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The Hard Lessons of Hard Candy: Patrick Wilson and Brian Nelson on their Ambiguously Frightening Chamber Piece of Guilt and Vengeance

Things get intense on Patrick Wilson's starring-vehicle "Hard Candy"

By Lee Shoquist

Hardy Candy positions two opposite people—a successful thirty-something photographer and a very young teenaged girl—directly into a situation we think we’ve seen before, or at least heard about—a dangerous sensual liaison between a charismatic, somewhat older man and a naïvely likeable teen, who have met on the ‘Net and are testing each other’s limits en route to what initially seems a foregone conclusion. And that’s precisely when screenwriter Brian Nelson abruptly turns that unsettling scenario on its head by taking what was an uneasy sexual powder keg and then subverting it with reversals and shifts, control and vengeance, secrets and surprises.

The mano-a-mano at the center is composed of two excruciatingly tense performances by Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page, who dance around something forbidden until something more primal and disturbing emerges. Hard Candy, with its exploration of dark desires and hefty price tags, is a tense and sharply written and acted thriller that takes no prisoners even when its unlikely pair must.

I caught up with actor Patrick Wilson and screenwriter Brian Nelson recently to talk about Hard Candy’s ambiguous, delicate relationship and the impressive dynamic at work in the two memorable lead performances.

Lee Shoquist, The Oscar Igloo: Hard Candy is an intense film. It’s like a vice-grip that doesn’t let go of you for an hour and a half. But there is a bit of humor there, isn’t there?

Brian Nelson: Audiences don’t always know whether it’s okay to laugh. It’s a very intense film. There’s a certain amount of wit written into the characters to give you a release. Sometimes audiences are able to take advantage of that. Every house is different, which is an interesting thing.

LS: Patrick, I’ve seen the film twice and had some very different reactions to the characters. The first time I saw it, I was convinced that I was seeing one of the great movie villains at work. Then on the second viewing, I didn’t really switch that perception, but I felt like I was seeing two of them. Much of this is played close to the vest on your part.

Patrick Wilson: Yes. That is the point. I wanted to take any ounce of that that Brian had written and adhere to that, and be as detailed and precise and honest and genuine as I could, but at the same time not reveal all my cards. So there were just little things here and there to aid in the deception of it that I added at the beginning, that people may or may not notice. For me it was about believing a kernel of what really happened, what she is so angry about, what the event was that he was a part of—that would make it clear for me. I never looked at him as a villain. On the page he’s not a good guy. It’s not about glamorizing, but at the same time, if you are invested in the character and performance, if you feel for him at some point and like you say, sometimes you switch who is good or bad, that’s good. That’s the point. It should be ambiguous.

LS: Patrick, your intensity level through the second half of the film is at a high pitch, particularly during a monologue that you deliver. I’m wondering what that feels like, or if you could give me a sense of what that was like for you as an actor.

PW: We shot that after we had shot most of it. We shot this in eighteen and a half days, and for the most part it was all in sequence. We did the coffee house set after we shot the film so they could actually take the house down that they had built in the studio. The interiors were on the soundstage. It’s that kind of thing where it was very intense, but there was always an end to it. There was always a real freedom in knowing it was a small film that we were going to shoot in a short amount of time so no matter how dark and awful—meaning painful—it got, it would be over at the end of the day. I don’t think I could do this eight times a week, or at least I wouldn’t do it like I do it in the film. I’m from the theater. But it’s a different muscle. That gives you a real freedom to just go for it. I live a great, wonderful life. Didn’t have a lot of problems growing up. I’m not one of those actors. Nothing against those actors, but I’m a pretty happy-go-lucky guy, so for me it really was dependent on the script and the character. I thought it was very dark, and would give me an opportunity to do something I had never done before.

LS: I actually have scene something onstage that was done eight times a week and quite similar—William Mastrosimone’s Extremeties. It also pits two characters together for a grueling day in a confined space. Brian, can you talk about the challenges of writing a piece like this where the characters are essentially contained in this place, locked together. They don’t get out much!

BN: We really tried to embrace the fact that it was going to be a very tightly contained piece. Many filmmakers automatically ask, “How can we open a piece up, relocate something somewhere or break it up?” That’s a valid approach for certain projects, but for this we felt that the pressure cooker would really serve us; the fact that you are with these two characters for the bulk of the day.

LS: Not just with them, but on them really—in close-up.

BN: That’s right. You are in the pressure cooker with them and if we were to take those typical strategies of opening the story out into other locations, it would only let the pressure out of the kettle. They clash and chafe against each other because they have no choice. They have no escape.

LS: Even when he has the ability to escape, they do not.

BN: Right, but they have their own reasons.

LS: Patrick, on both viewings, I was very intrigued with the first third of the film. It’s certainly not the most extreme as far as some of the later developments are concerned, yet there’s a dangerous tease going on between an older guy and a very young girl, and it’s very provocatively written and acted. There’s a tiptoe, push-pull flirtation that’s dark and interesting. Tell me about how it was constructing that dynamic with Ellen.

PW: Yes. That’s when not knowing your scene partner that well can be handy. We had spent a week rehearsing, but my questions were really about her as a person. I wasn’t concerned about it as an actress, but as an older male to a younger girl, what was she like? She kind of can blend that line between looking very strong and very vulnerable. She’s completely well read and smart and comes with a lot of passion and guts, and it’s so not Hollywood that it was a complete thrill; very trustworthy. We talked about stuff before we did it. It’s hard to talk about the flirtiness or this and that. It just comes with the trust of the characters and the material. Really you’re just throwing your hat into the ring with another actor. It worked. The reason that it works is on a very human level I think she’s a- I’m not gonna pretend to know her really well, we shot a movie in three weeks and I’ve seen her twice since, but she comes with a lot of courage. She really wanted to get to the root of the script. Once you are on the same path and everyone has the same drive, it’s fearless. You can go anywhere you want.

LS: There’s something about her voice that’s fragile and then can be very menacing. She can take a line and suddenly reverse it, or change her tone quickly and it can be a little scary, actually. There’s a moment when she says something like, “Playtime is over,” and then something else about torture as well, and those are chilling.

BN: There is a little moment where you (Wilson) are talking about how angry you are and how Janelle treated you, and she just looks at you with this laser eye and says, “A little angry, aren’t we?” That’s so understated. I love that.

LS: What is that like for the writer when his words come to life with additional layers of meaning?

BN: It’s great. It’s funny. Sometimes people on the set would ask. “What’s it like to hear your words?” The whole point is for them to not be my words anymore. If I were a novelist then the page is the whole thing. But when you are writing a play or screenplay, you are writing something that doesn’t have its fullest expression until a director and actors and other artists come in and realize it and take it over and make it theirs. It’s thrilling.

LS: I’m curious about the marketing of this film and how it will be sold. Any thoughts of trepidation on your part when you were writing it? It’s very delicate in different ways.

BN: We have to be careful in marketing this film because there’s so much we don’t want to give away. When I started working on it I sat and talked with my wife, and at a certain point I said, “This film is going to get made and people are going to say all kinds of things about it.” But she has seen it multiple times and is incredibly supportive, and she is a family therapist actually. You’re right, it is delicate territory and I think we worked on it delicately. We were very concerned that we not be seen as guilty of some of the things that we are decrying. So there is no nudity. Some people asked, “What rating is this going to get?” There was never really any doubt it was an R rating, because it’s serious and mature. You are not actually shown anything that is illicit, and nothing goes to any dangerous territory except possibly in your own film.

LS: It’s the tone of the film. When I mentioned the first third, it’s a dangerous undercurrent that is running under it. And I say that excitingly so. It’s not just the script and performance, but when it comes together, and this is a compliment, it’s got this sickening pull to it.

BN: We are asking an audience to take a certain number of risks, and there are a lot of audiences there that are dying to do that, and some that will be uncomfortable with that, so we’re going to get a reaction across the board. At the same time, we welcome it.

LS: But it’s also an extremely well written two-character film. It’s unusual in that sense, and it has integrity to take those characters to their logical ends. But when we talk about this pull in the film I mentioned, there’s the shot where she tries on the tee-shirt and she opens up the door, the quick scene in the restroom, her posing on the sofa also. That stuff is…

BN: That pushes the envelope. She’s baiting a hook.

PW: She knows what she’s doing.

BN: We see movies all the time where characters use themselves as bait, but we don’t really ask ourselves what it’s like to do that. Because this film is so intimately observed you are taking that chance right along with the characters.

LS: Do you see this as a vengeance story, or a two-character drama?

PW: I think it questions it. I rarely get into conversations about politics. But we live in a society where the same people that go to church every week and are these God-fearing—which I think is a hilarious word, God-fearing—Christians are the same people that will put people in the electric chair and kill them right away. There’s this real bizarre fascination with, “What is justice? What is vengeance?” That is what stuck to me. My dad saw Ted Bundy die and I always wondered, does your perception of justice change when you actually see someone die? That’s a question that I have of my father. But what I walked away with from this movie, is that when does it, it’s, “Oh, do that, don’t do that…” That’s what I loved about it. It becomes this vengeance—but does it cross the line? To some people it does. To men it certainly does! I think it’s great. That always perplexed me about society. What is the line between justice and? Rarely do I get into those kinds of political talks, but I always find that interesting. It’s like the New Testament was never written. Apparently it’s okay. Whatever you feelings on the death penalty or whatever, I think this movie raises those kinds of questions again, and I think that’s great. I think it challenges that. It wasn’t so much, to me, not overlooking the sexual predators and that subject matter, but what I could relate to was, “Yeah, she’s justified,” then, “Is she?” I loved that.

LS: The sexual predator element is more of a red herring in a way, or bait to do something else in the story. She’s forcing him to take a clear look at himself.

PW: Absolutely. You never know to what extent he’s involved. It’s all ambiguous. So much of it is not shown. We have no idea what that porn is. We have no idea what’s in those photos.

LS: We’re dying to see the camera tilt down into that safe!

PW: Of course you’re dying to, because your perception of it and the (perception of the) guy next to you may be the same; may be completely different. That is why you do it. Make people think.

LS: Why do you do this, as an actor? You’re just starting to build your movie career.

PW: I want to do different things. I don’t want people to get a handle on me, if I could be that selfish. I love doing movies. I love doing theater. Before I even did one movie, I did eight years of theater in New York. It’s about the variety to me. To me it’s people not being able to get a handle on you. The more do movies and become known, you do lose that anonymity of people being able to invest in the character. But you want to hold onto it as long as you can. That’s the thrill of an artist.

LS: I have to imagine that it must be hard to find scripts like this, however.

PW: After Angels in American I got every sort of gay character, after Phantom of the Opera was around I got every sort of musical. I can’t wait until this comes out!

LS: But in terms of writing, it’s hard to find something word-wise that is this rich.

PW: Yes. That is the goal. We just want to have some meat to chew on. I am an old-fashioned actor. I am old school. It starts with the script for me, that’s why it was such a thrill to have a wonderful script here. But (director David Slade) has such visual ability the way he shot this, and was so passionate and determined about the story he was telling. I had never worked with anybody like that.

LS: I was talking to Robert Towne recently about this idea of the script, and he said that in the 70s it all began there. Nothing got off the ground until the script was there. And today, a film can go into production without even having one, and you can start the film and then get the script God knows when…

BN: Maybe I’m being naively optimistic here, but I think this is a really interesting time. I came of age in the 70s, and that was an area where there was a lot of license and opportunity. While we are not in that era anymore, look at the films people are talking about over the last few months—Good Night, Good Luck and Brokeback Mountain. These are films that come from directors and writers and actors stepping out of the groove and taking chances and not necessarily knowing where they are going. We are possibly entering a very exciting era here.

LS: There was a lot of speculation about the disconnect between box office numbers and Oscar nominees this year. Many were saying that the combined box office totals of these five nominees was an indicator that Americans were not going to see them en masse.

BN: It’s a Wonderful Life—not a moneymaker for years and years and years. There are a lot of films that we cherish today that were not appreciated in their time. And I think that these films are appreciated. More people have seen Brokeback Mountain than have watched Bill O’ Reilly. He’s not anxious to frame it that way.

PW: I think also that those big budget movies are just maxing their cap. I think there are so few- with every Titanic that could somehow blend the two… Funny, George Lucas said that in the next 15 years, those are going to be gone. When a movie makes two hundred million, it’s like, ‘Yeah, that was okay.”

LS: King Kong is the best example. It was roundly criticized for only making that.

PW: Somehow that was not okay! Insane!

BN: But with books, when you go into a bookstore—my mother loves murder mysteries and I’m going to check out science fiction and all kinds of things—nobody says that all books should be the same. People say this about movies all the time—how silly.

Special thanks to Patrick Wilson and Brian Nelson for this interview
 

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