Will Sanderson Exclusive Interview, pt 2 of 2
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Q: How much input does he have in the script? Do you know? I mean, it was different script writers on both these movies, right?
Sanderson: Yeah he's had different script writers on both. The one thing that Uwe does have is a little bit of a language barrier because German is his first language. Although by now he's got a great command of English also. So he tends not to write dialog or anything like that for his movies. He has input. He reads over and makes decisions, but there are certain things. You know, just like I'm actually becoming a better German speaker now, but I can look at a German script, and figure out if things work. If that sounded right. I think one thing he had a great command of the language but he can't just look at a scene, look at the dialogue maybe, and say "Oh that sounds right," or "That doesn't sound right." That's tougher to do. He's getting obviously better at it as time goes on every day. It's still a little bit tougher when it's not your very first language. I think in that respect it's a little more difficult. He does have as much input as he wants in the structure of the script and so on. I think now, what with the problems we had with House of the Dead, and so on script-wise, that he's wanted to take a much more active role now, and keep his hands in. Whereas before, he wanted to let people do their thing. Now he's trying to take a more active role.
Q: Are you from
Sanderson: I am actually from
Q: I've heard that from different people some people love
Sanderson: It was fun for what it was. There's definitely fun parts about it. There are parts that I miss but it's definitely a lot more comfortable to be shooting at home.
Q: So the role in Name of the King / Dungeon Siege is...
Sanderson: Bastion. I play Bastion who's the brother-in-law from Farmer, Jason Statham and basically what happens is our village gets attacked and we've got to go out and find out family. We head out and fight off lots of Krugs and bad stuff
Q: I take it you have a lot of scenes with Jason?
Sanderson: Yeah I've got a lot of scenes with Jason, a lot of scenes with Ron [Pearlman]. They're really great guys to work with. I think we have pretty good chemistry together and it's fun.
Q: They both have amazing senses of humor. How do you keep up?
Sanderson: I don't know. Those senses of humor… pretty crazy sometimes. (laughs)
Q: How did you first become involved in the project?
Sanderson: This is my sixth movie with Uwe now. We built up a pretty good friendship, so he just calls me up and says "Hey, you're in the next one."
Q: Are you the only actor that he does that with?
Sanderson: Yeah, pretty much. There's been a couple of other actors that have done more than one movie, but I think I've done the most of all.
Q: What would be some of the challenges you've found with this particular role?
Sanderson: This role is a little difficult in that of course being a period piece it changes the speech a little bit. It can't be you know, colloquial and relaxed all the time you've got to be a little bit more proper, that kind of thing. The accent was a bit of an issue, cause it was a question of you know, who's going to have an accent, who's not. British, English, that kind of thing. So that's been a bit of a challenge but I just chose to keep my normal North American accent and just try to enunciate a little bit so that's one issue.
And then, just the scale of the project. It's a really big project you know and it demands a lot of time, a lot of focus in your life so this is a really full-scale deal.
Q: Was there maybe a tough scene, a memorable scene, that really sticks out with you?
Sanderson: For me the toughest scene was hanging upside-down from the trees in a harness just for purely selfish pain reasons. We had to be hooked up to a harness around the waist. Like today we're doing a scene and the harness is kind of like, it's your upper body and then it kind of spreads your weight evenly throughout your entire body. For whatever reason, when we're doing this thing where Elora [played by Kristanna Loken], she wraps our legs, the rope will wrap our legs, and then hang us upside-down in the trees. So they hooked us up to these, kind of like, a waist harnesses. Needless to say, the gentlemen that were upside-down were uncomfortable because all of our weight was resting right on our inner thighs. It was a little painful at times. That stands out.
Q: You're supposed to be in pain in the scene, right?
Sanderson: Yeah! Yeah, of course I was grabbing my middle regions opposed to my feet. Then the issue is if you were sitting up in the harness it would really hurt. If you were hanging upside-down it wouldn't hurt. But then you'd black out because you were upside-down, and all the blood would rush to your head. It was not a very fun day.
Q: Do you ride horses in the movie, too? [Gesturing to the fake equine “stand-in”]
Sanderson: Yes, I ride horses. I actually hadn't had too much experience before the last movie, BloodRayne in
Q: Did you enjoy it?
Sanderson: Yeah. The riding the horses was really fun actually. You keep hearing about certain people having accidents on horses and stuff. I think if you're dealing with really well trained horses like we are here, and have horse wranglers and that kind of thing, it's not so bad.
Q: Kinda wonder about
Sanderson: Yeah. The Romanian horses were not very well trained. We had a lot of problems with them actually, and I had about three different show horses that actually did not look alike. I guess because they got injured and they were not used to doing what we were doing. My riding double over there... I didn't need a riding double but the guy who owned the horse that was going to be the best horse of the show, or so they thought, insisted that if he was going to loan us his horse, he wanted to be in the movie. So they let him be my riding double. He's like a hundred fifty pounds heaver than I am, and he's in my costume and he's riding on the horse and looks nothing like me. He's not really in the movie that much after all, but we had to appease him. (laughs)
Q: Can you maybe tell us a little bit about some of the relationships your character has with the other characters in the movie?
Sanderson: Yeah, well Bastion, which is my character, and Norrick, Ron Pearlman's character, they have a kind of a comedic relationship. A kind of a love-hate relationship. Of course Bastion, the farmer, the brothers in law, and I think they're passionate about getting to where they need to be, and finding out what they need to find out. They kind of but heads a little bit. Then with Solona, the sister there's definitely an emotional connection because we both feel a sense of loss at having no parents, having been killed and that sort of thing. So those are the main relationships.
Q: Do you have scenes with Matthew? [Lillard]
Sanderson: I don't have any scenes with Matthew, no.
Q: Did you get to meet him?
Sanderson: I did. Matthew is great! Actually, my stepson came to the set in the first week of the movie, and of course Matthew was in Scooby-Doo. He was Shaggy. My stepson is seven, and so he is a huge Scooby-Doo fan. Matthew came over, without us saying anything, and he just leaned down and said "Hey!" and he whispered some stuff in his ear. My stepson was giggling like crazy, all this stuff, and I think he was doing the Shaggy voice. He was really, really great. He'd tell all his friends at school, and he just loved it.
Q: What have you enjoyed most about working on this project?
Sanderson: To be totally honest it's probably the camaraderie. There is a group of, I'd say ten or so, of the crew that Uwe and I worked with for the last five movies. So the camaraderie that the group of us has built is really great. We all give each other a hard time and we’re all sort of a family.
Q: Did you always want to be an actor while you were growing up or did you have other professions in mind?
Sanderson: When I was growing up I kind of wanted to be a pro wrestler. Then I realized that probably wasn't in the cards and by the time I turned about fifteen or sixteen that's when I started acting and realized that was what I really wanted to do. I have enjoyed it. Even when I was a kid, my folks said "You might want to get into acting." When I turned sixteen, that's when I got my first gig.
Q: What did it feel like, working for the first time in front of the camera?
Sanderson: Wow! I was so nervous, I think I almost peed my pants. I was just insanely nervous. There was this show called Ronnie & Julie for the Showtime network a long time ago. It was kind of a modern day Romeo and Juliet, and they had a really small bit part. I think I had one line in the whole movie. It was with Joshua Jackson. You know he's a big man, the big man on campus at that time. I was just so nervous, I was terrible in it. I think I messed up every scene I was in. But I slowly got into it and then, you know, it became quite the passion of mine. It's been ten years and counting now.
Q: In that ten years, what has made you most glad you chose a career in acting?
Sanderson: I'd say the most rewarding aspect of working in films probably um, it might sound clichéd but I think it really is working with the people that you get to work with. There's such a broad range of personalities and types of people coming from such different backgrounds.
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