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Last week, I participated in a conference call with several other journalists hosted by A&E to promote Bag of Bones<\/em>, which premieres on Sunday, December 11. This is the first time I\u2019ve been involved in something like this. Basically it\u2019s a press conference, except it\u2019s done over the phone. While it seemed a little chaotic at first, once the moderator established the rules, everything fell into place. Each of us got to ask three questions in turn.<\/p>\n The interview guest was Annabeth Gish, who plays Jo Noonan in the two-part, four-hour miniseries, which is directed by Mick Garris and stars Pierce Brosnan, Gish, Melissa George and William Schallert. In case you haven\u2019t seen it already, here are the links to my three-part interview with Mick Garris, which was posted on FEARNet.com: Part 1<\/a>, Part 2<\/a>, Part 3<\/a>. Stay tuned later this week for my review of the miniseries, which I watched with my wife last week.<\/p>\n Gish previously appeared in Garris\u2019s 2006 TV movie Desperation<\/em>, where she played Mary Jackson. She received an offer for the part of Mike Noonan\u2019s wife, read the script and accepted the role, even though her character dies early in the movie. \u201cJo was so clearly drawn, and her essence is throughout the film, so in that sense she kind of resonates. I was automatically drawn to say \u2018yes\u2019 for several reasons. One is that I\u2019ve worked with the director, Mick Garris, before and I absolutely adore him. And, again, this is another Stephen King project for me and I respect him immensely. I just jumped at the chance.\u201d<\/p>\n Because of the nature of her role, her on-screen moments are almost entirely with Pierce Brosnan. She first met Brosnan during the photo sessions that gave rise to the Dark Score Stories<\/a> website before filming began. \u201cYou can get to know a little bit more about Jo and her paintings and her relationship to solving the Sara Tidwell murder . . . That was nice to get loose and to play, because we were supposed to be captured as in real life moments. That was really helpful to get to know each other.\u201d They also took a rowboat ride together, but she didn\u2019t feel it was necessary to process their relationship too much before the cameras rolled. \u201cHere\u2019s the thing about Pierce Brosnan that I can\u2019t say enough: He is a consummate professional and an actor. He would come so prepared, with so many diverse options and choices. He\u2019s such an impeccable actor and a great human being that what he brought was fantastic.\u201d A scene in which she lies on the dock with Brosnan was a personal highlight for her. \u201cHe\u2019s always been idol of mine from a young age,\u201d she says, remembering him for his days on Remington Steele<\/em>.<\/p>\n The fact that she was working with Garris for the second time helped, too. \u201cYou\u2019ve gotten all of the niceties out of the way. You\u2019re comfortable. You know each other. You know each other\u2019s styles. And Mick has such an open heart. My level of comfort with him was immense, and I trust him implicitly. I would do anything for him. Mick is such an exquisite filmmaker. He has this mastery of horror. Anything he did technically with this film, I trusted, and you knew it was going to be beautiful. Sometimes when you walk onto a set you know everyone is in accordance with the director. Everybody is getting the memo. Filming is working efficiently. That was the vibe whenever I worked.\u201d<\/p>\n Because she is the mother of two young children, she didn\u2019t relish the idea of spending a lot of time away from them, or taking them to Nova Scotia to live in a hotel. She says that everyone worked around her schedule. \u201cI had to take five separate trips to Halifax, but I was able to do only three and four days away from my sons. They were so considerate to me being a mom and knowing that I didn\u2019t want to leave my sons.\u201d<\/p>\n As for Nova Scotia, which doubles for Maine in the miniseries, she says, \u201cHalifax itself as a location was this murky, mysterious, lush landscape that really fit. I think it really gives a sense of the landscape and infuses the film throughout. Weather in that kind of coastal environment always can present a problem but it was beautiful. I would shoot in Halifax any time. I think it\u2019s such a gorgeous area of the planet and I would return there in a heartbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n The most difficult aspect of the miniseries for her was the fact that she had to convey her character\u2019s spirit. \u201cYou have a limited amount of time to convey a certain amount of feeling. Mick and I particularly talked a lot about Jo\u2019s essence and what needed to come as a kind of feeling state without words over the screen, which is really amorphous and difficult to execute.<\/p>\n To help capture her character\u2019s vibe, between scenes she often hung out in the set of Jo\u2019s studio and examined the paintings. \u201cThey are so kinetic and so emotionally turbulent that they were an immediate hook in for me to Jo. I love that. I have no painting\/artistic ability at all but just to take a brush and pretend and follow the strokes of this artist and imagine was inspiring. Pierce is a painter. He paints and draws. On an artistic level it made me think about taking a painting class, even though I\u2019m not good at it.\u201d<\/p>\n An early scene that has her underneath her bed was both psychologically disturbing and physically challenging. \u201cWe would get under the bed when we were children, but I don\u2019t know when I\u2019ve been under my bed recently. It was kind of a tight-quarters stunt that they actually did have to pull me with velocity from under the bed. I couldn\u2019t sleep that night thinking of a wife reaching out to her husband from beyond the living world. It\u2019s pretty scary. From a physical, visceral experience of filming, that was one of my favorite scenes.\u201d However, she says, the impact of such scenes doesn\u2019t stay with her long, \u201cMaybe I didn\u2019t sleep for a couple of nights, but after the movie it\u2019s gone. It hasn\u2019t affected my life.\u201d<\/p>\n She also had to undergo extensive makeup sessions. \u201cThis project has probably been one of the most physically challenging for me in the sense of the prosthetics. I had to do a four-hour make-up job three times and become the ghost of Jo. That was for me personally very scary. It was claustrophobic and you have to wear all of this gunk all over your body. That was challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n A scene involving a bus crash early in the movie was also challenging. \u201cIt was a short scene but it was a very difficult scene to shoot, not diminished by the fact that it was freezing cold and raining in Halifax that day. It was very emotional. To speak to Pierce\u2019s commitment level, he just went for it and brought his grief to life. It was emotional and wrenching.\u201d<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t read King\u2019s novel until after she read the script and had started working on the project. She pointed out some differences between the two that are necessary for \u201cthe economy of bringing such a large piece to the screen, to television.\u201d However, she continues, \u201cwhat I found so impressive in hindsight was how Matt [Venne], the screenwriter, really captured the extent of that universe, that world\u2014it\u2019s kind of like three worlds. It\u2019s Jo and Mike, and it\u2019s Mattie and Mike and then it\u2019s Sara Tidwell and Mike. There are some discrepancies but in general the essence of the project is very authentic and loyal to the book. The script was so tight once we went to production, and so good that our goal was just to be faithful to what we saw on the script pages.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/gish3.jpg?w=250&ssl=1\")
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<\/a>Though she only started reading King after doing\u00a0Desperation<\/em>, Gish has a copy of\u00a0On Writing<\/em>\u00a0on the nightstand in her bedroom, and is currently reading\u00a0Lisey\u2019s Story<\/em>, which see describes as \u201cphenomenal.\u201d\u00a0She says that King\u2019s books translate well into film \u201cbecause he always has character at the heart of his horror. There is always a real human struggle within these extravagant, horrific circumstances. It\u2019s reality pulled out to its most dramatic stakes. What Stephen King does so masterfully is the human element. He does love. He\u2019s really an expert at writing about love, which is probably why all of his horror is so good.\u201d She says that the miniseries \u201cis not just a horror film or a mystery project or a thriller or a love story\u2014it\u2019s all of them. People will, on a purely entertainment level, be able to sit down, get a little scared, have a few tears, freak out and fall in love with these people.\u201d<\/p>\n