Interview: "Willy's Wonderland" Director Kevin Lewis On Directing Nicolas Cage In A Silent Role And Their New Wacky Fun Horror Movie

Nicolas Cage knows his way around awesome, risk taking career decisions. He kept his famous surname “Coppola” hidden for people to focus on his acting career. Pulling two teeth out without any anesthesia was his method acting for 1984’s Birdy. So when he found himself a script starring as a lead with not one speaking line in a 1980’s inspired film fighting evil animatronics, the acting challenge was nothing for him.

Director Kevin Lewis, a fan of cult classic horror himself, conquered the problem of a tight budget, one month long shooting schedule with classic 80’s filmmaking trickery of practical effects. He was supposed to have made another film, but thank goodness for the growing fans of 2021’s newest comedy-horror streaming hit, fate had him in the right place at the right time.

In the trailer, Nicolas Cage’s character, The Janitor, is described as “a man of few words.” In fact, he does not speak one word in this entire acting performance. How do you direct him in using all other forms of an actor's expressions?

 It was great because Nic and I saw the character the same way. So we never had one really creative disagreement directing him. I did a 70 page shot list, so every shot was pretty precise. And I shot to cut because I only had two or three takes on the movie. So I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time. So everything was really detailed out on the shot list. 

And directing Nic, we just saw the character eye to eye. He thought that the animatronics were trash. That was what he felt. That's why he didn't even give them any respect. And so when we would set up the shots, we would just talk about the character and what's going on. And we would go and we would shoot it. So he and I really saw the same character. And I knew it had to be visually entertaining and interesting too. I mean, it's Nic Cage, but the idea of having someone who doesn't talk. And that's a challenge, right? So I knew it had to be visual and exciting and stylish. So that's what I really worked on.

You described the movie to SyFy as needing “an injection of weirdness.” What weirdness wasn't weird enough to make the film?

There's a scene where when he kills Ozzie, Nic actually hugs the bird and kisses him. And that's not in the movie. We felt that it wasn't earned at that point. It was such a great moment, everyone clapping and and so excited about it when we shot it. And that was just Nic doing an improv, what he felt like. But alas, it just didn't make it. You know, it's one of those things that just didn't make it. We have that. And there was some crazy camera stuff I was doing spinning the camera around. I wanted to put more Fever Dream sequences in.

But, you know, I had to move the narrative along and move the film along. So when we started doing that, it was kind of bogging down the cut. I knew that this movie was going to be a shot of adrenaline. I wanted it to move fast. I wanted it to move like a bullet. So we kind of took some of that stuff out, but I had some definite David Lynchian things going on. If you look at the end with the dissolve, with the confetti to the TV and Willy bouncing up and down, bobbing up and down on the TV, that was very kind of Lynchian. I wanted to do some more of that stuff, but it kind of slowed the pace down. So we pulled it out.

I read a review online where the person said he didn't like the movie initially at the beginning because of the slow pace. But then we have these great movies like Jaws and movies from the past, where the slow pace actually is the big lead up to how exciting the movie is in the end. And this person reviewing the film ended up loving the movie. So how do you feel about that? Do you think it's such a bad thing? Because, as I said, Jaws relied on that tactic of a slow build up.

What's funny is I don't even think it's that slow. I mean, you have an opening sequence where an attack is going on and it's like very frenetic, kinetic. And then you go to Nic and you got the quick cuts of him and the titles. Then he's got you know, the narrative has to happen where he hits the spike and stuff and we kind of slow it down a little bit. But he’s popping the drinks, he meets Jed, you get to Jed driving, then we're crosscutting from the Jed driving into Liv, introducing her character. Yeah, I mean, you have to set up the story, right? You've got to set up the world. And so, the narrative.

So I never saw it as slow. I mean, I love the whole Tex thing, you know, meeting Jed and him in the garage then, him meeting Tex, explaining stuff to him. And so, yeah, I never saw that as slow. But, sometimes people, you know, again, difference of opinion. You brought up Jaws. You know the opening. You get the attack of Jaws, right? The shark, she gets yanked in the water, and then it starts the slow burn. Right? I love slow burn movies. Unfortunately, I think today's audiences, with what's going on with cell phones and the Internet, whatever, we're so hyperconnected. It’s like everybody's got ADD, you know what I mean? But I wanted to make this movie fast and like a bullet. So it was interesting, that critique, because I don't think the opening is slow at all. But you have to set up the narrative. You got to set up the plot.

Were any weird body language or other characteristics of The Janitor or others on screen based on specific inspirations like art, parody, or maybe strange elderly you knew as a young person?

Well, I know Nic. He loves Once upon a Time in the West. And so he loves the Charles Bronson character. It really inspired him for The Janitor, and we started talking about that too. There's not a lot of characters in movies that just don't speak. We're talking about, I love Nicolas Winding Refn. Drive and Ryan Gosling doesn't have a lot of dialogue, but he does speak. And then we talked about Valhalla Rising with Mads Mikkelsen, which is such a great movie, and he doesn't speak in that movie. He does something maybe at the end. But yeah, it's very tough to find a character in a movie that just doesn't speak. But I know that Once Upon a Time in the West, that was what Nic was channeling for sure.

Games Radar said, “Cage has become a bona fide champion of B movies in the last decade or so.  Willy's Wonderland, with its shameless appeal to fans of Five Nights at Freddy's, could be Cage’s next surprise success.” Why do you think a B movie tribute film is doing well during a pandemic when just about every movie of every genre is being released together?

Originally, when we made the movie, we were thinking like, Toronto Midnight Madness. That's what kind of what we were going for. It was kind of a Midnight Madness movie, or a Comic-Con type movie. It's for the fans, fan boys and girls. I'm a fan boy, so I made it for that. And then t's one of these movies, you just go with your friends and you have a great time, like old time Evil Dead. But now with a pandemic and everything, it's changed, right? But it's interesting because I've got four kids. I’ve got two teens and two younger ones. But the teens were having watch parties with like 30 of their friends. They're watching it virtually with each other, like they would be watching if they were together in a movie theater. I know it's not the same thing, but it's kind of an interesting way that it's opened up on these movies. 

Everything's going to streaming now. Things have changed with the movie theaters. I do think we're going to get theaters back. I don't know when. Probably when this pandemic ends or the vaccine really goes out there. I miss the theaters. I wanted to see Willy's in the theaters. Interesting enough, I saw it on the drive-in last week and that was pretty cool. I mean, it's a total drive-in movie and people were like flashing their lights when Nic was taking out the animatronics. The pinball scene, they were honking their horns, flashing their lights, that was a really fun experience.

I wish I could see the movie with the fans. That's what I wanted to do when I was making it. I was thinking about that all the time. And it's kind of a bummer. But, you know, with this pandemic, there's other people that have lost lives and even especially what I went through [Lewis nearly died of COVID-19] and other things. So that's a real small drop in the bucket. But I think we are in a different way of watching films now. Our world’s changed because of the pandemic. Everything’s changed.

So definitely watching movies, you know, these big movies even dropping on streaming or HBO Max and everything. I mean, it's good because it's accessible and people need content. They want to have good content. It is an exciting time. It is kind of like the Wild, Wild West in a way with what's going on, because there's really no rules, right? No one really knows when these big movies are going to come out and everything, and they keep pushing them. And then these movies drop to streaming like Promising Young Woman, which I love. That was great.

Just seeing, having Willy’s and having the people love it as much as they have and write up about it and stuff, it is exciting. I also think we need a fun movie in this pandemic. I think that we need a movie to check your brain at the door. We need more of these kind of movies with what's going on in the political climate and the pandemic. I think we need a little more fun in our cinema.

The shooting schedule was only one month. The animatronic characters only had one opportunity to be destroyed. What unusual filming methods did you go through knowing there were no redos?

We always had to shoot the set up, of course, and then the beat down at the end. I knew that there were no redos. We only had one creature suit. We had two cameras on it so we had coverage. And there's a thing we did with the rage cage. We would do like 18 frames per second, handheld shooting with putting flashlights in the lens. Give us those lens flares. We had like a rage cage camera and then we'd have another camera capturing the action. So I knew we had we had that and some coverage. And Nic really beat the tar out of those animatronic suits, man. I mean, they just were literally destroyed, eyeballs busted. That was the thing. Like with Ozzie, he would crack Ozzie and the eyeball would already bust. So we had to go mend it back. We needed other shots because we had to take the puppeteers out. And so we had to do like, you know, when you do visual effects, you have to do two or three different takes of the scene for all the elements. And that was kind of difficult and slowed us down. But this movie's a lot of practical, which I planned on it because it is a hark back to the 80’s, and we have an indie level budget and time. I think people want to see more practical. So it was pretty cool that we did that with the suits and Ozzie was a puppet and interacted with Nic.

You didn't have any CGI at all in this?

We had CGI. We did. It was interesting with CGI. There was stuff about like just taking, you know, reflections out of the glasses. But there was CGI on Siren Sara in the fairy forest and Arty's tongue and accentuated scenes. But I don't think we relied on … we weren't world building with CGI. They just helped us along on some things, smooth things out. 

How else did it work having only one puppet and the rest being puppeteers in costume?

In a way, we were glad to get rid of Ozzie because it was very time consuming. The pan that I did when he's when he's mopping and we're doing a pan around. I had to do that and I had to do with Ozzie without, like I said, the elements for the visual effects because we had to erase the puppeteers. The fight with Nic, I had to do it with Ozzie, without that, with the puppeteers, without. So basically, it was like getting all these elements and having to redo the scene so many times. I only had two to three takes on each scene to do. But with Ozzie it was like nine, 10, 12 takes. And so that took up a bulk of time. So once we got Ozzie done, even the first AD was like, “Thank God we're done with the bird,” because now we have just the creatures, the stunt performers in the suits. It was a lot easier.

The film you were supposed to direct instead of Willy’s Wonderland didn't work out. Did this set you on a new path of genre discovery and new ideas, or are you going to try making that old project happen?

I feel like kind of reborn with Willy’s, to be honest with you. And it's kind of exciting. And I want to make more movies in the kind of vein of Willy’s. I really liked, like I said, you know, my kids having their 30 friends watched the watch parties and everybody really just flipping out and loving what we did and excited about this movie and kind of a fun genre, bringing a smile to people's faces. The one movie I was working on was kind of more of a dark, kind of a Resident Evil vibe to it. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens. But it's exciting. I feel like, you know, reborn. A phoenix has risen out of this movie. I'm excited to tap into new things, but I really did like the genre, the horror kind of comedy action genre that we did with Willy’s.

You said a sequel is great. Does The Janitor always have to fight animatronics or will he expand into other B movie classic ideas? Will he ever speak? 

There's a lot of great ideas that we have for a sequel. It could go a lot of different ways. It’s called Willy’s Wonderland. If you did Willy’s Wonderland 2, you didn’t have Willy and the gang, that doesn’t kind of make sense, right? Then do you do The Janitor in the title if you don't do Willy? But I don't know. I think there's a way to bring things back. We've already been brainstorming on some things. You've got to make it original and unique and different. And you don't want to just do the same thing like we did on this because that then it's really not special. But, you know, it's up to Nic if he wants to come back, and hopefully he will. I think there are many adventures for The Janitor. I really do. And I think there's adventures for Willy, too. So I'd be excited to make a sequel if the fans want it.

I feel like one of the things in a sequel should be the back story of why The Janitor doesn't speak. 

Yeah, it's interesting you say that because that's what a lot of people have been saying. They want to know more about The Janitor. And I think, Nicole, if we do our job right, which we do with this movie, that's exciting because people want more. Right? What you just said, people brought that up a lot like the origin of The Janitor. Where did he come from? What’s his thing? Why doesn’t he speak? I would like to explore that in the sequel for sure.

Releasing a film during the pandemic frightens anyone. But if you were in a horror film, what would frighten you?

I tend to like psychological horror film. So The Shining, right? I love Jacob's Ladder. It’s not as much as like, a slasher just stalking you or something, but it's playing with your mind, and maybe losing your mind. That's all of Jacob's Ladder. It's like these things are just unraveling and he doesn't understand why. Same thing with The Shining, right? Jack Torrance is losing his mind in the hotel. So it would be psychological for me. It would be losing your mind and then the “What comes after that?” of terror and psychological horror.