Interview: Director Thommy Hutson and Star Amanda Wyss on the Psychological Horrors of THE ID

Out this week on Blu-ray is the psychological thriller The Id, directed by Thommy Hutson and starring Amanda Wyss. Hutson, who many genre fans may know from all the stellar documentaries he’s produced over the years, including Never Sleep Again, Scream: The Inside Story, More Brains! A Return to the Living Dead, and Crystal Lake Memories, is making his mark in the world of narrative features with The Id, which follows a woman endlessly tormented by both the past and her abusive father, whom she is tasked with caring for in his twilight years.

Daily Dead recently had the opportunity to speak with both Hutson and Wyss about their collaboration on The Id, and the duo discussed their respective approaches to Sean H. Stewart’s script, the complicated nature of Wyss’ character, Meridith, and more.

Great to speak to you guys today. Thommy, I’d like to start with you and have you discuss your approach to this story and why you felt that this is the one that you wanted to make your mark on as a director. And also, because you’ve found so much success with all the documentary work that you’ve produced over the years, were you nervous at all about making the leap over into narrative features?

Thommy Hutson: It's interesting, because I had written some feature films that, like many other writers, get bought but never get made. Then, I recently had a film [Animal] that was made as a writer, and I was also producer on it with Drew Barrymore's company and Chiller Films, that did really well and that was a fun experience. I'd always been itching to get in the director's seat, and, looking at everything that I had done previously—with these documentaries on different horror franchises and Animal, which was a monster movie—I knew that when I stepped into the role of director, I wanted to branch out and do something that was a little more cerebral, a little more suspenseful, a little more thrilling.

So this story came about because I had wanted to do something that was contained and that was really, really character-driven. So I talked to Dan Farrands, who was my producing partner on this project, and we came up with this kernel of the idea. We ended up going ahead and throwing it to a writer friend of mine, Sean Stewart, who did a great job of crafting this really intense psychological thriller. I was just drawn to the idea of something that was quieter, but that still could be just as scary in a lot of different ways.

Amanda, can you talk about what it was that you saw in this script in particular, and in Meridith, that resonated with you as an actress?

Amanda Wyss: When I read the script, it terrified me, so I knew that I had to do it because it was so challenging. I was excited by the challenge of finding the truth or the humanity in a fairly unlikable character. Not that you ever play a character that's unlikable, but the story was relentless and both Meridith and her father were just so damaged. As an actor, I was very excited by the challenge of digging deep and stepping into her world and making it my own for a while.

I also think that when Meridith makes that shift character-wise—and Thommy was so clear about what he wanted—but that moment when she makes that ultimate decision, that’s when the biggest challenge for me was to keep it truthful, keep it human, and let the story come to life no matter how ugly it gets.

Just a follow-up question on that. Do you feel that having somebody like Thommy, who you've known for a while now and you've worked with before, helped at all in terms of being able to take on a challenging character like this?

Amanda Wyss: In this incidence it certainly did, because the way Thommy approached me with the story and his openness and his vision was so clear, and because we didn't conflict about the vision, I knew that we were both going to be working towards the same story. So that allowed me to be completely immersed in my character and working with Thommy made me feel like this little butterfly, where I felt really safe to just create and knew that we were really telling the story the best way that we could. The whole set was like that; everybody was very supportive.

Thommy, could you discuss casting Amanda and Patrick [Peduto], because so much of this movie is just the two of them, which means everything was basically riding on their shoulders.

Thommy Hutson: Well, in terms of casting, it helps to know fantastic talent, and as you had mentioned, I've known Amanda for a long time. I've been a fan of Amanda's work for a long time, so it felt really organic for me to approach her and say, "Listen, I have this movie. It's going to be my directorial debut. I want you to read it, I think you'd be great in it. I'm just warning you, it definitely will take you down a rabbit hole. I don't know if this is the kind of thing you're looking for, but I'm hoping that it is." I was really, really happy when Amanda read the script and, if I'm not mistaken, Amanda, I think you got back to me that day.

Amanda Wyss: Oh, it's true. I read the last word, I started crying and I was like, “Nobody gets to play this part but me.”

Thommy Hutson: That was the key. It was not just that I happened to know Amanda, but it's the fact that she responded to the material and specifically the character exactly the way I was hoping. The beauty of what she brought to the role was her ability to immerse herself, and like any really incredibly, truly, talented performer, become this woman, which, as she already touched on, is no easy task.

She created additional, multiple levels of layers on top of what was already on the page, making [Meridith] so much more real and at the same time, so much more tragic and so much more sympathetic.

Then, with Patrick, which is obviously an incredibly important role, we went ahead and held auditions. We saw a lot of men for the role of the father because it's an interesting role in that one could play it in a really subtle way, or one could play it in an over-the-top way. It came down to two gentlemen, one of them being Patrick, and their takes were incredibly different. They were polar opposites, and I was drawn to Patrick because he was able to weave in and out of that subtlety and that over-the-top, overbearing personality. He could just give a look and it made you uncomfortable, and then we brought him back again to read against Amanda, and we knew in the room that their dynamic together was going to be fantastic.

What is also interesting about this film, too, is that it takes a really interesting look at the dangers of nostalgia, because we're all prone to do that sometimes, especially as we get older.

Amanda Wyss: The nostalgia thing was something that I thought was really fascinating. Being stuck in the past or having people try to pick you in the past or anything like that, it's soul-crushing, and it doesn’t turn out so well for her. I always felt that Meridith had one foot in the present and one foot in the past, because the present had become too painful to exist in. That part of her mental breakdown comes from her inability to pull that foot out of the past, and stand both feet in the present, and fight for herself in the present.

Thommy Hutson: Yes, the nostalgia is a really powerful thing in this movie, particularly. It's a really big motivator, even if it's in the negative sense. It makes me think of that quote that says, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift,” and I really think that Meridith does not understand that. She feels so beat down and downtrodden that the nostalgia aspect does really play a large part in why she does what she does and why she is who she is.

Something else I wanted to make sure we touched upon before we wrapped up this interview was that you and another alumni from the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise do the music for this, and I think Tuesday [Knight] did a really great job here.

Thommy Hutson: I remember there were moments where there was no real music written in the script, even when we were doing the final passes, and I was making all my notes of what I wanted to see or anything like that. There were moments where I was like, “Obviously we're going to need some kind of music here.” I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted go, so I ended up talking to Tuesday's manager Michael Perez, and I said, "This is what I'm going for," and he said, "You should really listen to some of Tuesday's music." I already had a bunch of her CDs, so he sent me some stuff that at that point were either demos or unreleased tracks.

There were these two songs that not only just sounded so perfect, but if you really listen to the lyrics, those two songs in those two important scenes actually really augment and complement what you see happening on the screen. She was lovely enough to let us use them, and her music absolutely plays an important part in this.