Danielle Panabaker is easily becoming one of my favorite actresses to interview, not just because she’s a nice and insightful person to talk to, but also because she tends to work on the kind of films I’m drawn to – horror films. And not just any horrors film, rather, pieces that offer a fun kind of scare. Back in 2009 she starred in the remake of Friday the 13th and then, last year, in one of my favorite films of 2010, The Crazies, and now she’s in John Carpenter’s The Ward.

Panabaker plays Sarah, one of four patients Kristen (Amber Heard) meets when she’s unwillingly admitted to the North Bend Psychiatric Hospital. Iris (Lyndsy Fonseca) is bright and welcoming, Zoey (Laura-Leigh) a little on the shy side, Emily (Mamie Gummer) a bit too friendly and then there’s Sarah who’s, well, not particularly nice to anyone. Regardless, when a malicious entity makes its presence known, the girls must work together to survive.

To promote the film’s July 8th release, Panabaker took some time to tell us all about her experience making The Ward from working with Carpenter and her co-cast to her own personal preparation and feelings about the horror genre in general. Check it all out and more below.

Can you tell me about your audition process and how you got the role?
I was on set working on The Crazies and I had met [producer] Doug [Mankoff], I believe and a couple other people at Echo Lake before I’d left town and while I was on set on The Crazies, my manager sent me the script for The Ward and said take a lot at it. I flew back to town for a weekend to meet with John [Carpenter] at the Hamburger Hamlet and chat and he offered me the role of Sarah.

Did already being in that horror mind frame help you make the transition?
It did! Up until a couple years ago, I didn’t really know a lot about the horror genre, but I had done enough research and was actually really nervous and excited to meet with John because he has such an incredible library of work. He’s accomplished so much. What he did with Halloween, I’m just so impressed by, with such a small budget and it was so successful. So I was actually really excited and a little bit nervous to meet with him the first time. And he could have been more friendly and engaging and it was great.

So after getting the role, what was your preparation process like before you got to set? Did you do anything beyond working on the script?
I think both in the rehearsal process and each of us individually did a little bit of research into what it would be like being in a mental institution and how that effects each of these characters specially. I don’t want to give too much away, but we all definitely did research and John brought a lot of material including actual footage of someone going through electroshock therapy, so we all came with our A game.

Can you tell me more about working with John? What’s his routine like when it comes to shooting a scene?
My experience was really positive. Before we even got on set we had several days of rehearsal just going through the script and all working on our individual roles and that sort of thing. So by the time we got to set, John is an older gentlemen and he doesn’t like to shoot extremely long days, so I feel like he came really prepared, he knew what he wanted to shoot and our days were not long at all. That was a really great experience for me just in terms of actually being on set because, you know, it wasn’t as brutal as other sets I’ve been on in terms of the hours. John’s really prepared, he knows what he wants, and once he gets it, he’s ready to move on. He doesn’t need to do 100 takes just to make sure, maybe he missed something and maybe there’s something else; he expects all his actors to come prepared, knowing their stuff and knowing their character and deliver the best performance.

Shorter days means less takes, so is that something you’re okay with? Do you like the pressure?
I really love that. For me, it’s great to know that my director has faith in me to do the job that he’s hired me to do. I loved it. I think there were other actors on our set who were accustomed to a little bit more feedback from a director, but I loved it. It worked great for me.

Does he give much feedback? Is it verbal or does he like to give you notes?
It’s very sort of simple, “It’s good. Moving on.” Not a lot of elaborate praise and if he didn’t get it, he’d definitely talk you through what he was looking for and what he wasn’t getting.

So now how was it working in that location? You were shooting in a working mental facility, right?
Yes, fully operational mental hospital. The building we shot in, it’s not like our building was abandoned. We were on the top floor and the floor below us had people I think doing more administrative work than anything, but it was definitely fully functioning. It was interesting. The first couple of days they had someone come in and say, ‘Here’s the procedure, here are your badges, sign here, this basically says if anything happens to you, we aren’t responsible,’ and go through the procedure of what happens if we go into lockdown. Basically lock your trailer doors, no one’s coming in after you. It was really fascinating.

That sounds very appropriate for helping you get into character for this.
Yes, it was! It was crazy. There was one day we were shooting outside and we could hear someone being checked in against their will. There’s nothing like those wails of someone being checked into the hospital who just did not want to be there.

I was going to ask if the material gave you nightmares, but maybe it was the reality that stuck with you. Does this type of stuff keep you up at night?
I am really nervous to watch horror movies because they do, they definitely give me the heebie-jeebies and give me nightmares. Working on them is a little different for me because I feel like I know what to expect so they’re not as scary, but I’ve only seen this film once and that was over a year ago and it was quite a – oh, no, that’s not true; I saw it in Toronto as well. It’s difficult films for me to watch even though I know what to expect and when things are coming.

SPOILER ALERT FOR THE WARD AND THE CRAZIES

Speaking of which, here’s where we’re getting into spoiler territory, what’s it like for you watching your own death? And at this point, I think I remember seeing you die in three films.
It sounds very sick and perverse, but it can be kind of fun. It’s totally fantastic and not based in reality, so it’s been fun. I’ve been lucky to have some really cool deaths. I mean, my death in The Crazies I think is pretty fun. In a sort of perverse way, it’s fun to see that fantastic element of moviemaking; it’s not real. And again, I’ve been very lucky.

How is it preparing for a moment like that? Do you have to do anything different as compared to when you’re getting ready to shoot one of those scenes in the common room with the other girls? Do you have to get yourself in a different mind frame?
Hm, I don’t know. Yes, I think the physical act of dying is interesting and the last breaths you take and that sort of thing, so paying attention to that and being as authentic of an actress as possible, but I think that’s the greatest challenge that it presents because, you know, I’ve never obviously died so I don’t know exactly what that would feel like. As an actor I think you have two pools, you have your own experiences to draw from and your own imagination and a situation like that is definitely something that calls more for imagination than anything.

But some of it isn’t left to the imagination because your death involves what I imagine to be some pretty intensive makeup work. How’s it adding in those production elements, too?
That makeup process was tedious. I think John got a little bit frustrated with it because it was something that they hadn’t actually seen because it required so many special effects, they said they had showed a little bit of it prior to the actual shooting of it, but they hadn’t really practiced with me because the final special effects are labor intensive and expensive. I think Lyndsy [Fonseca] actually has a great photo of me just covered in blood. That was a more tedious day of shooting because there were several stages of makeup that were required to accomplish that. Resetting and setting them over and over again was a bit time consuming.

END SPOILER ALERT

How was it working with your co-cast? I spoke to Lyndsy the other day and she said you all got to hang out a bit and have some fun, too, so how did that effect your on screen relationship?
It absolutely is helpful. It’s funny, I said to John in our initial meeting, I said, ‘Have you considered the fact that you’re about to bring five or six young actresses who are all roughly the same age range in a very competitive industry and stick them together in a hotel and hope that they get along?’ I really asked him if he was concerned about it at all and he said, ‘No,’ which I thought was brave of him. But it actually wasn’t a problem. We were all professional and we did, we got along really well. We are all professionals and we showed up and we did our job and it was fortunate that we did get along as well. We’d go hang out, go see movies, but it wasn’t a huge town, so the hotel was amazing and we spent a lot of time there with each other and that sort of thing.

So how did that translate to the relationship on screen? Especially because you’re character isn’t the nicest one of the bunch.
It’s funny. Amber [Heard] said something when I saw her back in LA months later. She said, ‘My only memory of you is being snooty and putting lipstick on.’ [Laughs] She didn’t say my only memory, but she just said, ‘I remember you being snooty,’ and that sort of thing. So I think my on camera relationship with the girls is a little different than my off camera one. But there definitely is an element of familiarity that I think you do see.

Is it more fun playing the meaner one?
It was great. It was really fun. It was something I hadn’t done before and that was really appealing to me when I took the role and I had a great time. It’s fun to get to push the boundaries like that.

What’s next for Panabaker? Click here to see what she had to say about her other upcoming film, the November 2011 release Piranha 3DD.

By Perri Nemiroff