13 Sins premiered at the South by Southwest film festival, where we interviewed director Daniel Stamm and co-star Ron Perlman. Mark Webber is the star of 13 Sins as Elliott, a groom to be who loses his job and can’t afford his father’s retirement home or his brother’s special care, let alone his wedding. When a mysterious caller offers him a fortune for performing 13 tasks, beginning with killing and eating a fly, Elliott goes for it.
With 13 Sins opening in theaters this weekend, after its VOD premiere in March, I got to speak with Webber. Webber is also a director himself, having written and directed the autobiographical The End of Love and the drama Explicit Ills. He also stars in Joe Swanberg’s Happy Christmas, Lynn Shelton’s Laggies and Blumhouse’s Jessabelle, so we talked about it all. Spoilers for some of the tasks in 13 Sins follow.
CraveOnline: You have this interesting network of costars that you’ve worked with and then you’ve directed them also. Is that right?
Mark Webber: Yeah, a lot of people that I’ve worked with throughout the years can end up being in my movies somehow, some way.
But 13 Sins wasn’t really connected to that group, was it?
No, it wasn’t. This was something I had to go in and fight for. I read the script and loved it and I thought it’d be such an amazing part to play, such a clear kind of crazy journey. I had to go in and I met with Daniel first and we had a great meeting. I was hoping that’d be it but of course I had to go audition. A lot of other guys auditioned for the role. Those are the ones where you have to really pull it all together and give all of me to try to get this thing. I’m glad it worked out. Daniel was really great. When you meet a director that you know really cares about what he does and he’s doing it because he wants to make cool movies, not because he wants to be a famous director, then you know, at least for me, I’m working with someone that I know cares and makes me feel like we can really explore things together and do interesting work.
When you were auditioning, were there other people you were up against who had carried movies like this before, who might’ve been a “safer” bet?
Yeah, I think there were actually. There were definitely a couple guys I thought, “Oh, well, you know, they’re just going to offer it to him.” In my mind I was like, “Oh, you know, he might be pretty good for it.” Of course I’m glad that they didn’t do that, not just because I got to be in the movie but also because it’s just more interesting to me. It’s weird to talk about myself in the third person I guess but I think one of the reasons this movie works in the way it does is that you’ve got a guy like myself who hasn’t really made a ton of genre films, certainly hasn’t been the lead of an action thriller movie before, and I have a particular way of working and way that I like to that. Folding that into a movie, a genre film like this that has a tendency to go big, the fact that me and Daniel approached it from more of a nuanced level with the characterization and rooting it in our own sense of reality I think is why the film feels a bit different, and to me why it works and succeeds in a particular way.
What is that particular way you like to work?
I like the keep it real. I’m the obsessed with reality guy. I like the moments in between the takes. I like real vulnerability and I like trying to put up on screen things that are really rooted in real emotions that we can all identify with in a way that I think can strike you, as opposed to a really great performance of someone who’s sad and depressed and the obvious choices that would be made there. Really taking a look at the interesting little things that happen with people and trying to put that up on screen I guess. I always approach things grounded in truth and nuanced. I lean more towards subtle than big which is why it was fun to go big in this film. It took me out of my comfort zone a bit but I think it struck a balance.
How do the moments between takes end up on screen?
It’s like a feeling. In between takes, I guess what I’m alluding to is the connection and a willingness to fail and be vulnerable with whoever you’re performing with in a scene in front of your director, in front of your DP, in front of the gaffer, in front of everyone who’s kind of standing around. Actors have a tendency to really [work] when the camera’s rolling and they’re doing this thing and working real hard to get this one thing just right and then it’s cut. Then I might say the line to myself and I feel like I didn’t get that moment, and then I do something and I’m trying to figure it out without the cameras rolling and it’s great. I think what was great for everyone involved in the movie, me and Devon [Graye] and Tom [Bower] and Ron [Perlman] is that we all, I felt, were really comfortable with one another. No one was really judging anybody. There wasn’t any crazy egos and people were willing to roll up their sleeves and get vulnerable and get real with one another. It was fun for me to do that.
Were any of the scenes in 13 Sins really fun to do, like destroying the rehearsal dinner?
Oh yeah, literally every single scene in this movie was fun for me to do. That’s why when I read it and all the challenges, I’m like okay, I’m Mr. Independent Film Guy, I make movies about relationships. I’m quite often in a love story and this is, I get to break things. I get to set a church on fire. I get to cut a guy’s arm off. Yeah, the breaking stuff scene was definitely by far the most cathartic, amazing moment I’ve ever had. I didn’t want it to end. I wanted it to just keep going and going and going, and I was grateful that we had more than one take to do it.
If it was cathartic, what were you getting out besides what was in the movie?
I don’t know, man. Years of darkness. [Laughs] Years of dark, twisted sadness.
Was the actor playing the dead body really dead weight for you to carry?
Yeah, it was crazy. You know what was crazy too, he was the most bubbly vivacious sweetheart of a man. He literally was bouncing off the walls. He was a chatterbox. I mean, he really wouldn’t shut up. He would just keep going and going and going, and just a sweetheart. Then you’d be like, “Okay, we’re rolling” and then he’s just excellent at being a corpse. And he was heavy. He’s a stunt guy. He’s ripped, he’s muscular, he’s heavy. It was really fucking difficult. I’d be lugging him around, trying to pick him up and then we’d yell cut and he was back into this story about his life. It made it really challenging. You’re supposed to be dead, man, and now I have this profound connection with you and you’re heavy. It was hard.
And the little girl who you have to make cry, did you and Daniel explain that to her ahead of time? I guess it wasn’t her real parents anyway so she already knew she was acting.
Yeah, but it still was really awkward, man. It was really awkward. That was awkward. That was a difficult one. I have two kids now. I had just one at the time and so I get real sensitive about that kind of stuff. So I definitely felt very dirty doing that. I’m like, “Aw, man.” I really overcompensated in between takes and her mom was around and we’re all just having a good time, making sure that we’re all clear we’re making a movie here.
Did they make a fake fly for you to eat or did you go Nicolas Cage on that one?
Oh yeah, I’m a vegetarian. Daniel’s a vegetarian. Literally, pun intended, Daniel wouldn’t hurt a fly and he didn’t. He searched all over New Orleans, this is for real, for dead flies. So we had a stand-in dead fly that actually wasn’t killed for the scene and then what I ate was a little bit of an Oreo cookie, a little Oreo cookie crumb. It was very nonviolent in the fly scenario. Then in the car I was acting up a storm. No fly in the car, just pretending.
Do you know my reference? Nicolas Cage in Vampire’s Kiss ate a real cockroach.
Did he?
Yeah, two takes. That must have been the Humane Association rules.
Yeah, man, I’m surprised he didn’t get a lot of backlash from that. Wow, really, he ate two cockroaches.
I mean, you should see Vampire’s Kiss anyway because it’s an amazing performance, but that’s what it’s known for.
I’m a Nic Cage fan, man. That dude, man, he’s done some things. I’m going to totally see it.
If you have not seen Vampire’s Kiss, then you haven’t even seen Nicolas Cage yet.
Really? I can’t wait.
I’m a fan too and I can’t believe it took me this long to see it, it’s from 1988, but when I finally saw it I couldn’t believe what I was watching.
Oh my God, thank you. I can’t wait. I can’t wait. That’s great.
I was a big fan of Goodbye World too and all those characters are so distinct. Do you think Benji was addicted to protest? He couldn’t just be happy being settled.
Yeah, that could be one way of looking at it. He’s a fighter, man. He’s a fighter. He needs to keep going. He feels an immense responsibility. He can’t just sit around in a little cabin in the middle of the woods. He’s got to go carry on with his fight, for sure.
I did not get a chance to see Happy Christmas or Laggies at Sundance. What do you get to play in those films?
Happy Christmas was awesome. I love that movie, I’m super stoked on it. I play Anna Kendrick’s drug dealing babysitter boyfriend, who helps her get accustomed to living in Chicago. Then in Laggies I’m Keira Knightley’s long term boyfriend who’s a bit, I’m judging the character, he’s a bit cheesy. Well, not cheesy. I don’t know what the right word is. He means well. He’s just, I don’t know, I guess when I look at him I’m like, “You’re a little pathetic, man.” But he proposes to Keira and that scares the shit out of her, so she runs away and ends up hanging out with Chloe Moretz for the entirety of the film, lying to me telling me she’s on some self-help retreat thing. That was a super fun movie to make. I’m a really, really big fan of Lynn’s. Keira is extraordinary. Chloe’s amazing and Sam Rockwell’s one of my all time favorite actors. I’ve always wanted to end up in a movie with him.
Were those the first times you worked with Joe Swanberg and Lynn Shelton?
Yeah, it was actually. That all came out of Sundance 2012.
You were there with The End of Love. Do they work similar to the way you do when you direct?
Yes, there is definitely, it’s a real collaborative effort. It’s really all about having a mutual admiration and respect for who you’re working with on a base level that kind of is there and there’s a sense of responsibility for what that means. Joe, for instance, really knew my work. He knew he was working with me and I’m also a director. Lynn, same kind of thing. We all know what we’re getting into and people’s styles, so that’s taken into consideration and I think it allows us all to go deeper and just get deeper really I guess is the best way to put it. There’s a real feeling of, I know Lynn and Joe are really incredibly grateful to be able to do what they do and make films and share them with people. So it’s fun. There’s a real sense of fun and wonder, exploratory aspect of making movies with Joe and Lynn, and also with myself in a way. There’s a lot of discovery that happens on set which is exciting and challenging.
Was Jessabelle anything like making 13 Sins because it was another horror movie?
Yes and no. Actually, it was different. Kevin [Greutert], having been an editor for so long, there’s a certain specificity that he brought to the setups and things like that. It felt a bit more refined in the process, in a really good way. And also too, the movie has a big supernatural element so there’s a lot that was resting on us as actors to cultivate a certain level of fear and suspense and tension on our own from looks and things like that.
Whereas a movie like 13 Sins is in your face. There’s actually really a dead guy on my arms, I’m running around with a gun in my hand kind of losing it, and I’m really being chased. Whereas Jessabelle is about what’s not there so it’s a different way of having to act and sustain and create fear which was cool. It was really challenging. I hadn’t really done anything like that before. I’m excited for that to come out. It’s gotten pushed back a couple times because Blum is such a powerhouse, man. He makes so many of these films, he’s got to schedule around his other movies.
Yeah, Oculus just came out. And Kevin came from the Saw franchise so is Jessabelle a very different approach for him?
Yeah, totally. I think it would be fair to have certain comparisons between Saw and 13 Sins, not in Jessabelle at all. Some of the upfront gore in moments, there are a few of them in 13 Sins, but there isn’t really anything like that in Jessabelle. So It’s a bit of a departure for him in that way which made it really exciting.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
