The Covenant – set visit interviews [Part 2 of 4]

Plot: Four young men who belong to a supernatural legacy are charged with stopping the evil force they released into the world years earlier. Another great force they must contend with is the jealousy and suspicion that threatens to tear them apart.

Release Date: September 8, 2006

Special interviews from the set in Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Laura Ramsey

Jessica Lucas

Q: What's the story on your characters in this boys' movie?

LAURA: My character is the new girl at school, from a public school and this is a private school they all go to. I end up being in the dorms with Kate, or Jessica, and she shows me around and I meet all the sons Ipswich at school. My character likes Steven Strait’s character Caleb and we end up liking each other. That is Sarah.

JESSICA: Kate is Pogue’s girlfriend and she’s like the wealthiest girl in school. She’s really poplar and knows everything about everyone at school. Sarah comes as the new girl, becomes her room mate, she shows her around, and they become really good friends. Chase, the new kid, she is also really interested in him, sort of flirts with him a little too much which makes Poe jealous.

Q: Do you know your boyfriends are warlocks?

JESSICA: No, I have no idea.

LAURA: No, I end up finding out. I find out because the bad guy is using me against Caleb by putting me under spells, threatening my life, and we end up falling in love. It is a big dark family secret passed down over generations. He ends up telling me which is a huge deal for his mother and he shows me what happens to his father after they use the powers and <how it> ages you so his father is like 40. It shows him, because he used all his powers so much that he is very old. I end up finding out what happens and their family history.

Q: And how do you react?

LAURA: I don’t know. I react as if I’d seen a ghost or something. You don’t know if it is real and then you understand it.

Q: The guys get to do all kinds of action scenes. Do you guys have anything like that?

JESSICA: No, I don’t. I miss out on that in this movie unfortunately. I’d love to do it. Hopefully, maybe in the next movie.

LAURA: I have some good rig stuff, harness. I’ve been practicing the rig and I have some scenes where I am levitating. I’m actually shooting a scene where I’m supposed to be floating in the air under a spell while the two guys are fighting. They want my wardrobe flowing and hair flowing so we are shooting it underwater. Right now, I’m being trained with a respirator underwater so I don’t have to come up for air. They just give me the air underwater. I will be harnessed underwater and doing twirls and flips so they put wax in your nose so you don’t have the bubbles.

Q: It sounds fun.

LAURA: Yeah, it is. It is training but it will be good in the long run.

Q: Well, it is actually good that you are doing it underwater if you are supposed to be underwater.

LAURA: No, it is not supposed to be underwater. They are digitally take <inaudible> and put it in a room so it out so it looks flowy.

Q: But your hair is going to be wet right?

 LAURA: It will just look like I’m floating. They can digitally do something with that somehow these days with technology.

Q: So Jessica, what cool things does your character get to do?

JESSICA: Well, I get attacked by spiders in the movie so I have special effects make-up and spider bites. That was cool and I’ve never had any special effects make-up done before or anything so I was hideous.

Q: So they were all CG spiders? You didn’t get to work with any?

JESSICA: No, thank God! I’m terrified of spiders.

Q: Does that make it easier when they pick something you are scared of to imagine it actually being there?

LAURA: Yeah, I mean I don’t actually have to do a scene where I’m attacked by the spiders. There’s one scene that she’s having a nightmare and I’m asleep and spiders are all over me but I don’t actually have to be awake and react to the spiders on me but it would help.

JESSICA: Whereas I have a scene where I wake up and I’m dreaming but I whip off my covers and there’s a million gazillion spiders crawling over me all over and her. I have to react and then wake up like <heavy breathing noise> but there’s no spiders so we’re still trying to figure that one out.

Q: Have did you become involved in the production?

Umm… auditioning. A couple of auditions. The normal process.

Q: Can you talk about working with Renny Harlin and what he’s like as a director?

JESSICA: Yeah, he is amazing. He keeps everyone up and going and he’s great because he doesn’t yell or anything. He has this microphone he wears around his neck.

Q: What about the 'Voice of God'?

JESSICA: That is the microphone I am talking about.

LAURA: Then you don’t have to worry about him screaming at you and you’re like ‘What? I can’t hear you!’

JESSICA: It is so funny, him and his microphone. <In Harlin accent ‘Okay everybody…’> The atmosphere is great.

Q: Jessica, you mentioned you liked Chase but your boyfriend is Poe. How does that tension play out? What problems does it cause for the three of you?

JESSICA: A lot. I think Kate is naturally flirtatious and I’m sure they’ve had this issue in their relationship before. She’s just being nice and stuff but he’s a jealous person so he sees what is going on and they fight about it. I think he knows what she is about. It causes tension in our relationship but you never really see the end result of it. You are going to have to wait for the sequel for that.

Q: It seems a lot of people push each others’ buttons in this movie.

JESSICA: Yeah, a couple of good versus evil conflicts, lots of conflict like that.

Q: So you are part of the private school. Is your wardrobe a school uniform?

JESSICA: Yeah, the knee highs, the skirt, the tie.

LAURA: We do wear other stuff. I think I wore my school uniform like one day. We have a lot of scenes in the dorm.

JESSICA: We have two in the classroom atmosphere but otherwise, we have regular awesome wardrobe actually.

Q: Is this the only place where you are shooting here or is there a location somewhere?

JESSICA: We have so many different locations. We’ve been all over Montreal.

Q: Is that kind of fun to switch it around?

JESSICA: Yeah, cause after a while, you’re in the same place so it can get kind of old. We went all over, outside, and inside.

Any really creepy ones because we’ve seen the barn and the cliff today?

LAURA: Yeah, yesterday we shot in the mansion, or Evelyn Danver’s or Caleb’s house. It wasn’t creepy but it was so beautiful with all the dark cherry wood and the grandfather clock. It was very rich and elegant and it was such a cool setting. Everything is very very dark and beautiful and old. The classroom isn’t like the typical classroom you picture in school with a desk and everything. It was stadium seating but very small. It looks like a church really and everything is dark and gothicy. Is that a word? It is very cool to watch with the lighting. It is creepy. I think that is the reason they chose Montreal too because it is really old with the buildings. You definitely get an old feeling, historical.

LAURA: Then we had to shoot in Lennoxville which was two and a half hours away. Where ghosts were in the hotel. I swear to God I saw a ghost. I don’t know if that is weird but it was very scary.

Q: What was that like? Did you actually see a real person?

LAURA: We were in small towns so the hotels that we stayed in were very old. Going to sleep, we were working nights so I was done at 5 in the morning so it was still dark. I had my lights turned off, going to bed, and my phone rang cause L.A. time is three hours before and someone was calling me and their phone cut out. It rang once which made me open my eyes and I swear to God and I don’t know if I was just hallucinating because I was so tired or what but there was like an image of an old woman sitting on my bed. I freaked out. Renny’s room was next door to me, they were just coming back, they were just coming back, they were just wrapping, I just wrapped a little bit before and I was “Rennnnnny! I’m really scared! I think I just saw a ghost!’ He came in there, Nikki his assistant, the wardrobe girl, we all hung out for a little bit, and we ended up having sleepovers every night while we were there.

As soon as she got there, she’s like “I saw a ghost last night! I’m like ‘I’m not sleeping in my room.’

We all slept together. There was a pull out couch and bed. You and Nikki slept together in a bed, I slept with the wardrobe <girl> in a bed. We had slumber parties so it was fun but really creepy.

Q: Were you intrigued enough to find out if the hotel really is haunted?

LAURA: I asked the front desk.

JESSICA: You know what was weird? I was in room 216 and the producer said she saw like an image of a woman in her room. She was like ‘I see ghosts all the time’ and I’m like ‘What?!’ She thought it was no big deal and she was in the room below me. It was weird. I didn’t know if I believe myself but I will never forget it. It was scary.

Q: Do we go into your character’s backgrounds in The Covenant?  I know the guys obviously talk about their parents and the curses on them. Do we get to know a little bit more about your backstories too?

JESSICA: Not Kate, really. Kate would be the daughter of the wealthiest person in town. It is like a small town. She’d be the daughter of a senator or something like that.

Q: How do you play that? Is she very posh?

JESSICA: Well, sorta. That is the thing about her. She’s rich but she’s a nice down to Earth girl and doesn’t flaunt her money. She’s not one to be wearing labels; she’s not Paris Hilton. She’s sweet and nice.

Q: No Chihuahua?

JESSICA: Yeah, no. But they don’t talk about her family in the movie.

LAURA: Mine is I come from a public school and because at this public school, these kids, it would be like going to Beverly Hills. They are extremely rich, the settings are like Caleb’s house is like a mansion. I t is huge on this huge land. So I come from a public school and I’m not used to having money. I want to go to Harvard so I think going to this public school will help me on my resume getting into Harvard. That is my background. My parents don’t want me to there because they don’t think I will fit in. I’m kind of like the artsy girl and those guys have the nice clothes and I’m like the grunge girl. I end up fitting in I think pretty well.

JESSICA: Yeah, I think Kate gets along with Sarah because she’s different than the rest of the girls there.

LAURA: Yeah, it is nice for her to find someone down to Earth too. They all have these nice cars and motorcycles and my car is a 1970 Volkswagon Beetle. It is sky blue. I love it though. I want it in really life.

Q: Jessica, you said your family has been in this town for a long time. Are there legends about this town? Obviously, there are these warlocks, their parents are warlocks so it is a generational thing. Don’t the families notice something weird about the town?

JESSICA: I think probably the town does have that kind of <inaudible> magic. I don’t know. She’s grown up with these guys her whole life so she’s used to seeing little weird things happen but I don’t know if she thinks anything of it. They hide it well from her I think. I’m sure there are weird things going on in the town.

Q: Does Sarah notice right away, though?

LAURA: For me, I notice these weird things and my character ends up going to the library and having all these witchcraft book and studying and reading about it. Then she <Kate> comes up and I’m like ‘Did you know witchcraft actually started here in Ipswich?’ And she’s like ‘No, whenever Pogue talks about it I don’t really pay attention.’

JESSICA: I think she’s grown up with that weird, sort of creepy, all that stuff happening around her so that it doesn’t really register with her. With somebody new coming to town, it would be like ‘there is something a little strange here.’

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