a SIFF 2007 interview

Getting ‘Bloodied Up’

Actor Meister Descends into the Awful with Black Sheep

One doesn’t walk into the New Zealand horror comedy Black Sheep and expect it to be an Academy Award winner. Writer and Director Jonathan King’s film is about white fluffy mutant killer sheep, after all, and those wanting any more than some crackling B-movie thrills, chills and gory spills had probably turn their attentions someplace else.

Still, watching the picture at a midnight screening at the recently concluded Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) I couldn’t help but think performing in Black Sheep must have been a total blast for the actors, a suspicion confirmed by lead (and relative newcomer) Nathan Meister during our recent telephone interview. “It was a ball to make,” said the actor with a laugh. “Going in everyday, you never quite knew what was going to happen or what the mood of the people was going to be. There were lots of blood and guts around all the time, and everyone seemed to be enjoying making this sort of madcap story out in the backlots of Wellington.”

One of the evil mutant sheep in IFC First Take's Black Sheep

Audiences certainly tend to echo those enthusiastic sentiments, the two sold out screenings at SIFF filled with hooting, hollering and a full onslaught of ghoulish laughter. “I gland to hear that,” comments Meister, “I really hope it does well because Jonathan had to throw [the film] together really very quick. You know how long it take for things to [get made], and I think from no to go this [took] three to four years to go from an idea to actually screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.”

More impressive than that is the fact King decided to rest his beloved and horrific baby upon the shoulders of an actor as relatively unproven as Meister for his heroic lead sheep-a-phobe Henry Oldfield, a fact not lost on the actor. “”When it was down to the last set of auditions I thought they would probably go with someone with a bit more experience,” he reminisces. “But, at the final audition I discovered [Jonathan] is a really good director for actors, he really wants to see how you play with each other and wants to see how the relationships work. I guess he must have liked what he saw.”

We chuckle together for a moment, Nathan finally collecting himself enough to finish his thought. “With a film like this, the premise is pretty outrageous, so he really wanted to try and get as pure relationships as possible, wanted to draw the story beyond its one joke. It was really nice to sit and talk with [Jonathan] and get ideas for the character.”

Still, a person couldn’t blame the actor if he looked at the premise with more than a little trepidation. We are talking about man-eating sheep and human beings turning into gigantic weresheep here, after all. “When I first got the script I almost couldn’t believe it,” laughs Meister, “but it was just so well written. The audition scenes, one was going to be in the cave or, as we called it, ‘The Awful Pit.’ The other was the scene reminiscent of The Birds in the garden with all those sheep where [actress] Danielle Mason’s character Experience tries to talk me into the car. The last one was with the brother Angus.”

“All of them have a ring of truth to them as scenes and you can sort of play them as straight as you want. But, in the background of my mind I couldn’t stop thinking to myself, ‘It’s all about blood-thirsty mutant sheep!’ I thought, a couple of times, am I being sacrificed myself as one of the lambs for the slaughter for being an actor in a film like this. But, I’m quite happy with how it all played out. It’s very much the film I thought we were making which is a relief. I was really happy when I saw it in the cinema for the first time.”

“I think, though, in my mind when the sheep started to stampede over the hills or people were turning into giant weresheep I must have thought of something else because looking back on it I can’t imagine how I was able to keep a straight face on some of those days. Because the sheep, of course, are all trained sheep and conditioned to come to whistles to loving calls from their trainers. So [Jonathan] is shouting, ‘There is the dead body torn limb from limb with the sheep eating it!’ and you turn to your right you see the sheep trainer calling, ‘Come on, girls, here you go, come on now,’ giving them fruit baskets and blowing his nice whistle. So, all of those terrifying feelings just sort of dissipated by the sight of these lovely little creatures just wandering over to have some more sheep nuts. There were days were it felt nothing like a film set and definitely more like a farm yard.”

We laugh about this for a moment, but Meister’s talk about dismembered bodies and ravenous mutant killers can’t help but make me wonder how he managed to keep the character centered amidst all the gruesomely humorous chaos. “Jonathan and I spent a good amount of time looking at the character,” responds the actor. “We looked for key moments, how to develop [Henry] into a hero from being such an opposite type of character in the beginning what with his sheep phobia and not really being confident with anything. We were trying to find how this all could support good character development without resorting to a single moment where, Bang!, now he’s the hero. And, finding that was really good, and to talk to those moments as much as we could.”

Danielle Mason and Nathan Meister in IFC First Take's Black Sheep

“One of the things that really helped was that Danielle and I were in drama school together and graduated in the same class. She was a first time in a feature film as well, and we were able to hit the ground running with each other a bit and with a good amount of trust. We decided that we might not know much about this project we were now involved in but we decided to have fun with [making] it together. That was very helpful.”

As good as Meister and Mason are together, for me it was the relationship between Henry and his evil older brother Angus, wonderfully played by New Zealand television veteran Peter Feeney. “Oh, Peter is a wonderful actor!” states Nathan enthusiastically. “He [brought] something pretty special to the set. He commanded the best from the actors, but in a good way. He really raised the stakes quickly, and we had a lot of fun playing brothers, trying to find a balance as to who has the upper hand and at what time. I got along really well with [him].”

Peter Feeney and friend in IFC First Take's Black Sheep

Of course, a movie like this one would be nothing without blood, and Black Sheep certainly doesn’t short itself in that department. “There was a lot of blood,” laughs the actor. “I remember our last day of preproduction we had to do the tests for falling into the cave, in the Awful Pit, and get all ‘bloodied up’ as they kept calling it so our costumes would match later on. And, [Danielle] and I were there, and this guy walks in from Weta Workshop with these two great big buckets one labeled ‘Blood’ and the other one ‘Guts’ and he just smiled. It was at that moment I realized how sick in the head so many of these people really were in order to make the film.”

And Meister and Mason are the ones who get the brunt of that sickness, the two getting so dirty by the end I imagined they were picking guts and pieces of slime off of the bodies for weeks after the shoot. “And yes,” remarks Nathan, “Jonathan managed to stay quite clean. But, that was okay, because I managed to play a trick on him one day while were shooting the Awful Pit.”

“They called lunch and I asked one of the Weta guys to plate me up some of the Awful and just have it ready. So, Jonathan, a couple of the producers and the D.P. Richard [Bluck] were sitting around having there lunch and talking some last minute shots and I came around sat down next to them all bloodied up.”

“The catering guy came over and said he had my lunch all ready for me and they all looked at me and Jonathan said, ‘Ah, you’re the lead actor now, you’re the star, get your lunch set aside for you because you’re so much better than everyone else.’ And then he hands me this nice green salad with some sliced carrots, some cherry tomatoes and then just tons of guts taken out of the Awful Pit. Most of them stopped eating their lunch and suddenly moved away, if I recall.”

With the film opening today in the U.S. in limited release before expanding to other cities, Meister can’t begin to hide his enthusiasm. “I really hope [audiences] enjoy it obviously,” he states proudly. “Also, we’ve had some fantastic films come out of New Zealand lately and this one has a very different flavor then those that have made it to the States recently. For this one, I just hope people have a really good laugh. We’re not too precious with this film. We’re not asking it to be something that it isn’t. It’s a comedy horror with a bunch of blood and some fantastic death scenes with some moments I, maybe unfortunately, because I had to shoot them and be the one getting covered in all that Awful, will carry with me to my grave.”

“Seriously, though, [Black Sheep] is a nice nod to New Zealand’s current cinema as well as to its past filmmaking as well. I hope people enjoy it.”

Additional Links:

- Black Sheep Review by Sara Michelle Fetters