Recently I was able to speak via email with Martin Casella, who played the role of the paranormal investigator "Marty." He offered many valuable insights regarding the filming process and his work on "Poltergeist." Martin is currently a playwright, and his most recent production is "Scituate." You can check out the web sites for all three of his recent plays at:
www.scituatetheplay.com
www.saintheaven.com
www.theirishcurse.com
Many thanks goes to Martin for taking the time to speak with me about the film!
1. I know that you started out as an assistant to Spielberg
on some of his previous films. Can you talk a bit about how you got the
role, and what it was like working on set? Have you kept in contact
with him over the years?
When
I left working for Steven, I went back to acting and writing. About
three months after I left, I got a call from Mike Fenton's office (the
casting director) asking if I would come in and read for the role of Tak
in POLTERGEIST. Having worked on the prep for the film, I had a vague
idea of what I would be asked to. (Heavy breathing and being scared
would probably be very important in the audition...) Which was exactly
what happened. I did my scene on videotape in the casting director's
office and then went back to work; I was teaching high school drama at
the time in Santa Monica, California. The character of Tak, as one of
the people on your website discussed, was named after the
cinematographer who worked a lot with Jonathan Demme. Sometime in the
late spring I got a call from Steven's office inviting me to the first
private screening of RAIDERS, on which I had spent a year working with
Steven, Kathy K., Frank M.and George L. I arrived at the screening
early, not having seen Steven for a few months. He was there by
himself, nervously pacing. When I arrived we shook hands, he asked me
how I was doing, I said fine and that I had just been cast in a theatre
production of THE LION IN WINTER. He grinned, said congrats, looked
very serious and muttered something about "I also heard you're going to
be in my movie." I looked stunned and then understood what he was
trying to tell me. And let out a yell you could have heard in Florida.
It was my first movie role, which also meant I was going to get my SAG
card. Plus I was one of the first people in the world to get to see
RAIDERS, which as you can imagine was just utterly amazing.
I
don't know about the other actor on your website who said the role was
his - and then there were politics and suddenly the role wasn't his. In
the script the character was always referred to as "Dr. Ryan." It was
only called Marty during the shooting process. As a matter of fact, I
was surprised when I visited the set after my 5 week shoot - and during a
take heard Beatrice Straight say the infamous line "Marty won't be
coming back." I whispered something to the AD that she had slipped and
called me by the real name. He told me that they had changed the
character's name on the set that day.
I have
kept in contact with Steven - but only occasionally. About ten or so
years ago, a buddy of mine in LA was producing a CD-ROM game called
"Steven Spielberg's Director's Chair." He worked hard to get me an
interview to be a writer on the project. I did get it and on the first
day of story meetings I showed up and Steven did his little grin thing
again and jokingly said "I know you." I worked on the script for the
CD-ROM for a few months, until they replaced me with the two writers who
had written CASPER for Steven. But a lot of my work is still in the
CD-ROM, including character names and some dialogue.
Finally,
in an example of how the world goes around, my sister now runs the
Flight Operations Department at Dreamworks Aviation. She actually
speaks to Steven and Kate, their assistants, etc. nearly every day.
2. In your famous "face tearing" scene, I know that it was actually Speilberg's hands doing the tearing-did you get to watch the sequence being shot?
I was there for the face-tearing scene but those are Steven's hands ripping at the dummy's face. I gave Steven my watch and ring. That
scene had cost a lot of money to prep. Steven had a blast doing it.
It was really fun watching him. I always thought he wanted to be an
actor. By the way - you probably know this - but I had to go back to
the set some weeks later and shoot an insert to smooth out the
transition from me picking at something on my face to the face falling
off. By then I was in another play and had cut off all my long hair.
They had to find the dummy's wig and put it on me so it would match the
previous footage. (That's why my hair looks strange in one of the
shots.) Another bit of trivia: the make-up people spent three hours
rigging me so that blood would seep out of my skin and then chunks of my
face would fall off. But because it was being a shot in a mirror, they
rigged the wrong side of my face. Once I was dressed and ready to
shoot, Frank Marshall (who was the second unit director) realized there
was a mistake and sent me back to make-up. We shot the scene about two
hours later.
above, Marty's stand in, a guy named Spielberg.
3. In the novelization,
there are some scenes which were apparently thought up by the writer
James Khan, and others from the script, which were not in the finished
film. Some of these included your character Marty becoming "frozen" in
space after the face tearing scene, in which he is stuck in the kitchen.
He can't move, but he can still FEEL. Into the kitchen comes a horde of
spiders, rats, and other insects which then begin crawling all over
him, eating him alive until there is nothing left (this turns out to be a
hallucination of his as well). Later, after the ghosts on the stairs
sequence, Marty retreats into the downstairs bathroom to hide, but then
transforms temporarily into "the beast." He proceeds to both lap water
from the toilet, smash the bathroom mirror, and then he eats the
contents of the medicine cabinet. Afterwards, he crawls
out into the hallway, naked, and then stands up in front of Steve,
Diane, and the other scientists, no longer possessed. Were you aware of
these scenes, and was there discussion of any of them actually being
shot? There was also some more with Marty when he goes upstairs toward
the kids' room and gets bitten in the side. I'm guessing that a lot of
these scenes were dreamed up by Khan and were never in the script.
About
the novelization. Nothing you described from the novel involving my
character was in the shooting script, nor was any of it discussed.
EXCEPT - the scene where Marty went upstairs, opens the door to the
kids' room and is bitten by the beast. We shot that scene for the
better part of day, with me looking around with a flashlight, seeing the
room and going up to the door. The door handle was rigged so that it
turned and turned and turned - until it finally opened. The something
came out of the door, bit me in the side and lifted me high into the
air, where I was left screaming. That all took place during the scene
where Carol Ann's spirit "passed through" Diane. It was fun (if
painful) shooting the scene, as I was rigged in a harness and lifted
really high into the air while I was yelling. My recollection was that
Steven was there that day (I remember making a joke to him that involved
the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland). The special effects guys also rigged
my shirt with tubes that squirted out some gross shiny liquid
(dishwashing soap) in the shape of a gigantic mouth - which was supposed
to be ghost saliva but no matter how they shot it actually looked like
ghost semen. It was intended to look scary but everyone on the crew got
the giggles. I actually have some still photos of the scene, with me
hanging in the air, screaming away. Steven later told me the scene was
cut because what Diane and the family were going through was much more
important than what was happening to me. I couldn't agree more.
NOTE: Here's the scene Marty is talking about, from the shooting script:
72 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - TAK - DUSK
He goes room to room looking for pranksters. When he gets to the active bedroom he hesitates, listens through the door, pulls in his courage and turns the knob. Of course, the door is locked. Tak is never without a trick. He slips a file from his utility belt and starts to jimmy the door. The lock gives and Tak easily turns the knob, and lets out an agonizing SCREAM! He falls backward holding his side, rolling over and over until he is at the top ofthe carpeted staircase.
4. Do you recall filming any other scenes which weren't in the final film?
I
don't recall shooting anything else that didn't end up in the film.
One thing that we did shoot that still makes me laugh about is when we
shot the scene of Craig T. opening the door to the kid's room while we
the ghost hunters were standing there, amazed, watching as all the toys
in the room danced in the air. It was all done with a blue screen - but
Steven himself stood there off-camera with a pointer, making spooky
noises and moving the pointer around so we would know where to look. He
would yell "LOOK HERE! LOOK HERE!!" Every once in a while he would go
"Boo!" and we would all jump.
5. Regarding the sequels: Were you ever asked about appearing in "Poltergeist II"? Apparently Beatrice Straight's character Dr. Lesh was written into the script initially, but then she backed out and was replaced by Zelda.
I think II would have been much better had they found some way to
include Lesh, Ryan, and Marty. In addition, what did you think of II and
III?
I was never asked to appear
in any of the sequels. I saw number two but wasn't thrilled with it.
By the time number three came out, I heard such terrible things about it
I didn't go see it. A trivia note - when I started writing screenplays
in mid-eighties, my agent heard that MGM-UA was looking for a writer
for another sequel - and contacted them, thinking it would be a good
piece of publicity for the studio if one of the actors from the first
film wrote one of the sequels. Nothing ever came of it.
6.
If there is a fourth film ever made, would you consider appearing in it
(assuming it was a good script)? There have been some rumors floating
around about MGM doing either a sequel or a remake (I hope the remake talk is false).
Oh
David gee - if I was asked to be in a sequel I would do it in a
second. I am perfectly happy being a writer but I miss acting. I'm not
sure what my character would do 25 years after the original story took
place, but it sure would be fun.
7. Has Warner Brothers approached you about contributing in some way to the 25th anniversary edition two disc DVD set of "Poltergeist,"
due to be released sometime this year? It would be great to hear you on
a commentary track or something. If not, I can put you into contact
with one of the WB DVD execs.
It's
strange but no one has ever contacted me in any way, shape or form
about anything to do with the three years I worked as Steven's
assistant, nor about the time I spent working on POLTERGEIST. I always
thought someone would want to know about what went on, what it was like,
etc. And since there aren't that many of us left from the original
cast -- uh oh, the POLTERGEIST curse! -- I thought someone might contact
me. You are the first such person and I am flattered that you tracked
me down. So I'm happy to answer your questions. (Yikes I sound like
some nutty old MGM star....) If anyone at WB would like me to answer
any questions and/or talk on the anniversary DVD, feel free to give them
my name and e-mail address.
[Will do, Marty-I've passed along your info to my contact at WB. And thanks for the great interview!]
Postscript:
Marty sent me this cool story about actress Beatrice Straight:
I was
a huge fan of Beatrice Straight's and when I found out I was getting to
work with her I was so thrilled. And she was amazing, both as an
actress and a person. She was such a class act - always polite, never
getting angry, always knowing her lines, etc. And she went through so
much - having giant fans and air guns blown at her, having dirt and mud
and goo poured onto her, having to spend hours staring at blank blue
screens. (She talked about how she worked harder on POLTERGEIST than
she had on NETWORK; she joked about having won her Oscar for a scene
that took one morning.) But when we were shooting the long monologue
she has when she talks to Robbie about ghosts and spirits of dead
people, she had trouble with all the dialogue because as an older person
it was hard to remember so many words. She blew take after take - we
were there for hours - and she got more upset and agitated - Tobe and
Steven tried to make her comfortable - we all did. And finally,
finally, we did a great take and she got to the last sentence of the
speech, two whole pages, word perfect - and she forgot the last few
words. And this classy, kind, sweet wonderful Oscar-winning actor
just shouted "FUCK!!!!!!" at the top of her lungs. It was so unexpected
that everyone was silent - and then burst into hysterical laughter.
Her outburst completely relaxed everyone. We took a short break,
Beatrice did the next take perfectly and we all went to lunch.
Here's Martin's bio, from:
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MARTIN CASELLA (Playwright)
- Plays: THE IRISH CURSE (New York International Fringe Festival 2005 –
Outstanding Playwriting Award; Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2006;
off-Broadway, Fall 2007); GRAND JUNCTION; BEAUTIFUL DREAMER; DESERT
FIRE (w/Roger Holzberg); PAYDIRT; MATES (L.A. Weekly Award and
Drama-Logue Award for Best New Play). One-Acts: GEORGE BUSH GOES TO HELL
(New York Last Chance Texaco Play Festival; Ohio State One-Act
Festival); THE BIG ENCHILADA (Cal Arts One-Act Festival.) Musicals:
SAINT HEAVEN (Stamford Center for the Arts, 2006; NYMF 2006 – Director’s
Choice Award; TRU New Musicals Festival 2005; Stages 2003), PAPER MOON
(Paper Mill Playhouse; Goodspeed; Fords; Walnut Street; two seasons at
the Bunkamura Theatre, Tokyo), HAPPY HOLIDAYS (Pasadena Playhouse),
TAKING CARE OF MRS. CARROLL (Bailiwick, Chicago) and DOO-DAH! (Stratford
Festival Reading Series, Canada). Films: ONE NIGHT STAND, directed by
Talia Shire and starring Ally Sheedy and Frederic Forrest. Daytime:
ONE LIFE TO LIVE. Mr. Casella wrote the upcoming feature TOM’S DAD, the
tv movie BEHIND THE LENS and DADDY’S GIRL, a pilot for HBO. He
recently wrote A THOUSAND RIBBONS, a film about the African-American
poet Phillis Wheatley. Current theatre projects include PLAY IT COOL, a
jazz musical; FREE MONEY, a musical about the invention of credit
cards; a musical about the infamous TOKYO ROSE; and JIMI SLEPT HERE, a
musical memory piece about the New York arts scene in 1980’s. Mr.
Casella taught playwriting at the California Institute of the Arts, and
is a proud long-time member of the WGA, The Dramatists Guild, Screen
Actor’s Guild and Actor’s Equity. He lives in New York City.
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