Five Fun Facts From The Lodge Livestream Q&A w/Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz (and cast)
We were lucky enough to snag a seat at an early screening of The Lodge with co-directors Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz, along with cast members Jaeden Martell and Lia McHugh in attendance. Despite there being no talks about why the film’s released was pushed back from September of 2019 to February 2020 — which is the biggest and most obvious elephant in the room, of which no details seem to be strewn across the interwebs — the Q&A still proved to be an informative and entertaining time. Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz were very light and playful, which after seeing the film, only confirms that they’re most certainly cuckoo — something which we're absolutely here for.
We’ve got the entire Q&A available below, but we also know that in this day and age, people just want the good stuff distilled (although, you should really give the whole convo a spin). So, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to mine this 22-minute discussion for the five things that we found most interesting.
CAUTION: There are MAJOR spoilers below, and The Lodge is one of those films that plays better the less you know about it. So, with that said, read on at your own risk!
Franz and Fiala stripped out a lot of dialogue from the script and ventured way past its original ending to make The Lodge a more personal film.
Moderator: You guys got the script [from Hammer films], and then you started rewriting it. Talk about what you did to make this a little more personal for you guys to make it more your own.
Severin Fiala: I mean, actually, what we could relate to was that it was like super playful in a way, and we were like, okay, ‘what’s going to happen next?’ So, it was like this really fun read, but then we decided that we needed to take all the fun out of it.
[audience laughter]
Moderator: Mission accomplished.
Veronika Franz: Good!
Severin Fiala: To be more honest, we feel that our way of telling stories — I mean, it’s a bit slow, it’s atmospheric, and it’s rather visual. The writer was amazing at writing dialogue, and we felt so sad for him because… there won’t be much of the witty dialogue left after we get through with it. We felt we needed to rework it in order to tell the story our way. That was the first challenge. The second was when we read the script and it said ‘End’, we felt, okay, that’s the most interesting moment. What happens after the end?
Veronika Franz: After the reveal, the twist.
Severin Fiala: The original script ended after the twist, and we felt, okay, but how would it go on? The kids are stuck with her. They went too far, and they want to take it back — and that was actually what interested us most, that they were all stuck in a situation that started out as make believe and then turned real.
Veronika Franz: They wanted to create purgatory in a way, and then they are kinda stuck in a kinda real purgatory maybe.
Jaeden Martell didn’t want to do the film originally out of fear of being stuck in the horror genre.
Veronika Franz: When it comes to Jaeden, he was always our dream cast. We always wanted him to play the role, and, uh—
Severin Fiala: He didn’t want to.
Veronika Franz: Yeah, actually, he declined [laughs].
Severin Fiala: We’re very stubborn people.
Jaeden Martell: Well, when I first read the script, I was a little skeptical at first. I was hesitant to do another horror movie because [IT] had just come out. I was a little nervous about that because I feel like horror is something an actor can get stuck in. But, basically, one of the producers on [IT] contacted me and said, ‘Hey, just watch Goodnight Mommy their previous film, and think about it.” And so I did, and I watched it, and I feel in love with it and their filmmaking. I realized it wasn’t just another horror film, it’s a psychological thriller, and it makes you think and does more than just scare you. I thought [The Lodge] could be something really special, and I needed to be apart of it.
Veronika Franz: We had this opportunity of this one Skype with Jaeden.
Severin Fiala: We didn’t know any of what he just said. We didn’t know that he feel in love.
Veronika Franz: They just said, Okay, you can Skype with him.
Severin Fiala: We had 20 minutes to convince him — that was how we perceived it. We were so nervous… like, he said, ‘Hi, I’m Jaeden,’ and we were like, ‘blah blah blah blah blah’ for like 20 minutes without talking a breath. Neither of us. We talked at the same time for 25 minutes, and then Jaeden was like, ‘Uh, bye.’ [both laugh] We hang up, and we’re like—
Veronika Franz: We fucked it up! [both laugh]
Severin Fiala: Like we didn’t even ask, [both together] ‘How are you?’
Veronika Franz: But, lucky as we are, he likes weird people.
Severin Fiala: I think that must be the thing or else I can’t figure out how it worked out so well.
The cult leader in the film is played by Riley Keough’s dad.
Moderator: Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but the cult leader is Riley Keough’s real dad, right?
Veronika Franz: Yes, you are right.
Moderator: So, how did he end up getting cast? Were you like, ‘We need some charismatic but totally evil character,’ and [Riley] was like, ‘I have just the person. Check out my dad.’
[laughter]
Veronika Franz: Well, actually, we couldn’t find the right actor for it for a long time. We were already shooting, and there was one break where we visited Riley, and she FaceTimed her father and turned the mobile around and said, ‘Meet my directors.’ [laughs] Actually, he looks just exactly as he appears in the movie, so we said, ‘Oh, here it is! The cult leader!’
[laughter]
Severin Fiala: Actually, that’s what we said to him, ‘You have to be in our movie!’ That was like the first thing we said — not, ‘Hi’, again. We’re not very good in Skype’s that mean a lot to the movie, so…
Veronika Franz: [Riley’s dad] also used to be a professional diver in Hawaii. Because he had to play those underwater scenes, he was highly professional. He jumped into the Olympic pool like he’s never done anything else.
Franz and Fiala gave the set a similar vibe to the film because they thought it would enhance the story.
Moderator: Montreal, that’s where the house is. How did you find this place, and what did you guys do, being stuck in this huge snowy place, in between being terrorized by a crazy born-again Christian step-mother.
Veronika Franz: Nothing.
Lia McHugh: We stayed a hotel 2 miles out of Montreal in the middle of nowhere that looked like The Shining. The hotel was completely empty, and for some reason, they put our rooms at the very end of the hall, so we had to walk like a mile everyday to work.
Severin Fiala: Let’s call it a happy accident.
Lia McHugh: [laughs] They had this empty bar and empty tennis court, so we would go and have dance parties and play tennis.
Jaeden Martel: And sometimes we would actually get trapped like The Lodge, and we would have no food. The restaurant would shutdown and be like, ‘There’s not enough customers to serve, so just fend for yourself.’ [laughter] The nearest Walmart was like an hour away; there was nothing around, except for one pizza place.
Severin Fiala: That’s what we really wanted to achieve. I mean, it sounds insane, and it was even harder to convince the producers. Because we think it actually really helps a lot if you’re in a real place that’s really isolated. We were looking for the lodge not to be in a studio but on an actual location that’s truly isolated and can be used, inside and outside, 360 degrees, with nothing around. We felt this would really help the whole thing. We could shoot in sequence because it’s much more contained, and we can all undertake this story together. We figured that would be a good way of doing it, but of course, convincing producers to shoot in sequence in the snow in an actual location in a not-controllable environment, it sounds rather insane in a way.
Moderator: Insane and immersive.
Severin Fiala: Yeah, but that’s how we think it’s meant to be. Of course, actors as amazing as [Jaeden and Lia], they can play being cold, but if it’s cold outside, I think that does something and it helps.
Veronika Franz: Actually, we tried to cut the heating. One day, we thought, okay, [in the story] the electricities gone, so it should be really gone.
Severin Fiala: The union didn’t like that. Neither did the bond company or the insurance company.
Veronika Franz: It’s different from Europe. In Europe, you could do that…
Moderator: To the actors, I’m very sorry.
Shooting in sequence was vital to Franz and Fiala’s storytelling.
Severin Fiala: We also [shot in sequence] in Goodnight Mommy, our first film, where it was important for a different reason. The kids [in that film] hadn’t read the script, so we had to do it in sequence in order to have them grow into the whole story. We were really happy with the results, as you can always react to what you get. We always try to include improvisation, weather conditions, real-life circumstances, so it’s possible that you change [the story] along the way. That’s why we fought for that a lot. Also, we felt it would help the actors greatly.
Veronika Franz: It wasn’t that difficult actually because we had only one location. It would be different if we had like 10 different locations, but in this case, it wasn’t that difficult.
Severin Fiala: With Riley, for example, she was a little worried when we started shooting to get the arc and the journey of her character right. Because, if we had shot the last scene first — which is something that the producers suggest because it makes more sense logistically, in a way — then we would all have to imagine where [Riley’s] character would end up. And I think that if you try to imagine that, you never imagine it to go as far as you can get by just starting to walk and continuously going toward the darkness. I think we ended up much further by taking [The Lodge] as a continuous journey, instead of just starting with the last moments of it [and walking backwards].
Check out the full Q&A below:
What do you think? Learn anything cool? More amped up for the film? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!