With The Woman in Black: Angel of Death in cinemas from January 1, star Phoebe Fox tells TEN's Harry Guerin about playing troubled hero Eve in the World War II-set follow-up to the box office hit.
Harry Guerin: Given the success of the first Woman in Black film, did you have any reservations about taking over for the sequel, even though the story takes up a few decades later?
Phoebe Fox: I didn't hesitate about taking it on because I just really, really liked the character. It's not the sort of character you come across very often in a young woman. Y'know, she's not driven by her love for a good man and she doesn't have to take her clothes off.
It was one of those things that after I'd taken the job and was getting ready to start filming I suddenly felt that pressure of 'Oh God...'. This [2012's The Woman in Black] was a massive film and they're really hoping that this film will do as well. I felt a load on my shoulders because it dawned on me [that] if I was a bit crap there was a possibility that the whole film would sort of fall around my ears! Yeah, I definitely felt that pressure, especially because a lot of people were a little bit upset when I told them that Daniel Radcliffe wasn't in the one that I was doing!
You're not a bit crap in it - let's put that one to bed! - you do a really good job. Do you think any of that unease fed into the character?
I guess maybe subconsciously it fed in. I thought quite a lot about what her past was because I wanted that to bleed through. To me she's very much a character that although she's putting a bright face on things is completely defined by her past. So I was quite detailed and I wrote a full biography. And so I hope that kind of unease with herself and what she'd been through was what came out, rather than my own personal unease.
The set is brilliant. What was it like working on it - creepy or not creepy at all?
Some of it was quite creepy because it's a mix of places. Some of it is a set, and that was quite joyous after the other places that we filmed - derelict manor houses where no one lived and you could see why. We filmed the cellar in an old prison in London that's underground. It housed children and women and it's meant to be haunted and it's one of the most horrific places I think I've ever been. So it was quite scary at times but once we got onto the set at Pinewood we all, I think, breathed a sigh of relief.
This big flotation tank at Pinewood - how long were you in it shooting the underwater scenes?
We were there for three long - very long - days. I didn't enjoy the tank work at all. I realised that I'm very much a land person! It's one thing splashing around on the surface but I was spending three, four hours maybe even more a day under the water. And then someone takes away your oxygen; they take away your goggles so you can't see and then they ask you to act! It was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done!
Was there anything during your acting studies at RADA that helped?
No, and I will be writing them a very stern letter!
But when you watch scenes like those underwater scenes, and it is actually the actors doing them, it really is the cherry on top for film fans.
Yes. Apart from that I enjoyed the other stunts. I say I did a lot of them myself - I did some of them. I enjoyed that physical challenge, just not the fact that it was in water!
When you're sitting there as a punter you say to yourself, 'I wonder how warm that water actually is?'
I'm telling you... They warm it up overnight so it's warm in the morning and then by five o'clock in the afternoon it's stone cold!
When people are making horrors or chillers we often hear stories of strange things happening on set. Were there any unexplained happenings with The Woman in Black: Angel of Death?
There wasn't, but I think Jeremy Irvine [co-star] and Tom Harper the director were trying their best to make me believe there were! They jumped out at me a lot - there was a lot of pranks, there was a lot of bringing The Woman in Black [on set] without telling me, bringing 'dead' children onto set and hiding them so that I would sort of peek them by mistake. I felt like I was being haunted but it was just those two boys playing tricks on me. Poor me!
Jeremy Irvine, Phoebe Fox and Helen McCrory on set
I've often heard actors saying the grimmer the film, the harder it is to keep a straight face. Is that true?
I think we were pretty good; there wasn't a lot of cracking up on set. Most of the time we were trying to set a good example to the children, or at least make the children believe we were serious about our jobs! So we were sort of on our best behaviour. But there was some naughtiness, definitely!
I think what worked really well for your performance is that you came to the horror genre not knowing that much about it, and as such you didn't have any baggage.
I tried to approach it not thinking about how to act in a horror film but how to convincingly portray that woman. I haven't seen a lot of horror because I'm ridiculously sensitive and I get scared really easily. The one thing I did do was, on my director's advice, he said, 'Watch Rosemary's Baby, watch The Others and just see... Because what you don't realise is that you have to pitch it quite high - that you will have to act it bigger than you might expect. If you don't look truly terrified - and it will feel very 'big' to you - the audience won't feel terrified as well'.
Jeremy Irvine said he didn't really realise how exhausting it would be to portray fear.
It is. I had never even considered that. The energy that you expend making yourself look frightened and feeling frightened is just as hard as crying and shouting and all the other extremities of emotion.
You were saying there were a lot of gags and laughs - what was the pick of them for you? If it's printable, of course.
[Laughs] The one thing I remember making me laugh a lot was they kept on trying to film this really freaky monkey toy. They would wind it up and it would start rattling away and then it would rattle its way off the table. Over and over again. I don't know whether it's because we were in that frame of mind but people were hysterical behind the set, crying with laughter! We were trying to film this really freaky moment and it spun into ridicule. In real life you wouldn't have found it funny at all but you were just looking for some light relief.
Do you think they'll get up to the present day with The Woman in Black films?
I hope so. I think they'd be crazy not to. There's so many places you can go with it - all the decades. I mean, I'd love to see The Woman in Black in the Nineties on the rave scene!
It is the smart way to go about it - have different main characters and a different story every time.
Yes, absolutely. I don't think it would work to have our characters in it again: you want to see somebody else battle the ghost and what it is about them that makes this ghost come to life.
Was there ever any talk of an alternate ending? Often with horrors they will shoot a different ending and fans will wonder about it.
No, there wasn't. If there was it might have been in an earlier script but that was the only ending I ever saw.
You've a lot of stuff coming up in 2015, including The Hollow Crown on BBC with Benedict Cumberbatch. How has that been going?
Great. I finished shooting on that last week [interview took place on December 17]. The part that I'm playing, Lady Anne in Richard III, she's got one absolutely cracking scene but for the rest of it she's sort of looking harrowed in the background. So on-stage I think I wouldn't necessarily want to do it because you'd spend the majority of your time off-stage. But in this it was great: I got two days, me and Benedict Cumberbatch in the middle of a forest doing this incredibly brilliant and famous scene!
Had your paths crossed before?
I think we'd met very briefly before but we'd never worked together before.
So what impressed you most about him?
He's incredibly hard-working, apart from anything else. And he's just really good, you know? He's a really great actor! He's incredibly generous to act opposite.
What else is coming up for you?
I've got a film coming out called Eye in the Sky - that'll probably be the end of next year - with Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul and Alan Rickman. It's about a drone attack happening in Nairobi and you see how the government and the people on the ground and the people operating the drone come to this decision to bomb this building. It's basically offering up the audience both sides of whether drones are good or bad, which I think is quite a topical question.
Has the experience of making The Woman in Black: Angel of Death made you want to play a villain?
I'd love to play a villain! I always end up playing people that are quite goody-two- shoes. I would love to play someone who is a little bit evil. I think that would be really fun.
