Brenton Thwaites is no stranger to the film industry, and certainly not massive, intensive film productions. Over the past decade the 30-year-old actor has decorated his resume with roles in films like _Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales_, _The Giver_, _Gods of Egypt,_ and more.
In his newest project, he plays Chris, an American soldier fighting in the final years of World War II. Teamed up with four other soldiers, the men are ordered to hold down a French chateau previously controlled by the Nazi high command. Things take a dark, haunted turn when they experience an unknown evil.
Read our discussion with the Australian actor to discuss the creative process and psyche that gave way to the film, which is now viewable in Virtual Cinema Screenings, On Demand and Digital.
**I’m sure it’s a very different experience having a movie come out during a global pandemic, what’s that been like?**
Yeah, it is definitely different. I mean, I guess we’re lucky we have such a platform where a movie can be released in a global pandemic. You know, there was once a time where the cinematic release held the film up to this place where it was a fail or hit the cinemas or not. And now we’re in a time where, thankfully, we can still release the film and hopefully a lot of people see it from their couches instead of the cinema.
**_Ghosts of War_ has been in the talks in the media since the beginning of 2017. What is it like to see it finally released to the world three years later?**
Oh, it’s great. I mean, it’s wonderful to see a movie come out no matter how further down the track that I am or no matter how long ago we shot it. It is really wild to do horror movies, because in the production, the challenges of the technicalities, for example doing multiple takes to make the blood splatter right or try and physically be able to be drowned by a ghost and have a character stay under the water, the multiple challenges involved in shooting a horror movie kind of prevent you when you’re making it from getting involved in the cause and effect of what you’re actually making. So, seeing it for the first time I was genuinely just terrified, I was peeking through my fingers thinking, “Gee, I don’t know if we shot this. This is crazy.” Which is the same reaction I had when I watched _Oculus_. I’m a little bit of a wimp when it comes to horror movies, I jump into that world so easily, so it always has a shocking effect on me.
**I actually wanted to talk about _Oculus_. You’ve done a lot of movies over the past decade, but horror doesn’t seem like one you don’t do very often. What was it like jumping back to the genre since 2014 when _Oculus_ came out?**
Yeah, well, _Oculus_ was an opportunity to do something that at the time would have been my first American lead in a movie. Mike Flanagan really gave me a chance to lead his film along with Karen Gillan despite many things kind of going against casting me. He and Trevor, the producer, believed we'd be kind of right for this movie and we went and shot it for no money and we shot it in a limited amount of time. Mainly shooting in this one house, this one set. And I really saw the advantage of working with a.) writer and director and b.) a guy coming from an editorial background who can really envision in every moment the entirety of the film. And that genre was more leaning towards building in a more tradition since of a horror film, where what’s attracted me to _Ghosts of War_ was that it was multi-genre and it was something I hadn't really done before. I loved Eric Bress’s work. I think his ability to hide and kind of incrementally give hints throughout his work was something that I was attracted to doing, just because there was a subtlety and a nuance to his writing that I really responded to. And it had the same kind of elements in it, though it was hiding beneath the backdrop of the World War II drama and I thought that was something I could really bring some reality to.
**Could you see yourself doing more horror or psychological thrillers in the future?**
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Although I don’t like watching horrors, because they scare me too much, I love shooting them. They’re a lot of fun to shoot. They’re a genre that you can kind of be more or less unlimitedly creative with. It’s a genre where you can stamp your filmic vision, without any kind of set of rules. I think that creative element of it brings in all these different kinds of directors that have their vision. It is just fun. There is a lot of fun to making a horror film. Blood, guts, gore all that but also, what I enjoy is the psychology aspect to it which is, “are these characters believing what they are seeing? Are they going crazy, are they mad, are they questioning their reality?” All those character elements are kind of interesting to portray in any kind of film.
Brenton Thwaites in _Ghosts of War_
**So, the movie is obviously very scary, did you guys have any paranormal experiences while on set?**
I didn’t have any paranormal experiences on set. One thing I was saying earlier was the sets were designed to such specificity and nuanced details that you would walk around the house, these sets, they were in a studio, a sound stage and you would feel like there were ghosts there purely on the fact that it felt like you were in a 1000-year-old building. And I would wander the studio all the time thinking “Wow this house is 1000 years old. I wonder when this was built,” and I would forget that we were in a sound stage and that it was built by a bunch of people like 24 hours beforehand. So that was kind of the manmade supernatural effect it had on me.
**Going back a little bit, you talked about how the movie is multi-genre. It is also a war movie, how did you prepare to play a World War II soldier?**
A lot of our preparation was in developing the crew, so developing that ensemble feeling. We got to Bulgaria a few weeks early and just starting hanging out. The five of us took a boot camp and in the boot camp, we learned different kinds of weaponry. We learned how to carry our guns that we would be using in the film. We learned how to correctly position ourselves for things like combat and entering a building. Going on march walks, things like that. Just by doing those kind of activities together built up this kind of rapport in our crew in the movie.
**This film has an overarching theme of brotherhood and camaraderie, were there any other things you and the other four men playing the soldiers did to make that relationship feel real on screen?**
I mean, besides just jumping into working with each other and talking about the script and going to boot camp with each other every night, we all lived together. When you’re shooting in a location like this, we’re all staying in the same hotel and that naturally builds a rapport, because you’re seeing each other all the time, all day. So, I think that that in itself is kind of one of the main factors in building a relationship, but also just the attitude of these other actors. They were just so committed to jumping right into their role. We all went shopping together, we all ate together, there was no black sheep. We were kind of a unit into trying to develop and figure the nuances of each relationship.
**What were your first impressions when you read the script? I know a lot of people are complimenting this film on its originality, saying it has a very original plot, is that something you noticed when you were first reading it?**
Yeah, it was very original, that was definitely one aspect that attracted me to the story. But, also the first ten pages take their time in introducing these five guys in a way that is attempting to make the World War II elements of the film very realistic. You know, we come across these guys in the mountains, they come across their enemy and the way they treat the situation and the way they are, we see that they’re tired and they’ve already been doing this for months if not years and they don’t want to be there, they want to go home, so it kind of felt like to me a great place to start a film. It felt like these characters had already developed who they are and their space in the movie, almost if that was the third act. So, naturally, I was intrigued right from the get-go to see what would happen to these characters. How much more tired and stressed out could they get.
**In the comment section of the trailer on YouTube, a lot of people were saying that they hope this movie gets turned into a video game, is that something you could see happening or something you’d be interested in working on?**
I would love to work on that, that’d be great. You know, I’d love to work on anything right now ha-ha. Yeah, that would be great. What would I do? I’ve never done a video game, I’m sure I would just be the voice-over and maybe a motion capture situation, but yeah that would be fun. Why not?
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