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Danielle Panabaker is in the midst of her scream queen phase, and she's loving every bloody second of it. The talented 22-year-old, whose credits span from the Disney Channel DCOM Stuck in the Suburbs (2004) to the family fantasy film Sky High (2005) to a series-regular role as James Woods' daughter on the series Shark (TV), starred last year in the horror flick Friday the 13th (2009), goes for scares again in another upcoming remake, The Crazies (2010), and has also wrapped The Ward (2010), the iconic John Carpenter's first fright fest in nearly a decade. ScreenStar caught up with Panabaker by telephone for an interview about The Crazies, which puts a new spin on the George A. Romero classic from 1973. In the new film, Panabaker plays Becca, one of the few people not turned into a violent lunatic when a strange toxin infects the water supply of a small Iowa town. The film, which will open nationwide on February 26, also stars Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, and Joe Anderson.
So what, script-wise, hooked you into committing to The Crazies?
For me, I really love that it was a fast, entertaining script. It really moved. From the first scene that takes place on the baseball diamond you know that something's up. You know that things are not right, and the story just moves from there. I feel like it's a really fun, entertaining, scary film, that I think audiences will enjoy. That's what grabbed me. Really, by page five, you know something is wrong and you're really involved in investing in these characters in this small town. You want to know what happens to them. So I was hooked.
How bloody and gory does it get? Does it earn its R?
Oh, yes, the movie definitely earns its R. I did a film about a year ago, the remake of Friday the 13th. That film had a lot of blood. It was really grotesque and it was almost back to those films from the '70s and '80s, the horror films with the low budgets that were just blood squirting everywhere. The Crazies doesn't have that. It doesn't have that campy, "Eww, blood everytwhere, that's gross!" thing going, but it's still terrifying. We definitely earn our R rating. I think it's more about how scary these people are, the infected people, the Crazies. They're terrifying, and what they do to people looks so real and authentic. Watching this movie is so difficult because, despite the fact that I'd read the script and was there when we made it, it's so scary. There's a scene in there where I really was concerned that Timothy might get hurt, because it's grotesque and intense and scary. It's pretty hardcore.
What was the toughest moment for you?
I have to say, being strapped to a table is a little claustrophobic. You can't get up, and that's scary. I was actually strapped in and I had to hope that if a fire alarm went off that somebody would remember that I was strapped down to this table. You're going to ask why I'm strapped down, and it's because the government has come into the town, the water has been tainted, people are turning into crazies, and they're testing to see if Becca has become a crazy. So I have to be strapped down because you never know, for protection, more than anything.
In what ways did the Friday the 13th remake prep you for this?
Friday the 13th was the first true horror movie that I'd done and it opened my eyes to how it's a very specific talent and a really specific skill to be able to make a good horror movie, and I really learned that through Brad and Andrew, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form, the producers of Friday the 13th. They're really fantastic at it, and it set the bar high for me in terms of these types of films and who I'd work with. It's really easy to make a horror movie that isn't taken seriously, that's just campy and goes over the top a little bit. I think Friday the 13th was really successful at achieving what it wanted to, what it wanted to be. And I think that everyone did an incredible job at really understanding what The Crazies needed to be, which is really scary.
One of your next films is called Weakness (2010). What's that?
That was a really fun project for me. It was with a theater director out of New York named Michael Melamedoff. He wrote and directed it, and he's such a wonderful individual. I had a great time working with him and really collaborating with him. It was on a much smaller scale than The Crazies. We made Weakness for very, very little money. It was more of a passion project and I was really excited to be working on it. I was in New York for a month in the summer, saw some shows. It was a great experience. I haven't seen the finished cut yet, but I can't wait to. I have a lot of faith in Michael as a director. That will probably be on the festival circuit when it's done.
You've also wrapped another horror movie, The Ward, directed by John Carpenter. What can you say about your character?
She's one of the patients at an institution, and the story is about six young women who are in this institution. She's probably the most promiscuous of the women. She's constantly flirting with the orderlies, and I think some of her deeper issues are seen through her acting out sexually.
This is Carpenter's first film in about 10 years. What was your sense of how happy he was to be back behind a camera again?
I feel like he really, specifically waited for the right opportunity to present itself. He's so good at what he does and he's so comfortable on a set. He's a true director in the sense that you feel like he has a real grasp of what's going on on his sets, what he wants and what he's looking for. This is going to sound funny, but it was actually a very easy shoot considering what we were making. It's a horror movie, so there were special effects and blood, not a lot, but definitely some. He knew exactly what he was looking for and when he got it we moved on. There was no second-guessing. And he's a really great guy.
You've done Disney. You have done the daughter roles and the TV guest shots. You're in the scream queen phase right now. Where would you like to see your career go from here as you move into more mature roles?
I'm excited to see where my career goes. The entertainment industry is in a really interesting place right now, just in terms of all the technology that's evolving and how that's affecting how movies are made, the way television is made, how people are seeing things. Things are shaking up, and it's really great to be a part of it right now. I'm growing up, and I'm looking for things where I can delve more and more into my characters. I'm trying to take on more young adult roles, and I'm open to anything. I've always said that I'd love to do an action film someday. I really think there's a great market there, and an untapped market for women as action stars. What guy wouldn't want to go see a woman running around, kicking ass and taking names? So that’s something I'd love to do at some point in my life.
One of my first projects was an HBO miniseries called Empire Falls (2005) and I think, on some level, I'm constantly trying to repeat that and looking for a really high-caliber project like that, which was with a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and a dozen great actors (Paul Newman, Ed Harris, Helen Hunt, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright Penn), many of whom had won Academy Awards. But I'm young, so hopefully I have some time ahead of me to find more of that kind of projects and to try it all.
