All language subtitles for Acting in Amityville - Interview with Dawna Wightman (2022).English

(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)