Interview: Radha Mitchell on the Sinister Secrets of THE DARKNESS

Actress Radha Mitchell is no stranger to the world of horror. She broke into the genre with Pitch Black in 2000, and since then, Mitchell has starred in films such as Phone Booth, Silent Hill, Surrogates, and The Crazies (2010), as well as her latest project, The Darkness, which has her re-teaming with director Greg McLean (who she previously collaborated with on Rogue, an excellent killer croc movie).

In The Darkness, Mitchell co-stars alongside Kevin Bacon, David Mazouz and Lucy Fry as a mother struggling to keep her family together after a sinister force invades their home, adding to the stresses she and her brood are already working their way through. During a recent press day, Daily Dead had the opportunity to speak with Mitchell about her involvement in The Darkness, working again with McLean, and more.

Look for The Darkness in theaters this Friday, May 13th.

Great to speak with you today, Radha. What was it that popped out to you when you were first approached for The Darkness that made you say, “Yeah, I really want to be a part of this?”

Radha Mitchell: Well, it was just the opportunity to destroy the Brady Bunch. Let's pull these characters apart—their perfect life, their perfect house—and let's expose the darkness, because everybody's got a secret, right? That's the other thing that's strangling them. Their own internal struggle is quite interesting, to have them be desperate to stay connected and forced to confront this fear which is almost like a physical manifestation of their internal paranoia. So it was this psychological element that was intriguing.

The genre always represents this almost magic possibility that anything can happen, and that is what I like about genre films. Anything can happen. Anything is real. In this case, yes, the rocks are real. It's not just a psychological projection. This is real shit. This is really happening, and the end of the world could happen if this kid doesn't return the rocks.

So many times when a child is the catalyst for a horror movie, you have this poor child living in fear. Michael [Mazouz] wasn’t like that at all, and I found that disconnect to be effectively disconcerting.

Radha Mitchell: Well, he has this amoral spirit, so to him, it’s just a game. What's interesting, when I was researching this, I got caught up on YouTube with this schizophrenic girl and her parents, and the struggle they had raising her, because they were afraid of their child. I couldn’t imagine what that would feel like and I found this girl’s story to be so incredibly addictive to dig into. It almost haunted me in a way. And the way Greg framed the character of Michael was very thoughtful but still scary—he had absolutely no fear. The rest of us are falling apart and he’s just playing with “Jenny.”

There's definitely something to be said about the importance of confronting the past with this story. That adds a lot to the fear.

Radha Mitchell: Everyone's betrayed, or everyone has judgment on their own personal story, except David's character, who's not afraid to look at the demons. He just sees it all as part of the story. It's an interesting lens, and it makes him look scary. He's the portal. He's just somebody without judgment, but he is actually the only one that can save them in the end. The rest of us are there to pick up the pieces.

You've worked with Greg before, so I'm guessing that part of the draw for this project was reteaming with him. What would you say was the biggest difference between working with him then versus now?

Radha Mitchell: He's Australia's Hitchcock, Australia's contribution of this wild, naughty Hitchcock, who isn't afraid to tell a dirty story. In this case, he enjoyed the restraint. It's not so tortuous as some of his previous work. It's more of a psychological drama, and he enjoyed the characterization and the subtlety. The insidious build of terror without actually seeing anything; it's all what's going on internally. And he handled the material with great confidence.

I talked to Lucy before this, and one thing that I really appreciated about her storyline was the confrontation with her issues and how it was just one aspect of the film that parallels what's happening on the supernatural side—how things can be happening underneath your own roof, and you don't even realize how dangerous that can be if you aren’t paying attention.

Radha Mitchell: Oh, yeah. Certainly the story demonstrates that the real fear is your own paranoia, your own demons, the things that you struggle with, or the attention that you don't get from the people in your life. All of the characters need something that they're not getting from each other, so that sense of loneliness, the sense of loss, or the sense of isolation that we have even in groups is its own kind of tragedy. I like that that's only one element of the story, with the other being about the magical realism of the possibility of this supernatural force taking over and consuming this family.

You've worked in various genres, but you seem to come back to horror often, which is amazing and as a fan, I appreciate. Is there something particularly about the genre itself that speaks to you as a creative person?

Radha Mitchell: Well, there's a creativity that you find often in horror that is sometimes lacking in other genres. There’s also this rock and roll attitude that comes with horror, too. There's a sense of fearlessness, and the genre always opens up all kinds of possibilities to what a story could be. Horror is a great place to experiment because there's an independent spirit to these types of project. In terms of acting, there's the visceral aspect. It's quite fun, because it's not subtle, and in this case, there's subtlety in the development of the characters, but they're screaming by the end, and that is quite cathartic. It's ridiculous, but always fun for me as an actress.