‘Fear the Night’ Exclusive Interview: Maggie Q

Who is in the cast of ‘Fear the Night’?

‘Fear the Night’ stars Maggie Q (‘Mission: Impossible III,’ ‘Live Free or Die Hard‘ and ‘The Protégé‘), Kat Foster (‘Rebirth‘), Travis Hammer (‘From Black’), Gia Crovatin (‘I Feel Pretty‘), James Carpinello (‘Gangster Squad‘), Highdee Kuan (‘Proximity‘), and Ito Aghayere (‘Logan Lucky‘).

Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Maggie Q about her work on ‘Fear the Night,’ her first reaction to the screenplay, her strong character, the action sequences, and working with director Neil LaBute.

Maggie Q as Tess in the action/thriller, ‘Fear the Night,’ a Quiver Distribution release. Photo courtesy of Quiver Distribution.

Moviefone: To begin with, what was your first reaction to Neil LaBute’s action-driven and character-driven screenplay?

Maggie Q: I liked this character. I liked her issues. I liked her struggle with her issues. I liked that she was someone who was really trying. She was really trying to not be who she is. I love that she recovered from addiction and was trying to find the light. Then this huge tragedy happens, and it turns everything around for her, right? It really just turns her life completely upside down. She has to come to terms with the person she loves least in the world and make that work. I love sibling dynamics. The sister dynamic was really important to me, to get that right. So I really wanted in the end for you to see an arc that was real, where she actually was able to turn it around and forge that relationship. Because originally, that character died early in the movie, her sister. I just thought, and I said to Neil, I said, “My instinct is screaming at me to keep her alive because she needs that catalyst. She needs the person who pushes her buttons for her to make that change and come to terms with what she needs to do to be different.”

MF: What was it like for you collaborating with filmmaker Neil LaBute?

MQ: He’s extremely collaborative. I have to say he’s probably the most collaborative director I’ve ever worked with. I think maybe coming from theater, he just is used to things being very fluid and actors having all these ideas and making it better. So, he really doesn’t have an ego in that way, which is very un-Hollywood. I love that about Neil, and it’s a testament to his theater background and having roots in that, and really listening to actors and understanding what it is that’s going to make it work for them. So he was super open. In the beginning, before I even took the movie, I really felt like I kind of put him through the ringer with my notes on the script, as far as what I thought needed to happen to make it work. But because he was so willing to do that, I mean, that’s ultimately why I took the project.

Related Article: Filmmaker Neil LaBute Talks Horror Movie ‘House of Darkness’

Director Neil LaBute of the action/thriller, “Fear the Night,’ a Quiver Distribution release. Photo courtesy of Aaron Eckhart.

MF: As an actor, what’s it like working on a Neil LaBute set?

MQ: There wasn’t a ton of resources to make this movie, so we had to make changes that maybe we wouldn’t have wanted to change and because that changed, then we had to change something else. When you have all the money in the world to make a movie, that rarely happens. I just got off a movie where we had this enormous budget. It was like, everything about that was planned and happened the way it was planned. So you can have that luxury when you have a big budget and it’s scheduled a certain way. But when you’re making an indie and you’re sort of in this smaller thing, you’re restricted in certain ways, but there’s also some really creative things that can come out of that, too. So because of that restriction, those things are born.

MF: Can you talk about how with her military background Tess is uniquely qualified for the situation she finds herself in?

MQ: First of all, thank god she was a recovered addict at the time when this happened. So she has her wits about her and understands that she is the only person who’s getting these people out of this situation. I think because of her addiction issue, everybody sort of wrote her off because people like to do that. They like to take one element of a person, even though we’re all 100 things, and say, “Well, she’s a screw-up because she drank too much and had to go to rehab,” or whatever it was. Yet, I think what happened was they ignored the fact that she was this incredibly skilled person who had served and been through trauma. That’s probably why the addiction ended up happening. But she got out of that, and I think they only saw her as that, as Beth’s screw-up sister. So when she kicked it into gear and was like, “I’m going to use my unique skills to get us out of this,” I think everybody’s kind of in disbelief because they just wrote her off as an addict.

Maggie Q as Tess in the action/thriller, ‘Fear the Night,’ a Quiver Distribution release. Photo courtesy of Quiver Distribution.

MF: Finally, you are no stranger to action sequences, were you involved in the choreography for the fight scenes in ‘Fear the Night?’

MQ: Always. One of the things that I just remembered was that in the beginning, the script, we had gunplay, we had fights, we had all of that, and I got rid of all of that. I didn’t want any issued weapons. I wanted the women and her to have to be creative and get themselves out of this situation. So I wanted to make sure she didn’t find her father’s weapons. I wanted to make sure that at every turn, they were screwed. So creatively, they had to really figure out what it was to get them out of this. So, whether that be a sneak attack on someone who’s outside, where you have that one opportunity because after that they know you’ve gotten out and they know you’ve hurt one of their guys, so you’re screwed. You got to get back in and you have to have a plan. So all of those things were born out of me saying, “Neil, let’s get rid of guns.” He was like, “Okay.” I said, “None. There’s no guns in this movie. It’s violent and there’s action, but they’re just trying to survive, and let’s figure it out.” He was like, “I love that.” So, he was super collaborative and he really listened.

Maggie Q as Tess in the action/thriller, ‘Fear the Night,’ a Quiver Distribution release. Photo courtesy of Quiver Distribution.

This interview was accomplished prior to the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

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