Rainn Wilson talks working through claustrophobia in tense 'Don't Tell a Soul'
In the tense and twisty new movie Don't Tell a Soul, Rainn Wilson plays Mr. Hamby, a security guard who finds himself stuck in a hole, literally.
After falling down an abandoned well while chasing two thieving brothers, Wilson's character spends the bulk of the movie underground. He recently spoke to Yahoo Entertainment, saying, "We shot for about 20 days and maybe 10 or 12 of them I was in that hole. And it was real dirt and it was real wet."
Wilson added that he would at times feel claustrophobic, but thankfully could duck out of a side hatch to get some fresh air.
Video Transcript
[LAUGHTER, MUSIC PLAYING]
- Desperate men do desperate things.
- Goddamn it, shut up.
- No, [INAUDIBLE]. Yo, please.
- You'll thank me when it's done.
[SCREAM, THUD]
KEVIN POLOWY: I really dug this. It is a intense morality tale. It's a twisty thriller. It keeps you guessing till the end. Tell us a little bit about what intrigued you from the get-go about "Don't Tell a Soul."
RAINN WILSON: When they sent me the script, they were like, "You're going to spend the entirety of this shoot at the bottom of a hole. How does that sound?" I was like, sign me up. Sign me up.
Listen, it's exactly what you said. I started reading the script. It's a real pager turner. You know, I've read a lot of scripts that have twists and turns and are-- have, kind of, horror elements, and surprise elements, and stuff like that, and that's all fine and well. But what struck me was how deep the character psychology was as well, so you can have it both.
KEVIN POLOWY: How much time would you say over the course of the whole production did you spend in that well?
RAINN WILSON: It was one of the things when I was starting to get involved I was asking them about. Like, how are you going to shoot this? I mean, it's a guy in a hole for a good hour of the movie. Well-- I mean, we shot for "well"-- we shot-- get it?
KEVIN POLOWY: I got it.
RAINN WILSON: "Well"-- we shot-- sorry, dad jokes. We shot for about 20 days and maybe 10 or 12 of them I was in that hole. So it was a lot. And it was real dirt and it was real wet. It was tough. It was some hard, physical work. It was not a cushy job like sitting at a desk in "The Office."
- You did what? Argh!
RAINN WILSON: And I'm pretty claustrophobic, so-- but I knew that at any point in time I could just kind of dive out that little door and I'd be fine. It was ingenious. They had this above ground hole that they built that was, like, 30, 40 feet deep. And the camera crew could be on the platform way shooting down. And I went into a little hatch, and I crawled in this little hatch, and they'd close the hatch. And then I would get some mud and pack it so you didn't see the door frame.
KEVIN POLOWY: You said you are slightly claustrophobic. Did you ever have to, like, tap out of that situation?
RAINN WILSON: Well, you know how it is when you have those kind of fears of, kind of, like-- I'm-- like, you look around and you're really truly at the bottom of a 40-foot hole and you're, like, I'm in a hole. I'm in a hole. I'm in a ho-- oh, there's a hatch. Right, I'm fine, whew. So I, kind of, hit that freak-out threshold and then I would be reminded of my real physical circumstances.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
