Quarantine - Jay Hernandez

From Screen Gems: Television reporter Angela Vidal and her cameraman are assigned to spend the night shift with a Los Angeles Fire Station. After a routine 911 call takes them to a small apartment building, they find police officers already on the scene in response to blood curdling screams coming from one of the apartment units. They soon learn that a woman living in the building has been infected by something unknown. After a few of the residents are viciously attacked, they try to escape with the news crew in tow, only to find that the CDC has quarantined the building. Phones, internet, televisions and cell phone access have been cut-off, and officials are not relaying information to those locked inside. When the quarantine is finally lifted, the only evidence of what took place is the news crew’s videotape.

For our special set visit report, recounting what our reporter, Staci Layne Wilson, observed, please click here. For individual Q&A interviews with the director, makeup effects expert, and cast, please read on:

Interview with actor Jay Hernandez.

Staci Layne Wilson / Horror.com: So, you guys seemed really excited when you were watching your playbacks. Obviously a morale is really high on set, what is it that keeps you guys so pumped up?

Jay Hernandez: The fact that we've got something that we can use because it's such an unconventional way of shooting a film. It's like we start the day off with rehearsal after rehearsal after rehearsal and trying to get the camera work right on the action and all the beats, where they need to be and to have it all happen properly. In one take is very difficult to do. Sometimes it can take many takes for that to happen. So if we can get it in the first couple takes it like a big deal. Energy drops after a couple takes, because they are so long and so physical, especially with what we're doing right now. It's pretty hard. So when we nail it, it is a good moment for everybody.

Q: Had you worked like that before where you have so much in one take?

Jay Hernandez: No I don't think so, because you always cut and cover and punch in and do your line establishing stuff. So it's like completely different. You don't get coverage. It all has to happen in one 3-minute or 2-minute take, whatever it is, 1 minute.

Q: Any concerns at all about the camera catching you and a bad angle or something like that?

Jay Hernandez: No, a bad angle is kind of a good angle in this movie, the more messy it looks the better. And sometimes the light will be off, sometimes what you don't see is a little more scary than what you do see. So how they cut it is going to play a big part of it also. But I think the fact that the audience is going to be searching for the moment is kind of cool if you to involve it makes them feel like they're in the moment as opposed to just viewing it. Watching a film. 

Q: So are there times that you don't know that the camera is on you?

Jay Hernandez: No, I know when the camera's on me. The camera should be doing what it has to do. We sort of get all those beats out and block it before we get in there. But once we get in there, it can get messy, and it might be cut, which is supposed to catch might be cut in a weird angle or framed differently. But sometimes that can look really good. It can sell the moments better some of the action or someone's getting slammed on the floor if it's a hammer strike or something like that so it can actually the movement of the camera helps sell some of these moments and the darkness and the lighting and all that. So there is a lot of things that have to come together to make it look right. And like I said, when it actually works. That's why everyone is yelling out there, because it's hard to make that happen.

Q: I've just seen the footage you shot and that girl when she runs into the elevator. She is dangerous.

Jay Hernandez: Ah man, she was like… yeah she like tackled me man. I was really afraid of her.

Q: And who is that actor?

Jay Hernandez: Donja [?], she looks skinny and frail and she's really light. But she's strong, she tossed me and plus there's like blood all over the floor. So I'm slipping in trying to pick her up and slam her against the wall. And then I've got punched her. It's pretty intense I mean by the end of that scene I'm not acting like I'm tired I am tired. I'm dead tired. I don't know how much they weigh… because the hammer belt the walkie-talkie… I mean these things are like massive. I'm probably wearing 40 to 50 pounds of stuff and running and doing all this action in picking her up. And it's hard.

Q: Did you have to sell your physical strength during the casting process, to say yes, I can throw people around?

Jay Hernandez: No, I guess they assume that can do it. They see me in action before.

Q: What did you think of the original film?

Jay Hernandez: Yeah, I thought it was cool, you know, we hadn't seen that style of shooting in a horror film, but which kind of Ed something that it's a totally different movie that sort of POV I hadn't seen that before in a horror film. So I liked it. I thought there was some room for improvements, and I think I read the script and I thought some of those improvements were made. And I knew that with this type of thing a lot of the improvements were going to happen on the day through rehearsal and all the action and what people are doing a kind of develops as we go.

Q: Even though you know, what is on the page and then the script. They're pretty much shooting in order, is there still a sense of discovery for you as an actor as you guys go from scene to scene?

Jay Hernandez: Yeah, I mean, I think it's cool that we can do it in sequence. And we start off in one place and we end up like every day is like a progression of the film. You know, so one day we're not at the firehouse joking around, and the next they were getting killed, or I have to bash somebody in the head with it hammer. The fact that it is not set up like the makes it easier for us to be in those moments, because it's hard, because yesterday took six hours to do is set up. We got like two minutes in the morning banged them out after two takes, we got those two takes and we were like alright this day is going to go quick, this day is going to go fast. We're moving fast, six hours later it's 10 o'clock. I'm ready to go sleep I'm tired, and we have to be right in that moment again so it's pretty hard.

Q: What's it like working with Jennifer?

Jay Hernandez: She's great. She's just so there and everything.

Q: I was going to say, you need an equally strong character actors to support your character.

Jay Hernandez: Well, you know, you have to have different sort of levels and me being the guy who's trying to get us out of there and trying to be proactive. And you're killing people. I can't be freaked out, I mean I have to do some degree, because there's death and disease are around me. But she plays it so well that she gives me a lot to work with. When she's on set. I look in her eyes, and I don't see her acting eyes. I see her really paranoid really freaked out. So she's great.

Q: Today, what is the most challenging scene for you guys?

Jay Hernandez: The most challenging scene well, I think the things that are challenging is getting all the action, because it's not just the actors or are moments acting. But it's also the camera the camera plays a big part of it is like another character in the film so, I mean, after a scene if we shoot it in everyone's happy with it were patting the camera guy in the back because he is as much a part of what is going on as the actors are. You know, he's like an actor in a piece. So yeah, everybody has to be there.

Q: What is this dialogue like between you guys in terms of getting what they need and stuff like that. I mean.

Jay Hernandez: Yeah, they know what they want, we go out there. I think a lot of it happens on the day because you can rehearse it and you know, the moments and the beats and you know where the camera has to be the one to say action is so much more intense that it has life, and it happens. And as long as we did our homework before that. And they did the writing and we are all on the same page. Once you say action, it happens. We just go from there.

Q: What's one of the more surprising things that you learned about rabies?

Jay Hernandez: I actually saw footage that was very disturbing online, about the actual effects of rabies, and it is one of the most frightening things that I had seen in a long time. It's real footage of somebody who was infected with rabies, and it's almost 100% legal. I think there is a rare occasion that somebody might survive, but seeing that and knowing that this is somewhat real to some degree it's like based in reality, although it is a movie about these people and of this infection that to some degree the truth is bent a little bit because rabies is real and you can really get this. And you can really die in turn into a rabid creature. It really messes with your mind and that was one of the most frightening things about it to me was that it was real. You know, like sometimes you look at a horror film. And you can shoot somebody 20 times, and they still don't die and it's not real. It might be entertaining, but I think the fact that there is a layer of reality makes it that much more scary.

Q: So what do you think you would do if you were in that situation?

Jay Hernandez: I would lock myself in a room and get away from everybody. I'm not going to try to save anybody but myself.

Q: How does this film put an American stamp on this idea outside of the fact that it's in English? I mean, the Spanish film was very much of it's worth with this films you kind is sense that this is a Los Angeles film. Just in terms of community to the characters or stuff like that.

Jay Hernandez: Yeah well, you just try to fill this apartment building with people you find in Los Angeles. It's not the greatest area of town. I mean, you have some of that color, but it's so contained that the exterior world does not have relevance as to what is happening there. You know, it's like a brick moment in the beginning of the film, where we leave the firehouse. Outside is like a whole different reality. We are so detached from it. Once we are in here in the quarantine we are stuck. This is our life. That's what it's all about it's all about that moment.

Q: Did you spend time in a firehouse to prepare for this?

Jay Hernandez: No not previous to this film, but I have worked on another film where I played a firefighter. So I actually stayed overnight with them at the firehouse and went on calls with the fire department this was years ago. So I know what firefighters are all about. I actually put a fire out in the building. So…

Q: Really?

Jay Hernandez: Yeah. Yeah, I like to fight fires in my house. [laughter]

Q: What did they tell you about putting the fire out when this happened?

Jay Hernandez: It was that the Fire Academy in Baltimore City. It's a big burn house. Its construction is like three stories, and they fill with Excelsior and would end all this stuff. And they go around with a lighter, and light the whole building on fire. You go in there and you put it out. 

Q: Are you working on a cure for rabies now?

Jay Hernandez: No.

Q: Well, that would be an even better story. So, how does this experience rate with the Hostel experience?

Jay Hernandez: This is so much more confined it's like such a small space hostile. We shot that movie in Prague so that in itself is a whole different situation. And I'm 10 minutes from home. So that's a big difference as opposed to like a 20 hour flight.

Q: There are many different types of horror movies. Can you go from one to the other?

Jay Hernandez: How do you think they're different?

Q: Hostel has actual villains, whereas these are victims of rabies after you.

Jay Hernandez: The thing I like about both of them is that potentially this is a real situation in a like hostile. You can go out on the website and actually pay duties in that kind of thing. And somewhere out there in the world that is probably going to happen. And that's what I like about that project. People out there can get infected with rabies; it's weird because it brings it home. And that's what I think is scary, and that's why I chose this film.

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