Interview: Tobin Bell Discusses Working with Lin Shaye for THE CALL

As John Kramer, aka Jigsaw, in the Saw movies, Tobin Bell forces people to face their sins through elaborate traps, and he gives a group of teenagers the same opportunity in The Call, only this time he's doing it at the behest of his late wife, Edith (Lin Shaye), who isn't quite resting in peace after a heartbreaking accident. With The Call now playing at drive-ins via Cinedigm, we caught up with Bell to talk about working with Shaye for the first time on The Call, and he also shared his excitement for the upcoming Spiral: From the Book of Saw.

How did the opportunity to play Edward come about? Did they come to you with the script? Did they kind of write it with you in mind?

Tobin Bell: Nobody ever said that to me. And I think it's probably unlikely that they wrote it with me in mind, but they did come to me, and I was really drawn to, there's this one scene, the one scene when the kids come to Edward's house. That scene to me was a tremendous challenge because essentially it's a long monologue, but you have to involve the kids and it has to be logical and not just a long monologue, it has to be tension-filled. So we had a lot of fun shooting it and the elements of the scene were manifested and Tim Woodward, Jr. had some good ideas in terms of the timing. And so you do things for different reasons and this had this extremely challenging scene, and I love challenges. So I jumped in after I read that scene.

I love that your character and Lin's character, you can see they're capable of great love, but then they're also pushed into this vengeful path due to what happens. And I love that there's a complexity there. It feels like your character is motivated by this moral code and this love for his wife. So even though he's pushing these characters down this deadly path, he's kind of doing it out of love, which is really interesting.

Tobin Bell: Yeah. And that's one of the things about Lin is that she always brings the, no matter who she's playing, or how on the edge the character she plays is, she always brings this human element to her work. I like that because I like to connect, and working with Lin, that was possible.

Yeah. It's really intriguing. Had you ever worked with Lin before, or was this the first time you two had the opportunity to work together?

Tobin Bell: I had never met her, never worked with her. I know she's had a long career and a very successful one. And I liked working with her a lot. She brings a lot of texture to what she does.

Yeah, absolutely. It's great because in this movie, she's menacing one moment, and then she can be loving the next moment. I think your character kind of has to walk that line, too. He's not this outwardly evil guy, it's just that he's kind of the messenger between the living and the dead. There's a lot of metaphors there that are really intriguing. It makes you think after you watch the movie.

Tobin Bell: Yeah. The young actors that play the four kids that come to my house, Chester and Erin and Mike and Sloane, contributed a lot, they were all quite different from each other. And so that gave a lot of variety to it. And it's a real case study in how violence and cruelty, no matter what its motivation, will often beget violence and cruelty. So it's the kind of world we're living in.

Yeah, unfortunately. It can be good, I think, to look in the mirror and recognize there's room for improvement in a lot of areas. And I think it's good to be able to raise those questions, which, like you said, we're living in a time right now where I think there's a lot of reevaluation going on. That's what I love about horror movies, is that there are so many moral complexities to them, and they really make you rethink your approach to life sometimes. And you've done that time and time again in your roles.

Tobin Bell: Well, yeah, if the writing's good it can make you look at both sides of things and it's one of the things that Shakespeare was good at. He would definitely have you understanding both sides of an equation. It's not just about some plot-driven thing where you only explore one side, because very often in any situation, it's a struggle for the people that are involved. There's conflict involved, and you can still have a terrifying and fast-moving story and you can layer it as well. You can have multiple layers in that story without slowing it down. It depends on the acting and depends on the writing.

Yeah. And I think this movie, it reminded me a little bit of the Saw films in just the way that the past can come back to haunt you. Your character is forcing these characters to come to terms with the past and with their choices. It kind of hearkens to John Kramer's philosophy a little bit, which I thought was interesting, but it's still definitely its own thing. I just love that it taps into that a little bit, that Saw mentality.

Tobin Bell: Yeah, I know what you mean. Very often in those films, in the Saw films, John is not there when these things go on, he's responsible for it, but he's not physically present in most of those situations. In this case, I had a chance to pull the strings and be there to propose what this opportunity, we'll call it, for them was going to be. And I thought the scene was well-crafted. For example, when he says, "Knowing how Edith felt about you, I was somewhat surprised when I found that she put you in her role." I said, "No, take a look." And then I think she says, I think Tonya says to me, "Yeah, all right. So, what's the catch?" And I said, "What do you mean? What's the catch?" She says, "People like you, there's always a catch." "What do you mean people like me? You don't know me. You don't know me and you didn't know my wife." So anyway, it was great being on set with Lin and with a bunch of really good young actors. We had a good time.

Well, I can't leave without bringing up the Saw movies. They were a huge influence on me growing up and got me into the horror genre itself. And I think of you sitting in that fake pool of blood in the first movie to where we are now with Jigsaw and we've got another Saw movie coming up. Is there anything that you can say about the future of John Kramer or Spiral?

Tobin Bell: Well, the only thing I can say about it, Derek, is that it's not something that I can really talk about right now. But I can tell you this, if this new film came out of Chris Rock's mind, if it's something that he dreamed up, it's likely going to be worth seeing. So I'll just have to leave it at that.