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Interview with Michael O’Shea at the 14th FICM

Ma. Cristina Alemán (@mcristina)

Michael O’Shea attended the 14th edition of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM) to present his debut film The Transfiguration (2016), an unusual vampire tale which was part of the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival. In an interview at the FICM, O’Shea talked about the surprise of being selected by Cannes, about the importance of the horror movie makeup guy and about the kind of films he would like to do next.

Following the success of The Transfiguration, in the Q&A after the screening at FICM, you said you would do any movie you would get paid to do that you like. So my question is, what do you like?

Well, I have an agent now. He sent me a sci-fi action flick and I wrote back and said that I would do it if I could take out all the action and they just talk and then the human race dies [laughs]. Yeah, they are not going to let me do that. But that’s the catch to “If I like it”, you know, I’ve got my own way of doing things.

And you are going to stick to it.

Yeah, I’m old and what’s great about being old is that you are set in your ways. I’m making the movies I want to make. I waited this long to make the first one, I can wait again.

How did The Transfiguration end up in Cannes?

We sent a DVD in with 60 dollars. We didn’t have a distributor or a sales agent or anyone to campaign for us, we just sent the movie in and we had no expectation of getting in. And it was like winning the lottery, but better than winning the lottery because it was something I made, something that I earned, so it was just euphoria to hear that we got in. We found out two days before the press conference. We had no idea. And then we still didn’t believe it, we were watching the press conference waiting because I didn’t believe it was going to happen and then they said our name and I was so excited. It was amazing.

How was the film received in Cannes?

We got a standing ovation. Which, again, was incredible. The standing ovation at the Debussy, which is like a 1,200 seat theater, is always going to be the most amazing moment of my life.

Well you don’t know.

You don’t know, but right now, it’s pretty good. A friend of mine took a photo during the standing ovation and I just look like “wow”, like an idiot.

I think you are a little bit devious because The Transfiguration is presented as a vampire film and when I say the people in Morelia waiting in a huge line to get in, I thought “sure, everybody loves vampire movies”. And after watching it, I’m wondering, is it really a vampire film?

I bet it is going to be very difficult to sell. Luckily, that’s not my problem [laughs]. But I imagine it is going to be a very tricky movie to sell because you don’t want to give away too much, but you don’t want people to be disappointed either.

I had this idea of asking you, are you going to keep making genre films? But now I’m not sure.

Well yeah. Actually I am. I’m going to keep making sort of genre films that take ideas of the genre and then just kind of think about them, versus actually making a genre film. I do like to point out that I murder someone every 20 minutes in this movie. And the three people that were most important to me, that I hired before I got money, was the horror makeup guy, Eric [Ruffin] (the lead actor), and my director of photography [Sung Rae Cho]. Dramas don’t hire the horror movie makeup guy first, but I got Brian [Spears] because he was so important to me. So in that way it is a horror movie, because getting the gore right was so important.

But it is still social drama.

Yeah, absolutely.

Your lead actor is amazing, could you tell me more about him?

He is great. People don’t think they are actors which is kind of the nicest compliment. I knew that the movie was going to be all about the Kuleshov effect, which is something you learn in film school where you just show a blank face and then food and the person that sees it thinks “oh, he is so hungry”, and then you show a blank face and a casket and the viewer goes “oh, he looks so sad”. I knew this is what I would be doing with the movie, so I wanted a great face that the audience could try to read this things on. And the second I saw Eric’s face I knew, that’s it, it is perfect.

Now that you are doing a lot of interviews and you just did the Q&A, is there something that you thought you were going to be asked and you are not being asked?

No. I don’t know what I’m going to be asked, it is always terrifying to me, I don’t know what is going to happen. I now know some common questions that are being asked, but I never know what’s coming at me. But I love taking about the movie, I love the movie, so any question about the movie makes me happy.

I hope this interview made you happy.

It did, I’m smiling!