Interview sur le tournage de ghost of mars

9:08 PM 7/18/00 Giving Up The Ghosts For Mars: Clea Duvall thinks JC is her wierdo dad, wotta revelation, from the always dependable IGN Movies.

Giving Up The Ghosts For Mars

Clea Duvall goes from lesbian cheerleader to John Carpenter's latest -- with weapons training, to boot.
July 17, 2000

Most folks had their first encounter with Clea Duvall via her portrayal as the tough-yet-shy Allison Reynolds-meets-Jo Polniaczek character she portrayed in 1998's The Faculty. Currently Duvall can be seen on the big screen in the off-kilter comedy But I'm A Cheerleader, starring opposite Natasha Lyonne. And if that weren't enough, she's now embroiled in the strenuous shoot for John Carpenter's upcoming outer-space ghostazoidal epic Ghost of Mars.

Duvall's part as Lyonne's rough-around-the-edges lover seems somewhat reminiscent to Stokely, the loner tomboy character she played in The Faculty. But don't call her a tomboy in real life. "I think tomboy is what you are when you are twelve. And I think it's a label that people like to slap onto people who don't wear dresses and make-up everyday. And I think it's very narrow and shallow and it's really kind of irritating."

While Duvall may find the whole "tomboy" label irritating, she'll soon be seen toting guns and kicking much ass given the fact that she recently landed a choice role in John Carpenter's upcoming joint, Ghost of Mars. "We started a few weeks ago," she explains. "We're in training and we have to work-out like 100 hours a day and weapons training."

Damn! That John Carpenter sounds like a slave driver. But Duvall sets the record straight. "We see him all the time and he's like very paternal," she says of the horror film veteran. "He's like my dad, like my weirdo director/father. [laughs]. I'm the youngest [in the cast] and he's very sweet to me."

Given that Carpenter is helming the flick and that it's got the words "ghost" and "mars" in the title and that the cast is undergoing weapons training bootcamp, does this mean that Duvall's character is gonna be an ass-kickin', gun-toting, take-no-prisoners type hardcore babe? "It's not so much like brute force as it is that she's just the best person in her whole class," Duvall explains of her character. "She's like the valedictorian of her police class and she's just the best, but she's a rookie and she's young and she's scared. She's definitely the most vulnerable person in the film."

And how was it making the transition from But I'm A Cheerleader and Girl, Interrupted to a bigger budget action/horror flick? "It's fun. I'm getting paid to get in shape and to shoot guns and it's fun."

Fun, that's an understatement. Imagine if you were 22, hangin' out with John Carpenter, makin' a film which also stars Ice Cube and Courtney Love. "Yeah," laughs Duvall. "And Pam Grier! Yes, you have to have like a platinum album to be in the film."

And given that Duvall has had a diverse range of roles including the lesbian lover in But I'm A Cheerleader, the loner tomboy heroine in The Faculty, and the tweaked young woman in Girl, Interrupted and is now rampaging against red planet's poltergeists, one can't help but wonder if she ever suffers from thespian schizophrenia.

No. I'm not that fanatical," she laughs.

-- Spence D. has never seen a ghost nor been to Mars, but he is the Senior Editor of IGN For Men