A Howling Success (originally published July 2001)

And another from the "archive" (box of clippings in the wardrobe if you want accuracy). You may recognise Katharine Isabelle from assorted other films, cult classics, her recurring role in Hannibal or, more recently, Netflix's The Order. I spoke to he back in 2001 for the release of the excellent Ginger Snaps, a Canadian werewolf movie that put an original, smart and feminist-twist on the genre. 

 

Ginger Snaps is shaping up to be the cult film of the summer. Neil Davey meets Ginger herself, teenage Canadian actress Katharine Isabelle and proceeds, er… gingerly?

 

Growing pains were never like this. Ginger Snaps, the Canadian werewolf movie that’s destined to be the cult smash of the summer, mixes puberty and lycanthropy to devastating effect.

The contrast of teenage angst and the supernatural might bring to mind the hormones-and-horror mix of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. However, while Buffy maintains a lightness of tone, Ginger Snaps goes for a darker route – a much, much darker route. And black humour – the blackest of black humour. And blood – lots and lots of blood. Besides, the film’s star, Katharine Isabelle, in in no doubt what would happen if Buffy’s and Ginger’s path should ever cross.

“Are you kidding?” she laughs. “Ginger would kill her, man! She’d rip her open!”

Katharine plays Ginger, a death-obsessed, angst-ridden teen living a dull life in a Canadian suburb. Ginger and her sister Brigitte (played by Emily Perkins) are inseparable, a team of self-styled outcasts – until a wild creature attacks Ginger and she starts to change… And it’s a role that looks like it was a lot of hard work.

Katharine nods emphatically. “It was. It almost killed me. It was 18, 19, 20 hour days, six days a week, for three months. We weren’t eating, we weren’t sleeping and, because we were outdoors, the whole crew’s immune system was low. Every week there’d be a new bug going around. ‘What is it this week?’ ‘Oh, I think it’s a stomach flu. Maybe next week it’ll be Ebola…’” Katharine laughs. “It was just awful. I can’t imagine any other movie having more physical demands, more prosthetics, more screaming, more attacking, more being attacked, more blood, more puke and more crying, anything. If I ever think about whining about anything I’ll be ‘I can’t whine about this! This is nothing! Look what I did before!’”

It did seem pretty extreme.

“Oh yeah. Being dragged by a rope around my ankles, through the woods, by two grips running as fast as they could.” Katharine makes a bouncing / slapping gesture with her hands. “They were good bruises.”

I was thinking more about the litres of blood.

“Oh no,” Katharine smiles, “there was dragging, and flinging, and pushing, and shoving…”

And a tail.

“Oh, the tail!” sighs Katharine. “Everyone wants to know about the tail! Well, there was one tail that didn’t move, it was just cold and flapping and really gross. And then this other tail was animatronic and I swear the special effects guy would wait until I got delirious enough to forget it was there, and he’d twitch it. And I’d freak out and see him at the other end of the studio, with his remote control going ‘hee hee hee.’”  

What drew you to the role. Did you have any indication it was going to be like it was?

Katharine looks slightly sheepish. “Well… I’m kind of an idiot that way. If I read a script, I overlook all the really hard things, like the prosthetics, the actual physical demands – like the attack scene. I never really read that until I got there and then it was ‘what’s this? I don’t remember this! Aaargh!’

“A lot of the stuff I get is American and it’s not really that intelligent, just these stupid characters with big tits and big hair. So when this came along and it was funny, intelligent, feminist, smart and full of different things that I’d never seen in any other movie, I really wanted to be a part of it. And,” she declares decisively, “Ginger is me. I am Ginger. And I knew I had to do it, no matter what.” Katharine laughs. “I was going to kidnap the director if he didn’t give me the part. Which is quite a Gingerish thing to do.” There’s a quite worrying glint in her eye as she adds, “I should have maybe done that…”

I was about to ask if there’s anything of you in the character…

“Oh absolutely. In real life I’m not angry or aggressive or anything violent,” Katharine explains, “but if you put me in front of a camera and tell me I’m allowed to do it, I’ll flip out and just have the best time. I’m way more comfortable screaming and yelling and crying than I am playing the nice girl next door. I don’t know why, I just fell like an idiot when I’m trying to be nice.”

As it happens, Katharine’s ability to “flip out” surfaced quite early on.

“Emily and I did a screen test and I kicked a hole through the wall of the office. I got really mad and kicked the wall and my whole foot went right into it.” She smiles. “Maybe that’s what got me the part.”

Very method, I’m sure. How did you get into acting in the first place?

“I was five,” says Katharine. “My parents are in the industry and didn’t really want me to do it because they see movie brats grow up and,” Katharine lowers her voice to a whisper, “they’re usually little shitheads.

“But I was really keen. I auditioned for Cousins with Isabella Rosellini and Ted Danson, and got the part. I had this blonde curly hair and it was this lovely summer wedding movie with frilly dresses and everyone was really nice and I was like…” Katharine puts on a high pitched voice – “’I wanna do this forever!’ And my parents have been really great since then, supporting me doing whatever I want to do.”

What about the further education issue? At the risk of sounding like your parents – and a look heavenwards from Katharine suggests that’s exactly how I’m sounding – is that something you’re planning?

“High School was difficult enough. I went to a different school every year, trying to find one that could accommodate my work schedule and wouldn’t fail me if I wasn’t there for two months. I can’t do schoolwork when I’m working, it just gets too crazy. But I think it probably made me a better actor because each school I went to I had to be a completely different person to fit in. I still do that now. I’m really adaptable to any situation, any group of people.

“But,” she says, returning to the question, “I’d have to take off a whole lot of time form acting which right now is just getting going, so I don’t know. I’m kind of relying on the acting thing for now.”

And it’s clearly going well…

“I’ve just finished Insomnia with Al Pacino, for Christopher Nolan and before that I did another Canadian indie but right now, the strike in the States is kind of hindering it all. I’m kind of hoping it’ll make Canadian filmmakers get in gear but so far it hasn’t looked like that’s happened.”

So a combination of mainstream and indie – are you happy to mix and match?

“I’ll take whatever I think is really good.” Katharine laughs. “I’ll take whatever I can anyway to pay my taxes but, if I could pick and choose it would be half and half. The part that I have in Insomnia is really great. It’s basically screaming and crying and swearing at l Pacino, which I love to do, so that’s really cool. But the other Canadian indie I did before Insomnia, I got paid maybe 20 bucks for the while thing and it was in New Brunswick, there was six feet of snow, 30 below – but it was one of the best experiences of my career and I wouldn’t have traded it for a blockbuster, no matter what.”

While the critical reaction was very positive, Ginger Snaps didn’t do particularly well at the Canadian box office.

“There wasn’t a whole lot of reaction in Canada. They kind of marketed it a little bit cheesy, and released it in the same week as The Mummy Returns. But it’ll do a lot better in Europe.”

Is there anyone you’d like to work with?

“Anthony Hopkins,” Katharine replies immediately. “But all my favourite actors are dead. Jimmy Stewart. Bette Davis. Cary Grant. Katherine Hepburn…” She tails off. “Well, dead or almost dead. But Anthony Hopkins would be the live one I’d like to work with.”

As for Katharine’s ambitions, they definitely don’t involve directing.

“Are you kidding? Have you seen what a director has to do?!” She laughs. “No, I’ll just hit my mark and say my line.”

So no big career plans then?

Katharine thinks for a second. “I don’t so much want t be famous as I want to be rich. And have my ranch and train horses for the rest of my life. But they don’t make much money so I’ll have to find an alternative way of doing it. So, as soon as I get enough money, I’ll get on my horse, on my ranch, and live happily ever after.”