---

Peter Dimako:

When were you contacted regarding this and were there a lot of people who auditioned for the role?

Gregory Smith:

“I don’t know if there were a lot of people that went on, I think it was pretty late in their sort of process. I made a tape and they sent it to the director who was already in Romania. I didn’t hear a thing then it was like a month later that I found out I was going to go. I didn’t meet the director or anybody else involved in the movie until I was actually in Romania, which was like so funny because usually you make a tape or you meet somebody, then you meet somebody else, then you meet somebody else...this was the first time ever that I got hired in the movie and I didn’t know one person or meet one person until I was on the set!”
*he laughs*

Peter Dimako:

So tell us about your character. You play older Max brother on whom the darkness hones in on and, he turns to the dark side. Tell us about Max.

Gregory Smith:

“Max was…the word I kept getting on set was: ‘Greg, Greg just make him Bohemian man! Make him Bohemian!’”

*I laugh*

*he laughs*

He continues “I was like ‘Alright guys! Here’s Bohemian for ya!’ But basically he gets kicked out…he comes home under sort of auspicious circumstances and he kind of reclaims his place in line as the sort of Alpha Male. He’s kind of back but he doesn’t want to tell anybody the reason he’s back is because he got kicked out of college and so there’s that sort of insecurity that ‘The Dark’ sort of exploits and uses to kind of draw Max into the conflict. And, yeah….I don’t know if I should say too much more.”

Peter Dimako:

What drew you to this project the most? Do you have a brother and what did he think about that?

Gregory Smith:

“I have two younger brothers and a younger sister. So I can definitely relate to the older brother, you know?”

Peter Dimako:

What did they think about that?

Gregory Smith:

“What did they think about me doing the movie or kind of pushing them around?

Peter Dimako:

Both!

Gregory Smith:

“Well, I haven’t lived with them for a number of years and I think that’s all good, you know, we’re all good friends now but back in the day I definitely used to, you know, put ‘em through the ringer! In terms of the movie, my little brother’s an actor and he told me after I booked it that this is one of his favorite books. It’s pretty cool. So he got out on a plane and came over to Bucharest and hung out on set and we had a good time.”

Peter Dimako:

Had you read any of the five books in the Susan Cooper series before this? What kind of research did you do for this?

Gregory Smith:

“Just the one that’s titled ‘The Dark is Rising.’ But I didn’t like… the movie was so different that it wasn’t like…the movie, the character, everything was so truncated and different and sort of personalized for the movie. So the books were kind of…they weren’t really a tool that helped me in my sort of process, you know, to kind of figure out a take on Max. Do you know what I mean?

Peter Dimako:

Yeah

Gregory Smith:

“It was more like ok, those are cool and that’s where the story came from but gotta work with the script now and sort of figure this out and sort of be the same guy in the same sort of background but really kind of start from scratch.”

Peter Dimako:

How much different is this from the books? Aren’t you concerned about the fans of the book?

Gregory Smith:

“Hmmm. One major difference is the family is American in the movie but they’re British in the books. Umm, but I’m not concerned because I saw the movie two nights ago for the first time and I didn’t know what to expect you’re always kind of nervous when you first see a movie, and it is great! I was really, really…I sort of skipped out of the screening! I really enjoyed it a lot!”

Peter Dimako:

What do you feel the director David Cunningham brought to the film? Had you seen any of his films prior to making this?

Gregory Smith:

“Yeah, yeah, I Netflix’ed a couple of his movies and then I watched one of them, he gave me a copy of one of them when I was there. He’s great. He got like a very very unique style. It’s hard to describe. He’s very dynamic in the way that he shoots and cuts things. Lots of really interesting angles and lens choices. You know like, he used a fisheye lens right? Just sparingly here and there between scenes you know, to blend stuff together. That’s something that I’ve never seen in a film before and he would shoot four or five cameras at the same time and he would hide the cameras.“

Peter Dimako:

Can you talk about working with Alexander Ludwig?

Gregory Smith:

“Yes I left him a message this morning” [Ludwig] “telling him to call me back because I want to tell him what an awesome job he did. He worked harder than anybody; he worked more than anybody out there and Romania was not an easy place to work and he did a really good job. He has like a strong spirit which like totally comes through. He and I actually grew up in the same little part in…like a kilometer from each other. His mom and I went to the same elementary school!”

Peter Dimako:

What posed the challenge of the project and do you have any favorite parts?

Gregory Smith:

“Definitely the location just because it’s hard being away from your family and friends. And it’s hard…you know, film crews are big, they’re huge with lots and lots of people and when most of the film crew and you don’t speak the same language, anytime something needs to be done the message is translated back and forth between three to four people each time so it changes a little bit along the way. So it makes it tough.”

Peter Dimako:

I see you’ve produced “Wieners” is that right? What is that?

Gregory Smith:

*he laughs*

“Yeah, ‘Wieners’ is a script that one of my best friends wrote. He gave it to me like, two years ago. He was like ‘What do you think?’ and I was like ‘Dude! This is hysterical!’ At the time I was doing ‘Everwood’ so I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t work on any other projects because I was kind of on that full time. So I was like, I optioned it from him and I was like ‘alright, I need to put my creative energy into something’ so I optioned it. Me and my partner tried to get it financed and all that and somehow we were successful and we made it. We shot it in Salt Lake City and it’s about three best friends who travel across the country in the Oscar Meyer Wiener vehicle to track down Dr. Duane and kick is ass!”

Peter Dimako:

What about future projects?

Can you talk about Boot Camp, what’s that about? And can you talk about “Edison and Leo?” and the TV mini “Guns” with Elisha Cuthbert?

Gregory Smith:

“Yeah, I like to stay busy. Actually, the project that I’ve got coming up that I’m most excited about is actually called ‘Closing the Ring.’ That was a film I did that Richard Attenborough directed. That was cool and I had a great part in that. It’s a great throwback, very nostalgic kind of love story. So I am really proud of that. ‘Edison and Leo’ was this…movie…I was the voice of Leo and it’s a claymation movie, it won’t be done for probably at least a year but it was kind of an interesting experience, something I hadn’t done before.
‘Guns’ was a film I did after ‘The Dark is Rising.’ I went back to Toronto and did it for a couple of months and…I’m from Canada so it’s kind of like any chance I have to go up to Canada and make some movies, I sort of jump. It is a film about of gun trafficking.”

September 27th, 2007 - 3:15 PM