. John Dowdle returns the confidence in his producer: “Night’s been amazing. He’s smart, enthusiastic and he’s given us a long leash, which has been a treat. Night’s a director first and a producer second, so he’s giving us the reins a director dreams of. He let us be creative and freaky and encouraged us to have fun. What made it all even better was that we thought the story was perfect for us; like our previous films, it had a lot of reality-style elements.”
Drew Dowdle loved the challenge this story presented to continually shift “the spotlight of suspicion” on all of the passengers in the elevator. The audience isn’t sure who the Devil is until the final reveal. He reflects: “It’s a very rare situation to have your boss challenging you to be more artistic and raise the IQ of the film. He forces us to bring the best we have with every detail and affords us the luxury of a larger-scale production than we’ve had.”
It was crucial to both producers that the Dowdle brothers knew they were coming onto a project in which they wouldn’t be micromanaged. Offers Shyamalan: “Genuinely, I think of them as peers, and we would just talk it out. If there was a difference of opinion, I would articulate mine, and they theirs. It’s been an equal playing field. I wanted that equality and stimulation of ideas. I didn’t want to dictate. I wanted to learn as much as anybody in this process.”
The Devil’s Meeting: Casting the Supernatural Thriller
The core cast in Devil consists of five characters trapped in an office-tower elevator and the anguished Philadelphia police officer and two security guards who are trying to extricate them, only hours after a suicide has paved the way for the Devil’s arrival.
For the Dowdle brothers, it was important to find just the right actors, regardless of their professional cache at the time of preproduction. John Dowdle notes: “We cast a wide net and found the best actors for the roles. In the elevator, we had to cast it as a group; it was important to find five very different types of people to bring unique energy and their differences. We realized that each one of these five actors has very different acting styles, and a very different sense of their craft.”
Casting these characters was no small task. The roles are closely integrated, and the filmmakers approached each one as part of an ensemble. Fresh faces were desired so that audiences wouldn’t have expectations skewed by past signature roles. Hundreds auditioned, and eventually only eight headshots remained.
Shyamalan sums up the importance of casting: “Devil is the quintessential ensemble cast because the plot of the film is centered around finding out who of the five in the elevator is the title character, so there have to be five people who could all be the lead of the movie…or be killed at any moment. In addition, the three characters on the ground have to be equally compelling. The eight actors we hired all have a parity with each other in terms of acting skill and presence on screen, and they could all be stars of tomorrow.”
The core characters trapped in the elevator include:
Vince the salesman (Geoffrey Arend): Confident and cocky in his ability to sell anything to anyone, Vince is quick with his sarcasm. Unfortunately for him, he is hiding some very wicked secrets of his own.
Old woman (Jenny O’Hara): Tired from watching out for an untrustworthy world, she has a shocking capacity to shamelessly voice her racism. But beneath her petty and fretful exterior, she also has a surprisingly iron will.
Tony the mechanic (Logan Marshall-Green): Physically strong, Tony works hard but has a chip on his shoulder. He doesn’t understand why the world keeps screwing him over every time he tries to put his life together. But as long as he thinks he has a shot at redemption, he’ll keep pushing.
Sarah the young woman (Bojana Novakovic): A young, slender trophy wife, Sarah is bitter that her biting wit, intelligence and looks haven’t gotten her farther than a marriage to a rich CEO who doesn’t respect her. But she doesn’t let anyone mess with her and is determined to find out who, or what, has bitten her.
Ben the security guard (Bokeem Woodbine): Trim, yet underneath his uniform, it’s all muscle. Divorced and with kids, Ben works in security because it feels like the one place he can command some authority. The three principal characters trying to get the elevator safely down (and its occupants out) include:
Bowden the homicide detective (Chris Messina): Steady and reliable, Bowden is a consummate professional. His past demons and his need to feel responsible for every death on his watch resulted in heavy drinking. Though six months sober, Bowden is still haunted by the brutal death of his family five years ago.
Ramirez the security guard (Jacob Vargas): A devout Catholic, recent immigrant Ramirez is superstitious and the first to realize the demonic aspects of what is happening in his building. He’s trying to convince the others that the images on the security camera are not of this world.
Lustig the security guard (MATT CRAVEN): Bearish and a seasoned ex-Navy man, Lustig finds that working in building security is no challenge. Ramirez’s partner, he’s hoping to skate through the rest of his working years to retirement.
Director Dowdle discusses the five actors cast to play the characters in the elevator: “Bokeem was such a shining star; he has such a unique character to him. He’s so singular, and we loved him for the character of the guard. For the mechanic, we had so many people read the scenes aggressively and angrily. Logan Marshall-Green came in, and he was almost whispering; it was such a reversal of anything we had seen that we immediately knew he was the guy for the role. For Geoffrey’s character, we wanted to bring some humor to the movie. As you can see in Super Troopers, Geoffrey is hysterical. He adds a wonderful dose of humor and pathos to this film.”
To portray the two women trapped alongside the mechanic, salesman and security guard, the team found young Australian actress Bojana Novakovic—a standout in her role in Drag Me to Hell—and veteran character actor Jenny O’Hara. John Dowdle describes the choice of these performers: “Bojana is wonderful to look at. She’s such a great, intense actor, and she brings so much emotion. Her eyes say so much, and she’s such an intense presence, even though in a lot of the film she’s quiet. And Jenny O’Hara is always such a delight; she is so fun to work with. Jenny has quite a lot of theater background, and she’s just a wonderful actor.”
Chris Messina was selected to portray the role of Detective Bowden, the Philadelphia cop who is brought in to manage the crisis. Much of the film is seen from his perspective in the security office. We follow along with him as he watches the events unfold from cameras in the elevator. While Bowden can see the five passengers, he cannot hear what they are saying; the reverse is true for the trapped occupants: they are only able to hear Bowden.
The up-and-coming actor has already worked with filmmakers from Woody Allen to Nora Ephron. Of his casting, Shyamalan recalls: “Chris came in and did a fantastic audition, and everyone thought, ‘This guy is amazing!’ I had seen him in Vicky Cristina Barcelona and in Julie & Julia, and when I sat with him, I thought, ‘This is a leading man.’”
Alongside Messina were security officers Ramirez and Lustig, played by Jacob Vargas and Matt Craven. Director Dowdle commends: “Chris, Jacob and Matt were so great together. The three of them had such a natural chemistry that a lot of what I had to do in the security office was just stay out of their way. The three of them were such different types and had such a stronghold on their characters.”
Devil (2010)
Directed by: Drew Dowdle, John Erick Dowdle
Starring: Chris Messina, Bojana Novakovic, Geoffrey Arend, Caroline Dhavernas, Jacob Vargas, Zoie Palmer, Matt Craven, Logan Marshall-Green, Zoie Palmer, Vincent Laresca, Joshua Peace, Joe Cobden
Screenplay by: Brian Nelson, M. Night Shyamalan
Production Design by: Martin Whist
Cinematography by: Tak Fujimoto
Film Editing by: Elliot Greenberg
Costume Design by: Erin Benach
Art Direction by: Nigel Churcher, Patrick M. Sullivan
Music by: Fernando Velázquez
MPAA Rating: PG-13 or violence and disturbing images, thematic material and some language including sexual references.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: September 17, 2010