![[Interview] Catherine Hardwicke for CABINET OF CURIOSITIES](https://www.nightmarishconjurings.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/dreams.jpg)
Recently, Nightmarish Conjurings’ Shannon McGrew chatted with Director Catherine Hardwicke for her segment, “Dreams in the Witch House,” based on the short story of the same name by H.P. Lovecraft. In her segment, as a boy, Walter (Rupert Grint) watched his twin sister Epperly die of an illness. When her moment of passing finally happened, he witnessed her enter a forest dimension sending him on a lifelong quest to find the realm she entered.
During their chat, they discussed everything from designing the three separate locations featured in “Dreams in the Witch House,” tackling the creature design with mostly practical effects, and the overall theming of Hardwicke’s segment.
Hello Catherine, it’s such a pleasure to be speaking with you today. As a huge fan of Lovecraft’s work, I must ask, prior to coming on to this project, were you familiar with his story, Dreams in the Witch House? Or were you going in blind?
Catherine Hardwicke: I had not read this exact story, cause he has written a lot of stuff. When they sent it to me, it was the first draft of Mika Watkins’s script, I immediately went and read the story. I was like wow, she really added quite a lot to it – interesting characters, motivations, and it still kept the fantastic witch, the rat, and the atmosphere of the house, which just blew my mind when I read the story. I was just mesmerized by it. Lovecraft wrote a Bible for the sound designer in that script. I’m like, damn we’ve got a lot to live up to [this] because the descriptions were so dense and beautiful. When I read the [story], I heard the rat skittering around. I heard the house creaking and moaning and groaning. That was so fun.
Your segment features three main areas: there’s the real world, the forest world, and then the house. When creating these areas, how much say did you have in the design?
Catherine Hardwicke: One thing that was great was yes, I had a lot of say in creating. That was the cool thing about Guillermo. He’s like, I want the directors to dive in and make it their own. And besides that, he gave us the best production designers in the world and the best costume designers in the world. They were both nominated for Academy Awards for Nightmare Alley. [We also had] the resources and a beautiful team in Toronto that could make any tree and any texture and any creepy thing on the wall.
Since I used to be a production designer, I’m like, oh my God, did I just die and go to heaven here? [Laughs]. They were very collaborative. It’s not like they were like, we know what to do and you can’t have any input. I’d come up with ideas and we had jam sessions with the costume designer and the production designer just building on ideas and layers. So that just made it super fun because it was so collaborative. I mean, really a dream job for somebody like me that comes from a design background.

Coming from the Harry Potter franchise, Rupert Grint has really found his footing as an actor, especially within the horror genre. What was the process like in bringing him on for the role of Walter?
Catherine Hardwicke: You always make a dream list and I put him on there. He was the odd man out on the list, which made me want him because he really stands out. And then, when you think about Rupert, we’ve grown up with him or we’ve seen him grow up. We know his childlike nature and he still has that. But now he’s older so, he’s got these layers that just really work for his character. You can see that he’s just almost frozen in time, mentally on one level thinking about his sister, but then on the other level, it looks like, to me, he has that weariness in his face that he stays up all night researching. He just seemed almost perfect for [the role]. His level of curiosity, his intensity, every moment I cared about what he was feeling. He really draws you in.
Let’s talk about the creature design. What was the design process like? Did you stick with more practical effects over CGI? Though I assume the rat was CGI?
Catherine Hardwicke: Actually, the rat face is practical! That’s DJ Qualls and he is wearing prosthetics, including hair for ears. He’s actually performing that character, Jenkins, and then that’s married onto a CGI body of a rat. That was Guillermo’s idea to have a real actor play this character. Even as we started to fall in love with the rat, with Jenkins, of course, we gave him more lines and more to do ’cause he was so fun and wicked, you know? Guillermo has this incredible team and the first concept sketches were just mesmerizing. And then you’ve got the guys that carry it through. Sometimes they cry, Oh my God we’ve got to do what the sketch artist did? [Laughs].
I went to visit the creature team at the laboratory here in LA and they showed me textures and pieces that were gonna go on the real actress, Lize Johnston, who’s very good, too. She really has great movement. So she’s got all the prosthetics on her and it’s all real, except obviously she did not have fire in her eyes [Laughs]. That’s the only part that we had to add later. But the idea was that she’s been almost petrified. So that’s why we have the tree root and the vines growing into the house because she’s basically melded into a tree.
To bring this all full circle, what are you most excited for people to experience with your segment?
Catherine Hardwicke: I think some of the themes were… one life lesson for Rupert’s character would be at some point you got to move on. Let it go. Do not stay too deep in your obsession. It’s also like the birth of a little monster, a serial killer. So, I hope it’s fun. I mean, to me it’s very entertaining and I did not know where the story was going to go. I love the idea of obsession and where can obsession lead to. And how blocking out the rest of the world might not be the best path for most people.
All 8 episodes of Guillermo del Toro’s CABINET OF CURIOSITIES are available to stream on Netflix. For more on the series, check out our review.
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