Q:        I’m curious about the role of the military in “The Mist.” The whole concept…

FD:      Well let’s not give that away. (overlap) Let’s not give away any plot points.

Q:        Oh. Ouch. Okay. Uh, anyway, the role of the military in this film.

SK:      Flame throwers, but that’s not exactly the end.

Q:        No, it is not the end. It was not actually.

FD:      The role of the military is incidental. Again, I have to—in the role of the creatures, honestly, is incidental. To me it’s all context for the story that’s being told which is that super heated character ensemble of people who have the—are getting the hell scared out of them, and colliding like pinballs. I mean that’s, that’s the uh, that’s the physics of the story that Steve set in motion, and that’s what really attracted me to it. It’s that what happens when the thin veneer of civilization is laid aside and people are scared, and they lose their reason, and their ability to have a rational conversation. It makes it pretty timely, it makes it pretty relevant. It also makes for just damn good story telling. That’s why I always loved the story.

SK:      When I was writing the story originally it certainly crossed my mind. It isn’t even a conscious thought. It’s almost like something that’s gone through and been absorbed into your imagination and your subconscious is the idea that we’re all sort of puppets. There are a lot of people fooling around with a lot of things, and we don’t have any say, we don’t—in a lot of cases even though what they’re up to. Apparently AT&T and some of these other companies were listening in people’s phone calls long before it started to be a political issue, and they have that technology, and they can do it. So it’s just… we, we couldn’t very well call it the collateral damage market, but in a sense you know, there’s something going on, and these people are not responsible for it. They’re would you say caught in the middle.

FD:      Yeah, well the reasonable people are always caught in the middle, caught in the middle of a lot of machinations, and a lot of which I’m sure we don’t know about. That makes me paranoid, and who was it that says sometimes we’re not paranoid enough. I think that’s probably true.

SK:      You’re not paranoid if they really are after you.

FD:      And they are, Steve, they’re after you.

SK:      But I have my tin foil hat, Frank. Takes care of a lot of things.

FD:      I’m wearing my tin foil underwear right now. It’s a lacy little number, and you’re receiving signals from somewhere. Sorry.

Q:        Ian Spelling with New Times Syndicate over here. Mr. King I’m just wondering—it’s a hard one because you’re probably way too close to it to answer this, but how would you say your writing has evolved over the years? Frank you were talking about this the other day that this is an angry film for you, as an angry filmmaker, and this was the perfect, you know, cathartic outlet for it. I’m just wondering for you, Steve, has your writing gotten angry over the years, softer over the years? What’s your thought, and then for you, Mr. Darabont, I’m just wondering what book of Stephen King’s have you not done yet that you want to do and why?

SK:      Oh good question. Be thinking about that. I want to hear that. First thing that crossed my mind when you said how’s my writing evolved, I say probably I know two or three thousand more words than I did when I was twenty-four, so my vocabulary’s improved a little bit. No, I’m not as angry as I used to be because I’m not twenty-five anymore, I’m sixty, and uh, that, you know, that’ll kick your ass every time. There’s an Elvis Costello song that says uh, “I used to be angry now I’m just amused,” or something like that. And I’m not amused, but there’s a little more, a little more despair in some of the works than there used to be. In that sense “The Mist” is actually a fairly mature work in that it’s, it’s darker than some of the other stuff. I’m still just trying to tell good stories, and find a way to do that, and not repeat myself uh, and not fall into a rut and furnish it and find new ways to do, to do things. And (sighs) I guess that’s it.

FD:      Well he’s getting, he’s getting less angry as he gets older, I’m getting more and more pissed off. I always had this uh—you know, and there is still the sunny optimist in me. He’s just getting a little beat up lately. You know, uh, when I was younger I always had this notion that, you know, we can pretty much work anything out. But I’ve realized as I get older that that takes some good will on the part of the people who are doing the talking, or not doing the talking, as the case may be. And it’s just making me kind of angrier. If you…

SK:      If you get his emails…

FD:      Oh yeah, oh yeah. I’ll rant. I’ll rant on occasion. I uh, I don’t think, I don’t think there’s anything we can’t work out, but we seem to be determined not to. And in a way that’s kind of—that’s… kind of—that kind of feeds back into “The Mist” as a story. Uh…you know, I’m, I’m, I’m clinging to hope but it’s not the easiest thing in the world to do. I’m stuck in that—I’m stuck in the middle of that argument that Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman had at the mess hall table, you know. Is hope a good thing or is it just stupid, you know. I’m, I’m right in the middle of that equation. The pleasure of doing what we do for a living is that we can, we can work some of this stuff out in our work, we can tell stories, or co-opt a great story to express those things.

Q:        (unintelligible)

FD:      Probably the weirdest story Steve ever wrote uh…or your pal, Mr. Barkman wrote… it’s called “The Long Walk.”

SK:      Oh yeah.

FD:      And that—did you not start—I’ve been meaning to ask you, didn’t you start writing that when you were in high school?

SK:      I was in college.

FD:      You were in college?

SK:      I was a freshman.

FD:      This is amazingly uh… mature work for a kid who was in college. That I do believe was in the shadow of Vietnam, wasn’t it?

SK:      Um hmm. Oh yeah, very much. That was started in uh, ’67 so it was right…(overlap)

FD:      Yeah. It’s uh, it’s pretty amazing stuff. And that influence is there for sure.

SK:      The one that got started in high school is not in print anymore. It’s called “Rage.”

FD:      (overlap) “Rage,” yes. I know, I’ve read it.

Q:        Stephen (unintelligible) from Second Preview. Uh, you just referenced Elvis Costello. You are legendarily an enormous rock’n’roll fan. Do you have much faith left in the uh, the genre, and are you finding new things to listen to?

SK:      Yeah, I always find new things to listen to. I just downloaded a great—but you know it’s funny, I think of what I’m going to say, what I just downloaded that I’m crazy about is a live album of a Raspberries reunion concert in Beverly Hills, and the Raspberries were a pop group, power pop group in the 70’s, and uh, they’re all looking their age, they sound great. But you know, the new Steve Earl record is great. That’s an album by uh, The Thrills, uh, that’s really great. So I find stuff to listen to but rock’n’roll is now the new jazz. It’s divided up into a lot of different areas, and it’s become a specialty taste. It’s played on specialty stations, college FMs, that sort of thing. There’s no more mainstream rock as we know it so that if the Rolling Stones or Tom Petty uh, release a new record on your local FM that has this spuriously friendly name of a man, it would be like “Frank FM,” you know, “Jack FM,” whatever.  They’ll play… (overlap) yeah, right. They’ll play “No Satisfaction” and then they’ll say in passing, “Oh by the way, the Stones have a new record, but we’re not going to play it because we know you only want to hear that old shit.” So… there you are. But yeah, rock’s okay. I listen to a lot more sort of all country now because it’s sort of like the rock that I remember but it’s new. People like Ray Wiley Hubbard, and uh, Cross Canadian Ragweed. People like that.

Q:        Stephen King, you directed only one movie, “Maximum Overdrive.” I think it shows up on t.v. every other week still. Will you ever direct one again? Would you like to do two movies at least?

SK:      I’d never say never. I think it would be great sometime to direct a movie when I wasn’t cocked and drunk out of my mind and see what came out. But uh, I’m not—I’m not crazy to do it. But what I miss, okay, what I really regret is Frank asked me uh, if I would act in “The Mist,” and I for one reason or another I wasn’t able to do it. But damn I kick myself.

FD:      I know, we missed you, we missed you.

SK:      (unintelligible)

FD:      The biker. I wanted him to play the biker. I wanted him to grow his beard out, get that shaggy Steve King look and, and have him read.

SK:      I’ve got a shotgun in my truck. I’ll try for it if you want me to. I was ready, I was ready.

FD:      Yeah, we were—I was gonna, I was gonna—wound up being the role that Brian Libby played. And Brian was in the very first Stephen King piece that I directed, that little short film (unintelligible) when I was in my early twenties, and he was in “Shawshank,” and he was in “Green Mile.” So oddly enough I missed you, and I’m sorry you weren’t able to come do it. It was (overlap) Brian back on the set.

SK:      And he was a professional, and I’m really not. So…

FD:      Yeah, but you would have kicked ass.

SK:      Yeah, I would have tried.

FD:      Yeah.

Q:        Alright guys, you mentioned Richard Matheson. You’re going to get slapped around now. Richard Matheson is a great choice, but what are some of the other writers in science fiction, horror, that you consider “A” people you’re still excited about, or new people that you’re excited about, and Stephen, having—splitting your time between Florida and Maine, how does that change the location for you in terms of your stories since location has often played so much a part?

SK:      Well the new book uh, has a Florida setting, but we’ve been going back and forth to Florida ten years and I still feel tentative about it. Uh, it takes a while to get the texture of a place, and uh… so I’ve kind of get my, you know, mental blast shield down about that. But writers, uh… Richard Matheson was the first one who really influenced me. Robert Block was another one. Today uh…Jack Ketchum, Bentley Little, uh, I read across a wide spectrum. I don’t just read horror, that would be kind of boring. But there are a lot of different people that I really like. Uh, Kelly Link is great. I really like Kelly Link. She doesn’t work that field specifically but I like her stuff a lot.

FD:      Well he’s, I guess it goes without saying, he’s been hugely influential to me as well as others. Uh, I love, I love his work. I revisit his books every few years. I’ll pull another one off the shelf and revisit it. I just reread “Eyes of the Dragon,” by the way, which was awesome.

SK:      Yeah, it’s going to be a French cartoon.

FD:      Is it really? I want to know what happened to Dennis and Thomas.

SK:      (overlap) part of the Doc Tower story but it kind of got (overlap)

FD:      It felt like it sure could have been.

SK:      Yeah.

FD:      Yeah. That was—that’s awesome. I, I too uh, Matheson is….hugely iconic to me.

SK:      Remember Charles Beaumont?

FD:      Charles Beaumont. Amazing short story writer. He did a lot of uh, a lot of “Twilight Zone” work with Rod Serling. Rod Serling, amazingly influential writer.

SK:      Jack Finney.

FD:      Jack Finney.

SK:      “Body Snatcher” baby.

FD:      Paddy Chayefsky, a dramatist, is uh… uh, uh… you know, tattoo him in my brain because he was so inspiring to me. Uh… Ray Bradbury, a god. Uh, and uh, and a marvelous, marvelous human being. I’ve gotten to know him in the last seven years or so. Weird thing to get to know your icons. That’s (overlap) your icons, and you become friends with them. It’s awesome.

SK:      How about David Mamet? He writes the best dialogue.

FD:      Mamet’s pretty muscular. Uh, our buddy David J. Scow. Not that many people know his work, but boy he’s a muscular writer.Many people know his work love it boy he’s a muscular writer…

SK:      We can go on and on all day.

FD:      We can go on and on all day.  Absolutely um one of my all time favorite ahh science fiction works a Canticle for Leibowitz Walter Miller.

SK:      Walter Miller right.

FD:      He didn’t write that many things but boy he floors me with this I am trying to think of my favorite books and drudgingly authors out of my out of my out of my…

SK:      It’s tough I mean this is like an oral exam yeah really Because, I don’t know how you feel about this but when somebody asks me that question I feel like that concert that great white gave where everybody got burned to death its like everybody crams for the exit at once when somebody asks me that question nobody actually gets burned to death

FD:      [laughs]

SK       but you know what I’m saying

FD:      and I love the guy who wrote those bazooka Joe bubble gum things

SK:      Oh Man that guy yeah

FD:      Genius … genius

SK       and the GI Joe cards

FD:      Yeah and that too

SK:      Jack Kirby he’s another one. A lot of the comic layers Joe Orlando

FD:      Yeah

SK:      Archie Goodwin

FD:      That’s right Allan Moor, Mike Mignada, Eric Powell stuff being done in comics today are just stunning.

Q:        Michael Fengold from Fangoria: Um, you had mentioned your dissatisfaction with the splat pack I was curious how you feel about horror film making in general these days?

SK       I’m not dissatisfied with the splat pack I mean I can’t wait to go see P2 I’m excited to see P2 I was excited to see Halloween the remake of Halloween, Hostel 2… I was there the first day that baby opened um it’s like every other kind of movie there’s some I like and some of them I don’t but in a lot of cases it feels to me like I’m not dealing with reality that I’m dealing with some sub genre where everybody knows it’s almost like a Japanese note play I feel like I know what’s going to happen okay even if on some level I don’t exactly.  This is going to happen that is going to happen and it’s gonna have the sixth sense snapper at the end or whatever and they don’t a lot of times they don’t feel like the work of grownups they feel ah like the work of people who are still just sort of learning the telling more textured story.

Q:        How much do you reference the bible for all those the Marcia Gay Hardin character how much did you really have to go back and utilize in explaining her character?

SK:      I just drew on my childhood man, just drew on my childhood.

Q:        What reference was she was she someone you had met before or knew.

SK:      No she really wasn’t anybody that I met or knew but ah I had church on Sundays bible school every Thursday night and uh heard all the stories about what was going to happen if you told lies or masturbated or this or that and the other thing that these awful things were going to happen and they all had scripture from the bible to back it up and around the same time my childhood friend Chris and I fell in love with this guy Jack Vedimpe whose this um televangelist he’s one of the early televangelist he knew all about the international conspiracy the apocalypse was coming you had to be ready and all this other stuff and just loved his delivery and just kind of mocked it it’s comedy but the mystery comedies of the world are out there right, Frank?

FD:      Yeah hell yes and it’s not necessarily a religious thing it’s political it’s you know what I’m finding wonderful and fascinating about watching this movie with an audience is that people really get to hate her and I’m thinking does this even supersede what the story provides and I think maybe it does I think really what’s happening is people are sick to death of extremists and their sick of the manipulation of extremists whatever path whatever weapon they use whether its religion or politics or what or hijackings or whatever I think most of us want to be reasonable and extremists are screwing it up for the rest of us that’s why we are getting such a strong reaction to this movie.

SK:      I have nothing against religion in spite of my upbringing but what happens is religion cross pollinates with politics and if you’ve seen the mist you know that in some ways there are political parties that develop in the course of this thing that spontaneously develops which is what happens any time there is a crisis situation and the one thing that the mist adds it adds religion to an already volatile mix and if that causes you to think about the current world situation well thin it does but I’m not prepared to say one way or another.

[end]