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| John Cusack is Edgar Allan Poe |
Acclaimed actor John Cusack portrays
Edgar Allan Poe, one of literature's most fascinating authors, in Intrepid
Pictures' new stylish, gothic thriller “The Raven.” The film will be shown
exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas (Glorietta 4, Greenbelt 3 and Trinoma)
starting May 23.
When
a madman begins committing horrific murders inspired by Poe’s darkest works, a
young Baltimore detective (Luke Evans) joins forces with Poe in a quest to get
inside the killer’s mind in order to stop him from making every one of Poe’s
brutal stories a blood chilling reality. A deadly game of cat and mouse ensues,
which escalates when Poe’s love (Alice Eve) becomes the next target.
Cusack
talks about “The Raven” in the following interview:
Q:
What made you want to be part of this film and play Edgar Allan Poe?
John
Cusack: I really
liked James McTeigue. He’s a great director and had a really good vision.
People have wanted to do a story about Poe for a long time, but biopics are
tough. You can only do so many things with time and have to flash forward or
backward. His creative life was so vast, that we thought we could put Poe as a
character in his own stories.
The
conceit of the story was smart and it allowed us to explore more of his works
in a piece of fiction. This is Poe’s version of going mad and other themes he
had, but it is also true to the source because he was a great master writer, a
master of the English language, and a master poet. He also invented the
detective genre, he was the godfather of goth, he wrote satire, and he also did
burlesque. The movie got to show all of his sides.
Q:
What kind of research did you do to prepare for the role? Was it difficult for
you to find personal information?
Cusack:
There were no telephones back then,
so everyone communicated with letters. The great thing about researching him
was that there are so many of his letters, which were incredibly revealing.
That’s where you can see that there were very human parts of him and also a
side that was at war with the world. He had all of these feelings of despair
and loneliness, and a lot of passion.
I
read many of the biographies and really liked Peter Ackroyd’s short biography
Poe: A Life Cut Short. I immersed myself in Poe’s books, reading all of his
stories to really get into him. What I respond to most in his works is when he
is writing about that twilight space between waking and dreaming, and life and
death. He’s always exploring that twilight space, where he’s attracted to these
almost godlike female figures in his life. There is this eternal love mixed
with death being in the room.
Q:
Was there anything you found particularly interesting or surprising while doing
your research?
Cusack:
I wasn’t aware that he was conscious
of his fame, but he was actually very famous when he was alive. I also didn’t
know that he went to West Point and held a swimming record. I didn’t know to
the extent that he was at war and competitive with other writers. I knew about
his melancholy and sorrow, but I didn’t know about his brittleness and spitefulness.
He really did feel like the world was his stage and he must conquer it. He said
once that he wouldn’t put up with anyone he could put down. It has been said
that he didn’t say one good word about another English writer, living or dead.
He
really liked women and liked being adored by women. I think he felt competitive
and threatened by men, because he didn’t really have many male friends. Many of
the women in his life had died. His mother died in his arms of tuberculosis and
he sort of found a step mother in a woman that was a friend of his. She died of
tuberculosis too and he married his cousin who also died of tuberculosis. So it
was really like he was taking his sorrow and turning it into all of these
stories and creativity. When you play someone who is like an icon like this, it
can get two dimensional after a while. You think of him as the sad Halloween
guy, but when you research the life, you see that he’s writing satire and
burlesque and science fiction. He had such a wild and crazy imagination. He was
out there.
Q:
Do you think The Raven will inspire people to give Edgar Allan Poe’s stories a
try after watching the movie?
Cusack: I hope so. If it makes people want
to read his stories again, that would be pretty cool. If they read his stories,
they will be able to see what we were trying to do.
Q:
Seeing as you were friends with Hunter S. Thompson, I was wondering if you
thought about Hunter when playing this role? It seemed like you kind of
channeled his manic energy in this.
Cusack: I knew Hunter really well and I
can see Hunter in Poe. If you read the The Imp of the Perverse, you can
see how much it influenced Hunter right there. There is the confessional
aspect, with the embracing of the abyss and being drawn almost magnetically to
it. There is also the courage to confront your demons in some ways.
Q:
What was your fascination with Poe and why do you relate to him?
Cusack: It’s an interesting headspace and
he’s an interesting character. We’re all sort of attracted to the abyss. Around
Halloween, doesn’t everyone get into the supernatural, ghouls, and the
underworld? It’s not something I want to stay in, but it’s a fun place to visit
once in a while.
There
are not many writers who try to think about what their worst nightmare is. Most
people want to wake up and get away from it, but some want to go deeper. He
just had this interesting mind and wanted to embrace the nightmare. His romance
with the abyss makes him courageous, tragic, and sympathetic. We all have a bit
of that in us and I thought it was fun to do for a limited time.
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