Chuck Russell on making more Indian films

Chuck ventured into Indian cinema with the 2019 film Junglee, starring Vidyut Jammwal and Akshay Oberoi. “I’ve been wanting to work with Aamir Khan before. He knows it, I’ve visited him. And Shah Rukh Khan. I got to work with Akshay (Oberoi) and my cast in Junglee was terrific.”

“I like working with different cultures and talent that is new to me. So, all of India is new to me. I’m going to learn something new working with Indian actors,” Chuck told PTI in an interview.

The director was speaking on the sidelines of a masterclass at Film Bazaar 2024, which runs parallel to the International Film Festival of India (IFFI). Asked what was the recent Indian film he watched, Russell said, “I liked RRR, it was really cool.”

On shooting The Mask

The 66-year-old also walked down memory lane on the sets of 1994’s The Mask. The superhero comedy, which shot Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz to international fame, completed 30 years of release in July.

Adapted from a popular American comic, The Mask starred Jim as Stanley Ipkiss, an ordinary man who finds a magical wooden mask that transforms him into the titular green-faced troublemaker who can cartoonishly alter himself and his surroundings at will.

One of his strongest memories from The Mask shoot, Chuck said, was when the team filmed the Cuban Pete dance number with Jim, who also sang the song for the movie. The director said Jim had the flu the night they had to shoot the sequence but the actor powered through like a true professional.

“We were in the Backlot, I think it was Warner Bros, which was fun for me… working with the studio was a great honour. We had to do this dance number and Jim was sick. He had the flu, he was throwing up. I was like ‘Oh my god. It was a night shoot. The lights were up all day, it looked beautiful. It’s ready. How’s Jim? Is he ready?'”

Fortunately, Chick said Cameron was by Jim’s side, holding his head.

“We were all friends. I told Jim, ‘I’m a professional, you’re a professional, we have insurance, you’re sick, we can take the night off’. He said ‘No, no, I want to do it.’… Playing the character of The Mask gave him strength.

“He was tough. The old saying is ‘The show must go on.’ It was old fashioned showbiz. That dance number was all about the 1940s, the character came alive and kind of gave him strength. I was quite impressed (with him)” he recounted.

Returning to horror

The director, who made his directorial debut with 1987’s horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and then directed cult classic movie The Blob, recently returned to the genre with Witchboard. Comedy and horror are similar spaces, he said.

“I treat them in a similar fashion as a director. In a good story, it’s about the setups, suspense and a good pay off. In comedy, we’re getting a laugh, in horror, we are getting a scream. And this works in large ways in the script and in the small ways in the moments we film. Where’s the laugh, where’s the scream, where’s the tension and release?”

Horror is popular right now because “the world is in trouble”, he added.

“We’re reading horrible stories on the internet and newspapers. Many of them are true, many of them are not. We don’t even know what to believe. You see a horror film, you forget it all, you face all your fears.

“If you’re on a date, it’s very romantic, you can protect your girlfriend or wife. You know you’re going to come out alive, no matter how scary it is. The catharsis, the danger, it releases endorphins. As you walk out of the movie theatre, for a little while you forget your troubles.”

Chuck, also known for action films Eraser with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Paradise City starring Bruce Willis and John Travolta, said he put everything in Witchboard that he didn’t get an opportunity to do in his previous horror films. “Maybe it’s my last horror film, I don’t know,” he said.