Original subtitles

(dramatic orchestral music)

- You know how we all have little dreams and big dreams?

My big, big, big dream was to be a stage actor

and so I had the idea to...

I really wanted to get into the stage union,

which is Canadian Actors‘ Equity Association, CAEA,

and someone told me,

if you get into the acting...

the mass media union, ACTRA,

you can just slip into the stage union.

So I took Amityville,

and before that, I had done a lot of stage.

I had toured with Romeo and Juliet.

I mean, it went on and on and on.

I had just got a new agent,

and she said, "|'ll give you three months.

Book something or you're out."

They wouldn't audition me,

and she did a self tape.

She said, "Just do this...

...it's called a self tape."

Nowadays... I had two auditions yesterday

and I have one tonight.

That's all I'm doing right now is self tapes,

but back then, that's how she got me in.

I self-taped, and somebody saw the self tape

and liked it I guess.

(screams)

They cast me just for that,

just because I can scream really well.

I think years before, I had read the book,

but I get scared really easily,

so a little bit of me was afraid.

I was afraid of looking too deeply into it.

I also, like I said,

wanted to bring something fresh to the character.

What I love about Tom is he's got these really...

a winning combination as a director

of being very salt of the earth, down to earth.

"This is what you need to do,"

but he's got a really good eye,

and he's also a businessman,

so he gets things done.

Yeah, I love that.

He kept it fun.

Tom and his whole team ran such a great set.

There was no fear of really getting hurt.

It was all just, you know, "Try that, try that,

try to..." you know.

The square in the kitchen floor,

it was all just acting. Nothing bad happened.

I had to remember my limp.

Yeah, I might or might not have forgotten the limp.

I don't remember.

I think one of my notes

from Tom was that, you know, I have an anxiety,

generalized anxiety.

Debbie, the character.

So I tried to keep that on the back-burner,

his note on the back—burner the whole time,

while listening to whatever else was going on,

like throwing nails into people's legs and stuff.

There was a malaise about the character.

She was, you know, "There's something wrong with the house.

There's something wrong with the house.

There's something," which I think...

not looking too deeply into it,

there was something wrong with her, her marriage.

She was unhappy with... I think in my...

maybe that was just in my mind

she was unhappy in her marriage.

I tried to keep both going, both of those.

With Debbie, and now this was a long time ago,

but Debbie was generally cautious,

a cautious person.

And it was shot in an old nunnery

like an actual old nunnery.

And I remember leaving my sweater down in the basement

and going down into the basement,

and there was... I knew, I knew you know?

Like, "Hey, you know, there's a hundred people on this set.

There's people everywhere.

So what, I'm down in the basement

of an old nunnery!

Doesn't matter."

I was so scared to be down there by myself.

I think the hardest part was the tarantula

that was supposed to...

in the film, the tarantula comes out

and crawls over my foot,

and they said, "Hey, Dawna, you know...

are you afraid of spiders?"

And I said, "You know, I think I could handle it."

And they took the tarantula...

they had kept it cool

because they slow down when they're cool,

and they opened the top of this...

I think it was a yogurt container,

and these legs came out,

oh, I start to shake just thinking...

these legs came out,

and I said, "Oh no.

Oh, hang on, hang on, hold up.

Hold up.

Yeah, I... yeah, I don't think... I can't."

And then they called...

either the hair or makeup or wardrobe person,

and it was her foot, not mine,

where the tarantula crawls over in the film.

That was the only hard part

of the whole film... was the tarantula.

They have really hairy legs.

The zombie thing was really interesting

because I remember they had me lying

on my back on a basement floor

in the basement of the nunnery,

and it's quite cold.

I think it was a dirt floor, but they were...

they had nice blankets under me,

and I had to lay on my back

and let this guy who smelled like...

burnt hair and vinegar...

he had to kind of throw up on my face,

and I remember saying,

"What is the vomit made of?"

Before we shot.

I was concerned about that

‘cause if it was gonna go in my mouth,

I was like, "Oh, it's supposed to go in my...

...is it?"

I don't know if they kept that or not.

The only snag in the whole thing was that nail gun.

They put hot chocolate...

so then when I fired the nail gun

it would kind of... it looked like, I don't know,

maybe saw dust coming out of an...

I don't know what comes out of a nail gun.

But I remember shooting it... it back firing,

and the hot chocolate kind of hit my chin,

but I didn't say anything because everybody was so busy,

and I didn't want to be a pain in the neck.

I do remember that bond.

There was something special with everybody.

I remember getting invited to a party

at Daryl Hannah's home.

I remember Cassandra Gava, Kim Coates,

Jan Rubes, his son Tony.

Yeah, they were all really wonderful people.

It was great to work with them.

I remember we share a birthday.

The date, not the year.

I remember that.

I remember Kim's eyes being very blue.

I remember him being completely professional,

easy to get along with.

We had some tricky scenes, you know,

where we both had to be really patient with each other

because, you know... the part where I threw paint thinner

at his face, and I kept missing.

I have a really lousy shot.

So I remember getting...

like they had a whole drape thing over the camera,

the plastic drape, and my shot stinks,

so Kim was so patient with that.

I remember Cassandra being my introduction

to kind of the Los Angeles

life of an actor.

I had been in stage up to Amityville,

and Cassandra was very Hollywood.

Very Hollywood... calling...

seeming to call stars all the time.

She was very keyed in, plugged in

to Los Angeles and the whole acting community there,

and I remember her being very gracious and patient with me.

She had worked with Arnold Schwarzenegger,

and she had so many stories of him

and a whole bunch of folks in Los Angeles.

We would laugh right away,

right up onto the set together.

We had a great time together.

He was gracious and generous and fun to work with.

We were always making each other laugh,

and I remember us saying, you know,

let's keep this friction where there's...

I think he, don't quote me...

don't quote him on this,

but that there was a daddy-daughter daddy complex thing

going on with them,

and maybe he was trying to be funny,

but we tried to play on that.

We tried to keep it kind of like, you know, I'm married,

I'm in this house with him.

I'm a business partner with him and the others,

and yet, you know, he is who he is.

They made him quite an unsavory character.

I felt very close to the cast,

but I tried when they were setting up camera and lighting,

I would try hard to remember that I felt Debbie

the character felt really singled out

and separate from everybody,

and that, yeah, there was something about the house.

There was something,

and it could have been Debbie's vulnerability...

the reason that the house had it in for Debbie,

or maybe it was the ESP, or maybe a combination of both.

Of course my mom loved it.

And I have a tendency...

like I don't think I've ever seen Amityville.

I don't like to watch my work.

It's painful.

People will say to me, "Oh, I saw you on this,

or I saw you on that."

But I tend to just do the work.

I write a lot,

and two of my shows have been off Broadway,

which is exciting,

and I write because as wonderful

as it is to act in other people's stories...

and I love that, I love it,

and it's how I make my living still,

but writing your own stories

is where the magic is for me.

I'm not gonna say "just an actor."

It's quite complicated to be an actor

because it's not lying,

it's telling the truth and making it look easy.

Like it's just fresh, you know?

"A guy just puked in my mouth."

Many people have asked me about the film,

and I don't know why,

but a lot of German people have reached out to me.

I don't know why.

I'm constantly reminded of Amityville,

and I have a fond memory of the whole shoot...

the cast, the crew, everyone was so professional.

It was my first starring film.

I cut my teeth on Amityville Curse.

It helped me understand how the movies work, you know?

(suspenseful music)