Gore Verbinski started his career creating short films and advertisements. He made his film directing debut in 1997 on the family hit "MouseHunt". Since then he has directed "The Mexican" and upcoming release "The Ring". His next film will be "Pirates of the Caribbean", out later this year.
How did you approach remaking the film?
I just tried to keep what's great in the original movie and improve it where I could.
How is it different or changed then?
We set the film in Seattle and we focused on creating this dark, sombre mood, a kind of coldness. And I felt I wanted to go with this kind of dream logic and focus on just a few main characters. So, in a way, it's quite clinical.
What do you mean by keeping a dream logic to the film?
Well, everyone always wants to find the answer, to feel that things are resolved. But in dreams maybe there isn't an answer so much. It's more about images and emotions, so I wanted to keep that kind of feel. But at the end of the movie there is a resolution. It's, what would you do to save your child?
Did you enjoy making this film?
I like horror movies and in fact I like them even more now after making one. I just think they're much more liberating because you don't really have to apply a very strict logic. You can experiment a lot more with sound and image.
Tell us about Naomi Watts' performance...
Naomi's great. She's completely dedicated to her performance and not to her image. That process allows her to become Rachel in this movie and go to some darker areas that I think a lot of actors wouldn't feel comfortable doing.
