Raquel Laguna/ SUCOPRESS. Vaughn Stein directs Cellar Door, starring Jordana Brewster, Scott Speedman, Laurence Fishburne. In this interview, Vaughn talks about his film. The movie explores themes of curiosity, grief, and the consequences of temptation. Stein also talks about working with Jordana and Scott, and about the most challenging aspect of directing the movie. In Cellar Door, looking for a fresh start after a miscarriage, a couple (Brewster and Speedman) find themselves being gifted the house of their dreams from a wealthy homeowner (Fishburne) with one caveat - they can never open the cellar door. Whether they can live without knowing triggers shocking consequences. Cellar Door, in select theaters and on digital November 1st.
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00:00I have to say, I know everyone always says this, but I was completely hooked by the script. I
00:06loved the... there was a simplicity to it, there was an elegance. In your question,
00:11you talked about temptation and you talked about... there is something about temptation,
00:18there's something about this story that is... it's tale as old as time, right? It goes back
00:23to the Garden of Eden, this Faustian bargain. What do we do? How do we perform? Do we crumble
00:30under temptation? I think for me, the way that this script presented that question
00:36in such an elevated and contemporary manner, within this dark thriller, there is that central
00:43question. What would you do? What would you give to make all your dreams come true? But what would
00:48be the result of that? And it just hooked me to be able to explore themes like that in such a
00:55thrilling way, in such a straight line, almost like a dark fairy tale. It really hooked me in
01:00that way. I think it was very different. I think it didn't... it's a really good question. I think
01:08for me, what I wanted to do was, I wanted to tell this story in a way that was sort of very truthful
01:15to the mystery. And Laurie, the writer, had written such a beautiful script, and I was so
01:20lucky to have this incredible triptych of actors in Giordano and Scott Lawrence that could tell
01:27this really intense, quite gothic parable, almost, this sort of cautionary tale, this warning,
01:37that I wanted to be very true to that. And I think in terms of the way that we...
01:42the way that the camera language, the sort of the cinematic grammar that we employed,
01:46like the choices we made in terms of production design, it was all very much in service of that.
01:52It's a modern fairy tale. It's a what-if story. It's the, as I said, that Faustian bargain. How
01:58do we take this sort of timeless story and make it feel current and modern and exciting and
02:05mysterious for an audience? That was very... I would say that was the approach I took for sure.
02:11It's a great script. It's lean and mean, and it's emotionally rich. Look, it's a thriller.
02:20It has to hit its genre beats, but there's a depth of character and a subtlety to it that
02:27I think attracted all of us. It's why we chose to do it. When you have actors as brilliant as
02:32Jordana and Scott, who give so much and who had this amazing chemistry together, whether it was
02:41a loving chemistry or a confrontational chemistry or a suspicious chemistry,
02:46they were so good together. They worked so well together and they bounced off each other.
02:51And I think for me as a filmmaker, that's the secret sauce. That's the magic ingredient. When
02:55you have actors who are able to do that, I'm very blessed in terms of... I have this wonderful DP,
03:01Michael Merriman, and the way he composes shots, the way he frames, he creates that air of mystery,
03:07of intrigue, of suspicion, of sex, of allure, whatever it is. But it's up to those actors to
03:13elevate it, to fill the frame, to draw the audience in. And Jordana and Scott were just
03:20phenomenal at it. They were such a pleasure to work with. The thing for me that I really enjoyed
03:26is this idea that we all have our cellar. There is somewhere in all of us where we lock it
03:32away. The lies, the secrets, the deceits. There's a part in all of us that
03:40we don't want anyone to look. And the idea that the cellar door, within the cellar door,
03:47the cellar door, could represent that to an audience. As a watcher, as an audience member,
03:53I love it when you walk out the cinema and you're having that conversation in front of
03:58the popcorn stand and everyone's bouncing off each other. They get that feeling of,
04:02would you open it? Wouldn't you open it? What was in there? Was anything in there?
04:07Was it Sarah's cellar door? Was it John's cellar door? I love those questions being posed. And I
04:11think that really drove me as a filmmaker. There is so much entrenched symbolism in the cellar door.
04:19But I think the most interesting thing for me is this idea of, again, this is a spoiler,
04:28but not revealing. What is in that cellar is in all of us. It's our deepest, darkest fears,
04:34our deepest, darkest shames, our deepest, darkest secrets. And this couple, this loving, tight,
04:43very nurturing couple in Sarah and John, it effectively destroys their marriage. It drives
04:51John almost crazy and turns Sarah into someone else. And I think that's a really fascinating
04:57thing to explore. Yes, I would 100% open the door. I would pretend I wouldn't. I'd pretend I'd be
05:02strong. And two days after I signed the contract, I'd be down there with a jackhammer, hair
05:08everywhere. Yeah, no, I couldn't do it. I think I could, but I couldn't. The biggest challenge,
05:15I think really being true to it, believing in the brilliance of the script. I was so lucky to
05:23have Lawrence and Giordano and Scott, who did as well. And it was creating a mystery for the
05:30audience, trusting the audience to go on the journey, to be on the roller coaster with us.
05:35And we really wanted to do that. We wanted to make a heightened, dark thriller that had this
05:41sort of central, almost like fairytale quality at its heart. And that was the big challenge.
05:46That's what we wanted to do.