Cellar Door star Scott Speedman discussed his new thriller movie Cellar Door. The actor also discussed the legacy of The Strangers and revisiting Felicity recently. Directed by Vaughn Stein, Cellar Door is out today in select theaters and digital.
“Looking for a fresh start after a miscarriage, a couple (Jordana Brewster and Scott Speedman) find themselves being gifted the house of their dreams from a wealthy homeowner (Laurence Fishburne) with one caveat – they can never open the cellar door. Whether they can live without knowing triggers shocking consequences,” says the synopsis.
You did such a great job working opposite Jordana Brewster. Specifically, I liked how you portrayed the married couple because you can just tell that they’ve gone through a lot of ups and downs. How was it finding that middle ground where you two had good chemistry, but it wasn’t like super popping off in a way that wouldn’t aid the story being told?
Scott Speedman: I mean, I don’t want to say anything about my own relationships, but you understand the ups and downs of being in a long-term relationship. To be fair, it was in the script. It really was. It felt very alive in the way you described it in the actual script. So when that’s there, there’s not a lot of work to be done. You don’t have to make up a lot, and when you have a good acting partner like Jordana, it makes it easy to get what’s on the page onto the screen. But those were fun scenes to do. We had a lot of different ways to go in this script. We were happy and very sad at points, but yeah, there were a lot of different places to go, but I think we found the right level.
I love the core premise. You two are this couple who get a free house, which is a great deal, but there’s this door you can’t open. Do you think you could avoid that allure in real life? Your character can’t. He wants to know what’s in there.
So I don’t know if I could do the actual Faustian bargain thing. It’s too weird for me, personally. I’d be like, “This is too much.” I couldn’t handle it. The huge Victorian house alone would terrify me to live in. But I think if I was in the actual house, yeah, it definitely would be too much for me. I’d have to look. I’d have to go see what was there, why we couldn’t open it. I’d make the mistake. I’d be the idiot that actually opens the door we’re not supposed to open and ruin everything.
Laurence Fishburne’s character is who sets it all up. How is it working with him? He’s such an on-screen presence during these couple of scenes he shares with you.
Yeah, dude. He was very much that in real life where you’re [working with him]. Sometimes you’re in the middle of a scene with somebody like that, and you kind of get lost in his voice, you know? You have to remind yourself, “Oh, yeah, you’re in the scene with him.” His presence is huge. Obviously, he’s a powerhouse actor, but he was great.
Sometimes, I’m not just looking at how great they are on screen. I’m looking at this stage, when I’ve been doing this so long now, like how they are between after “cut” and how they are with the crew and everybody else. He was very warm, lovely, and fun to work with. He’s how you want the people you admire to be when you meet them. So that was fun for me.
The director, Vaughn Stein, what stood out about him? You’ve worked with a lot of great directors every your career.
He was very, very, very positive. Sometimes, what you need from a director, especially on hard movies like this, that are challenging emotionally and otherwise, is that you just want space and confidence to take it a step further than maybe you’re inclined to do. Vaughn was very good about that, very warm, and he’d always be very positive, even when I was terrible. He was very positive, which gave me the confidence to keep going and take things one or two steps further than I was naturally willing to go. That’s always what you’re looking for [from] a director, just confidence, and he was great with that.
Your character in the film is having some trouble at work. There are some sexual harassment allegations going on. What did you find most interesting about that subplot in the film?
Look, it was very human. I think it was very interesting to watch that. I mean, again, I’m always looking for characters that are gonna do the thing that we shouldn’t do in real life. I think we come up to these lines in our life, these lines we’re not supposed to cross, and 99% of the time you don’t cross them. But in the movie, we have to explore the characters and the men and women who cross that line, and he crosses that line and is given what he’s given because he crosses line. But yeah, I love that.
It was also very much characters and themes and styles of movies that I was weaned on growing up in the eighties and nineties, and movies that I loved and love to this day. It had a feel of those movies. I was very drawn to exploring those things, those leading man characters who do the wrong thing. We spend 90 minutes to two hours watching him try to get out of it, save the day, save his family from it, or get out of the wrong thing he did. So that was very fun for me.
I don’t wanna get into spoilers, but there’s this great twist later on that just recontextualizes everything that happened before near the end. When you were reading the script, what was your reaction when you got across that point?
Yeah, it’s cool. There was this Hitchcockian vibe to it that I love so much, and there was this turn that is there that really again reminded me of movies that I was weaned on that we don’t see as much anymore today, that I think that it’s really too bad. Because I think they’re really crowd-pleasing movies, even movies like Usual Suspects and stuff like that, that we all remember so well that have these great turns, and they’re fun. It’s entertaining. This movie really has darker themes, which are hard themes to watch and hard themes to exist in. But it’s also really fun to go and do that and watch that as an audience. So, I loved it when I read it.
It’s crazy, but it’s been over 15 years since The Strangers came out. That film is still so beloved. They’re doing a whole trilogy now. Why do you think that film was really so effective and has really stood the test of time?
Honestly, I just think that’s Bryan Bertino, the guy who wrote it and directed it. When I read that script, it was sort of a jaw-dropping, simple story, but I read it, and I was terrified. It just had a feel to it that I knew if we could get half of what was on the page on the screen, it would land with an audience. Those are very tricky. We make a lot of horror movies that don’t get there. This one really did. We had Liv Tyler, too, with Bryan and me. It was just a great group, and we were very lucky that Bryan was able to bring his words to the screen. It doesn’t always happen. But yeah, that one’s a special one for sure.
Speaking of horror, you’re currently in the Teacup series, which just wrapped its first season. What’s been the highlight of that experience?
I think working with that group, Ian McCulloch too. I’ve known Ian for a while personally, and just to watch him get to do his first TV show, which is always scary, always challenging, and he did it with such grace. He did such a great job, and he’s getting paid off for it now. Hopefully, we’ll get to do more seasons, but just that experience. It was a hard shoot. It was a long shoot but it was great. We had a fun time. It was a very emotional show. Yes, it’s billed and is a horror show, but it’s a family show too. Getting to work with Yvonne and the kids, Chaske, and everybody else, it was great. That was a special one. You don’t have that many that when you finish, you’re gonna miss that whole group, but that was the case with this one.
Felicity still has so many fans. How has it been just watching that legacy and that show still being fondly remembered?
I just watched it recently for the first time since I saw the pilot in 1998. I did a podcast, and so I saw three episodes and was blown away by the episodes. I thought they were beautiful and I get it. I mean, just the way it was shot, the way it was cast. It was J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves’ first TV show, and obviously, those guys are so talented. To see all the care they put into that show was pretty beautiful. I was blown away. Like it was shot on film, you know what I mean? It just has this richness. They really wrote amazing for me, Keri, Scott, and everybody else; it’s a special show for sure.
Thanks to Scott Speedman for taking the time to discuss Cellar Door, which is out now in theaters and digital.