THREE TIMES A CHARM
Cary Elwes expects big things from Christmas horror remake
It’s an exciting thing when you create from nothing, and you just hope for the best
Three seems to be Cary Elwes’ lucky number at the moment. The veteran British actor co-stars in the third iteration of the horror movie Black Christmas, has joined the cast of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel for its eagerly anticipated third year and had a recurring role as a hiss-worthy politician during the recent third season of Stranger Things.
“I hadn’t thought of that — but, now that I’ve been made aware of it, I think I would definitely say I believe in the power of three,” Elwes said with a laugh, speaking by telephone from his Los Angeles home as he prepared for a holiday break with his family. “I am not highly superstitious, but it’s always a wonderful thing to be working in good movies and television shows with good material and with talented filmmakers and storytellers.”
Set for release in Thailand tomorrow, Black Christmas promises to put a unique spin on the twice-told tale of sorority sisters preyed on, during the holiday season, by a mysterious, black-masked killer. Elwes plays Professor Gelson, a classics instructor at Hawthorne College and, quite possibly, a sinister cult leader. When the body count begins to mount, a group of endangered young women (Lily Donoghue, Brittany O’Grady, Imogen Poots and Aleyse Shannon) fight back against the stalker.
Elwes elected not to watch either Bob Clark’s original Black Christmas (1974) or Glen Morgan’s 2006 remake, he said, because “I didn’t want to be influenced by anything they did, in any way”.
The trailers for the new film clearly portray Gelson as an antagonist, if not necessarily the killer, but Elwes kept his description of the character to a minimum during this conversation.
“He’s a professor teaching at a university where … let’s put it this way, they have very strict fraternities and sororities, and the university is very oldschool,” the actor said. “It has a great history to it. He teaches humanities and history, and he’s a very intense guy. It was a fun character to explore, because he’s from a different era and has a different way of thinking.
“I really had very little interaction with anyone other than Imogen,” Elwes added. “Her character and my character have a certain relationship as professor and student, so my scenes are really about our interactions. And Imogen is a pretty wonderful actress.”
The film is a Blumhouse release, distributed by Universal. Blumhouse has such productions down to a science, applying a formula that involves modest budgets, brisk shoots, shrewd casting and the hiring of young, inventive, on-the-rise directors. Their hits include the franchise-spawning hits
Paranormal Activity (2007) and The Purge (2013), as well as Get Out (2017),
Halloween (2018) and Ma (2019). “I really enjoyed working with Blumhouse,” Elwes said. “I thought that it was very interesting that Blumhouse decided to give Black Christmas a theme of female empowerment, which I think is appropriate, especially in the world we live in today. This is a fresh take on what would otherwise just be a bogeyman with a knife, chasing women.
“And our director, Sophia Tackal, she’s wonderful,” he added. “It’s the first time I’ve worked with her. I thought it was a great idea to have a woman direct this, because it’s a story about women.” As tight-lipped as he was about Black
Christmas, Elwes shared even less about his stint on The Marvelous Mrs.
Maisel. The show will kick off its third season on Dec 6, with Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) — the 1950s Jewish housewife-turned-comedian — performing at a USO show before heading off on tour.
As for Elwes, he ever-so-politely declined to reveal how his character fits into the storyline, how many episodes he’ll appear in or even his character’s name — though the Internet Movie Database lists him as playing Gavin Hawk.
“Unfortunately I’m not allowed to tell you any of that,” he said, “but I can tell you that the expanse of the show has grown. I’d watched the show and loved the quality of it and the performances, the characters, the stories, the direction, the production values. But, when I got there, I wasn’t really prepared for the scope of it, the extent to which we’d shut down areas of Manhattan and recreate this world.
“Creators Amy and Daniel Palladino are brilliant, and I enjoyed working with all the actors,” Elwes added. “Rachel Brosnahan is extraordinary, and I truly love Tony Shalhoub. Kevin Pollak I’ve known for a long time. They were just terrific. They’re all so talented and … extroverted.
“It was just a thrill for me to work on a show that I admire and also to be back in Manhattan, working in the city where I used to live,” he continued. “This whole show, it’s a testament to Amy and Dan and their total grasp of the stories they want to tell.”
Elwes, who turned 57 in October, has graced movies and television screens for a full 40 years now, having made his first screen appearance in the British film Yesterday’s Hero (1979). Since then he’s worked steadily, occasionally as a leading man, in everything from his breakthrough film, The Princess Bride
(1987), to Glory (1989), Twister (1996),
Cradle Will Rock (1999), Saw (2004),
The X-Files (2001-2002), Psych (20092014) and The Art Of More (2015-2016).
Along the way the actor has made some interesting choices. He’s stepped into massively popular shows, among them The X-Files and now The
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and he’s taken the risk of leveraging his name recognition to support young filmmakers, as he did when he starred for director James Wan in the low-budget horror sensation Saw, which launched a lucrative franchise.
Elwes acknowledged that participating in the creation of something special and walking into an existing pop-culture phenomenon provide different kinds of thrills.
“It’s an exciting thing when you create from nothing, and you just hope for the best,” he said. “You think that all the elements are there, but nobody knows. It’s an absolute gamble for everyone because, as Bill Goldman [the legendary screenwriter of, among other things, The Princess Bride] said, nobody knows anything in Hollywood about what makes a successful film or show. If they did, they’d be making them all the time.
“When you join a show already in progress, something that has garnered a lot of attention and support, that’s just a wonderful thing,” Elwes added, “though you’re suddenly a little bit more anxious to make sure that your contribution doesn’t upset the fans, let me put it that way.
“So the focus is doubly hard for me when I join a show that is successful already, because I want to make sure that I deliver for the fans.”