In Return to Silent Hill – the third installment in the Silent Hill film franchise – Jeremy Irvine portrays James Sunderland, a man tormented by the loss of his soulmate, Mary. But when a mysterious letter draws him back to the titular foggy town, James must unravel the truth behind her disappearance. As he confronts unspeakable monsters and creatures. James sanity begins to crack, disclosing a darkness lurking within himself. Directed by Christophe Gans, who previously helmed 2006’s Silent Hill movie, this chapter adapts the creepy Silent Hill 2 video game.
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Irvine recently spoke to ComicBook about his love of the Silent Hill game, bringing new depths to the character, monsters, James’ final fate and his cancelled Green Lantern series.
ComicBook: As someone who has invested hours and hours into playing the Silent Hill video game, what about that world’s narrative and visuals enthralled you?
Jeremy Irvine: It’s funny. I remember getting the email in my inbox about it. What I remember the most was the atmosphere and the feeling of the game. I was playing it when I was 14 or 15, I think. It had this deep, melancholic feeling to it. That really resonated with my teenage angst, at the time. It was more the atmosphere that I really remembered. It was a big part of my teenage life. I basically got the offer and thought, “Teenage me would have thought that was so cool,” so I took the job.
Trauma eats away at James. How did you go about tapping into that emotional pain and rawness in the movies, especially while you were running around those dimly-lit locations?
Hitting your mark is very important. No point in sobbing your heart out and not hitting your mark. You would be all out of focus. I went back to the game and was looking for inspiration. Actually, what I realized was when you are playing the game, the character of James in the game is like a blank canvas. You are playing it, so you are putting your feelings of playing it onto the character, whereas the movie is completely different. You, as the viewer, sit there expecting it all conveyed to you by the actor. I realized we needed to make James have much larger emotional range.
There were some new bits that I wanted to bring to it. We have to believe that he becomes the monster that he does, so he needed to have a darkness to him, as well. There needed to be something slightly on a sinister side to him, as well. There were a few moments I really wanted to get right, like the moment in the mirror and the rest stop. Those were iconic moments that I wanted to replicate. Most of the time, I just thought, “We need to add some layers for it to work in a movie.”
Fan-favorite nightmares the Nurses and Pyramid Head are ripped right from the video game. What was it like interacting with those iconic creatures and see them brought to life practically as opposed to CGI?
They were all practical. They were all amazing dancers and performance artists playing these creatures. They really were there, which was great cause God, I spent a lot of my career acting to a tennis ball at the end of a stick. It’s always fantastic when you get the real thing. I think audiences can tell, as well. When something is really there, there is some realism to it.
It was a Serbian ballet troop who played all the nurses. They were all terrifying until someone said “Cut,” and then they started giggling. The Armless was one that I really remembered from playing the game… and remembered being terrified. I did the first scene with the Armless and then they took their prosthetic hat off, or whatever, and it’s a beautiful Italian dancer underneath all that. It’s a strange juxtaposition of this terrifying creature that inside was this very pretty Italian dancer.
What about Pyramid Head, who is associated with this game?
That was very cool. The guy playing that did an excellent job. He is a professional. He does a lot of these creature roles and plays. He was a very intimidating character to play against. If I ever get to Comic Con, that would be my outfit.
The video game offers multiple endings depending on what path you go down. What are your thoughts on James’ final outcome? Did it feel appropriate or full circle?
I remember Christophe talking about the ending. I was always confused as to what was happening. I think that is kind of the point. It lets the audience decide what is going on there. In the game, you can finish the game and you can restart. It offers that world, or you can put your own meaning on it. This is why I think the games are so popular. The scope for interpretation is so enormous with this. If you go on Reddit and look up some Silent Hill threads, it’s just thousands and thousands of people arguing about what meant what and what was a metaphor for this. That’s the joy of it. It’s all a metaphor. The entire world of Silent Hill is a metaphor for different things. I think the ending of this is exactly in that vein.
You, as the audience, can decide what that means, where they are going in the end and is James still in the world of Silent Hill? Or is he out? It’s kind of open-ended and I quite like that. There is so much stuff on the moment on TV, where it’s just reams of exposition. I have worked on some jobs recently where the studio is so worried the audience won’t understand what is going on, so each scene you have to start with a character explaining where they’ve been and what they are doing. So, it’s quite refreshing to work in a world where it’s so open-ended and you, as the audience, can decide for yourself.
Looking back, you were once cast as Alan Scott in a version of the TV series Lanterns. What was that audition process like? What excited you about Greg Berlanti’s vision for the show?
Well, I am just a big fan of his. I love the scripts. I thought they were great. They had some fantastic people involved in it. I was very excited at the idea. I should preface. Signing up for projects and them not happening is everyday in our business. That happens all the time. There’s usually just not a press release first. This sort of thing happens all the time. There will be 20 projects this coming year I will sign up to and get the role, but they will never actually film. It was definitely one that I was very keen on. If they ever want me back, I will be here.
There is a lot of meat to the Alan Scott character. What were you eager to delve into?
I will be honest, mate. It was so long ago that I can’t remember. We are going back five or six years now. I do a lot of research for all my roles. You tend to go, “Ok, that’s not happening. On to the next one and the next one and the next one.” That’s sort of behind me.
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