Interview: Horror Director Tim Sullivan (Scream Queens 2, 2001 Maniacs, Driftwood)

Left: Katrina. Right: Tim.

Last night Scream Queens 2 finally aired the episode they were filming when I visited their set. In VH1’s Scream Queens reality competition, 10 aspiring actresses compete to win a role in a horror movie. The first season’s winner Tanedra Howard appeared in Saw VI and gets to return to that role for the upcoming Saw 3D, and this season’s winner will join her in that film.

 I’ve already posted interviews with the show’s producers Joke and Biagio and even with the competition’s winner (without divulging her identity – spoiler free), but I refrained from running my interview with competition judge and film director Tim Sullivan until now because Tim talked about a lot of things from throughout the series – and why spoil any of it for you ahead of time? Right before I spoke with him, I watched him fly across a set doing a Director’s Challenge stunt for episode 6.

Tim: You just got to see me yanked through the air, huh? 

Katrina: I did! And it was very cool. (to camera) You’re going to have to watch. You watch the whole season and you’ll see, it’s gonna be cool. All right, for those people who don’t know, can you explain a little bit about what your role is? 

Tim: On the show? 

Katrina: On the show. 

Tim: Well, the official title is Celebrity Director which makes me laugh a little bit because I don’t think of myself as a celebrity, but the show is designed to discover the next Scream Queen – which is a term that really doesn’t encompass what really a scream queen is. It’s not just somebody that can scream. It’s somebody who really has to act, somebody who has to be willing. Most horror films, a lot of them, are independent films. The one’s I’ve done – 2001 Maniacs, its sequel Field of Screams, Driftwood – were all done on a very tight budget and a tight schedule. So what we’re looking for here – and what my job is to nurture and judge – are actresses who not only, yes, look great but can act; can act if they have to be yanked through the air on wires or covered in maggots or carrying a seventy pound, twenty-five foot long python as they’re doing a striptease and still look sexy, before turning into a reptile woman? These are all challenges that we’ve done on this show. 

Tim: So, my job is to, each week, take them through a director’s challenge where I direct them in a scene, an original scene that could be from, a standard horror film, and then I take the girls through it. What we usually do is we let them come one the set and bring what they were gonna bring to the performance. I give them my notes, my direction, and then we see how well they listen to the redirect. And then the toughest part – it’s getting tougher and tougher as we’re getting down to the wire. Along with John Homa (our acting coach) and Jaime King (who is a great actress who puts the girls through skills tests each week), the three of us determine which girl goes home that week, which is the toughest part of my job. 

Katrina: Are there certain qualities you’re looking for in each contestant? 

Tim: Yes, there’s a lot of technical stuff. They have to be able to act and channel their emotions, as well as hitting their marks. Say we only have one dummy that gets exploded or one breakaway bottle or one chance to do this right. We need to know that they’re going to be able to do it on cue and do it right the first time. But the overall thing that I personally am looking for is passion. I believe passion is the fuel for anything that you do. If you’re lacking passion, it shows. I’m not looking for somebody who wants to be famous. I’m not looking for somebody who is just viewing the horror genre as a stepping stone to something they consider better. I’m looking for somebody who is passionate about the horror genre, who is ready to give their all to a horror film and is passionate about the craft – not being a celebrity, a poster on somebody’s locker room, or somebody who people follow on twitter or TMZ. 

Katrina: Right, right. So what made you decide to come do Scream Queens? 

Tim: Well, I was very humbled and honored to receive an invitation from the producers, Joke and Biagio. My dear friend, James Gunn, was the celebrity director of the first season, and he couldn’t do it this time around because he got a film called Super, which he’s filming right now. And it was perfect timing. I was in the final stages of the editing of 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams. I happened to have this time off. I was going to rest up after the strenuous shoot. And I got the call and I was a big fan of the first season. I knew that on this season they were even upping the ante and really, you know, reaching out to the horror community to really include them. We had Fangoria down on the set with Debbie Rochon doing a celebrity centerfold with the girls, which was great. 

Katrina: Wow. 

Tim: Even with my Maniacs films, you do it the first time and then the second time you see what people responded to and what they didn’t respond to. And I felt that Joke and Biagio were really making an effort to even top the first season, which already was terrific. 

Katrina: Yeah, it was. 

Tim: And I just had to be a part of it. And I’m so grateful that I was allowed to be a part of the show. 

Katrina: It was just in the stars. 

Tim: It was in the stars, yeah. 

Katrina: But no rest. 

Tim and Katrina together: No rest for the wicked. 

Katrina: So the show doesn’t just test what actresses can do already. It kind of sees if they can grow and become better. 

Tim: Yes, yes. 

Katrina: And how do you help do that? How do you help them do that? 

Tim: Well, that’s actually the most exciting part of the show and I think something that’s going to really be intriguing and captivating and entertaining to the viewers, is seeing the growth of these girls. So many of them have made amazing leaps and bounds of growth – their overall growth, which sometimes is just as simple as your physical look. Some of the actresses, some actresses and actors, have a certain look and that is not conducive to the imagination of a lot of people in Hollywood. Somebody comes in with a nose-ring and very heavy makeup looking like a Goth girl, that may be the only part they would get if they looked like that. It’s hard, in the casting process, for some people to say, “Imagine what she would look like without the nose-ring and with blond hair.” So one of the basic things is telling some, advising some of these girls, “Soften your look, change your look. Make yourself more of a blank canvas that we, the directors and filmmakers, can paint on.” 

Tim: Another thing is simply a big picture thing – in between, it’s trying – you can’t really teach intuition. But you have to stress the intuitive ability to hit your mark so that as you’re doing a scene, we don’t know that you’re counting, you’re trying to hit that tape line on the ground, or knowing that after you say a certain line you gotta look in a certain direction so the light catches your face. ‘Cause you can give a great performance but if your head’s not turned to the camera, it doesn’t capture it, it doesn’t count. 

Tim: One thing else I call, we call, is the life previous. Any time that we start a scene – and you have to remember these are not full length films we’re doing scenes – but I tell the girls you have to have, in your mind, a place where you’re coming from. So that when I say, “Action,” you don’t just spring to attention, like a robot that’s button was pressed on, but there was something that happened just before the scene that you’re coming from and something in the big picture of who your character is. It’s called your through-line, your intention. So that has been something we worked on a lot. In the beginning, I think a lot of the contestants weren’t really paying attention to that and now, they all are paying attention to that. 

Katrina: Awesome. I know, since this is a reality show, everything’s pretty tight-lipped. 

Tim: Yes. 

Katrina: But is there anything you can tell us about the upcoming season? 

Tim: Well, I will say this. I will say that just as everything has been amped up. I think that the contestants that Joke and Biagio picked for this season had more experience as actresses than the ones last season. Some of them were child stars, some of them worked on industrials, some of them did commercials. So the level of talent is greater. I will say that the thing I like most about this show is that they really have combined the best of several different reality shows. You’ve got the Real World aspect in that the girls really are living together and they’re under constant surveillance 24 hours a day, and the dynamic of the off-camera stuff comes in play. We definitely have the Fear Factor, you know, the stuff that we ask them to do. And I did make the mistake of telling Joke and Biagio that I would never ask an actor or actress to do something I wasn’t willing to do. That’s why you saw me flying in the air on wires today. So you’ve got Real World, Fear Factor, and the whole American Idol aspect where each week we’re judging and at the end somebody is going to be in Saw 3-D, which is a pretty big deal, you know? 

Katrina: It’s huge. 

Tim: And then the idea that it’s… For me, the biggest thing is that you got all those three factors and it all adds up to something that’s being done for the horror community. I mean, that’s the sandbox I play in. So it’s really wonderful to see a show, a reality show that’s catered to us horror fans. 

Katrina: All right, well, thank you so much for your time. 

Tim: And thanks to ActionFlickChick.com. 

Previous posts:
* Interview: Scream Queens 2 – The Winner!
* Interview: Producers Joke and Biagio
* The Making of Scream Queens 2: The Screaming Resumes!
* Action Flick Chick’s Adventures: Scream Queens 2
* Scream Queens 2: Return of the Queens