Last December, a group of fellow journalists and I went to Prague to visit the set of Underworld: Blood Wars. For those who don’t know, the fifth installment in the franchise sees vampire death dealer Selene (Kate Beckinsale) traveling with David (Theo James) to train a new group of vampires against the growing lycan threat. The film also stars Charles Dance, Lara Pulver, Bradley James, and Tobias Menzies.

At the end of our visit, we got a chance to sit down and talk with director Anna Foerster. Foerster, who previously helmed episodes of the hit Starz’ series Outlander as well as serving as DP on White House Down, talked to us about putting her stamp on the franchise, why she took issue with the previous installment, Underworld: Awakening, how she’s using CGI on this film, what she learned from working on Outlander, and much more.

I should warn you that this interview contains spoilers regarding the death of a character who appeared earlier in the franchise, so if you want to go in completely cold, see the movie, and then come back and read this interview for an explanation on why they decided to kill off that character.

Check out the full interview below. Underworld: Blood Wars opens January 6, 2017.

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Well it sounds like you were a fan of this franchise maybe beforehand or at least once you have seen the movies.

ANNA FOERSTER: Yeah! I have seen the first two movies, the first one I saw it when it just came out it was quite extraordinary especially as a visual piece and creating a world that I have not seen before at that time. I mean later a lot of people copied it in different way. I think at the time this was one of the movies that kind of set a specific standard for the genre and I was a big fan of the look and the vibe and the tone of it. Then I think I saw the second one in the movie theatre I saw it later and the third one obviously is a completely different thing because it’s a—

Prequel—

FOERSTER: Exactly. And the fourth, I have to admit I wasn’t a big fan of four. That’s just a personal opinion to me.

Why weren’t you a fan?

FOERSTER: To me it became more like a futuristic science fiction piece and what missed for me is that balance with mythology and history were two one dimensional and clean for me. What I love about the other ones and what I love about what we're doing right now is that their really interesting characters that have layers and even if it's an actual film there is quite a lot of characters stuff going on and I felt that it wasn’t quite as developed as it could have been. There’s a lot of interesting stuff; the mother daughter stuff, a lot of heavy stuff but I'm not sure if it actually worked as emotionally impactful as it could have.

So when you stepped into this how tricky is it when working in a franchise and putting your own personal stamp on it especially when you had an issue like you did with the fourth one.

FOERSTER: Yeah it's actually interesting because this is the question you have to ask yourself before you step into this. How can I or will I be able to navigate this because obviously there is a very specific set of rules of what underworld is and you have a certain obligation to the fans and the franchise and you have to stick with that. Yet I think you have the possibility to create new rules within this universe of Underworld and it was pretty clear for me in the beginning when n is poke with all the produces involved kind of comparing the movies, the fourth one and the first one and we discussed what I liked and what I didn’t like because I wasn’t so sure, it could have been four is where five should be continuing from. It became clear pretty quick that they were very open and excited about getting a relatively strong vision to kind of build on what Underworld is and that got me really excited. I think that has been, for me the most thrilling and exhilarating part of this adventure here is different casts, different locations, by locations I do not mean physically locations but the journey our characters take.

We are exploring new environments by them going to the north and developing a completely new set of rules for those people that live in the north and Why they live in the north. This is a different kind of vampire as well as for the lycans; to me was really exciting the idea to say… ok so the lycans have been organized before but what can make them more dangerous in a way and to me what was fascinating was the idea, what if they actually get control over their transformation because every time the transform they become those animals in a way and they don’t think clear they can't hold weapons, they are becoming instinctive killing machines so what if the mantra of the new leader is don’t change, stay as clever as long as possible if and only change if you have to and that’s creating an interesting thing instead of people just turning all over the place into lycans you have the people, the lycans that are having their own strict set of rules now which to me all those things were exciting and everyone was open to that.

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Image via Screen Gems

We were told that the Nordic vampires have their own set of superpowers, that’s something we haven’t really seen before in this franchise. Can you talk a little bit about how that plays into the war between the lycans and the vampires overall and in terms of the action scenes.

FOERSTER: Yeah, The superpowers… they have the possibility to appear and disappear but in a different way then Selene for example, she has this speed move she can be very quick. These people specifically Lena who is the person we will follow has the possibility to almost transcend to one place to another it's not just a speed move she can almost be in two places at the same time. I don’t necessarily think that is the most important piece of that northern thing it's that these people are actually in a weird way they are almost monks. They have said no to fighting that’s why they went up north and they are all very skilled warriors but their armory is basically rusted old arms from hundreds of years ago. The interesting thing for them when they are forced to engage in battle they are forced to fight with the weapons they’ve laid down hundreds of years ago and that’s kind of becoming an interesting contact because there you have people with machine guns and some people are highly skilled but they are with shields and swords.

We obviously have some new characters here including Tobias, and we obviously know you’ve worked with him in Outlander in some pretty intense episodes. What was it about him that you thought would make perfect for Marius?

FOERSTER: Marius I think is an interesting thing, it can easily fall into a cliché, of the big bad wolf and having worked with Tobias I know he has the possibility to be between charming and seductive and then yet extremely cruel and after talking with him and asking if he could imagine that because that’s a big question and we both thought it could be quite exciting and I think it is

How are you using CGI in your film? How because he mentioned that it's just like he has eyes and teeth and his transformation is going to be a CGI wolf in the future but you have two practical suits so how are you using that?

FOERSTER: It’s a combination of all, like for Marius, Tobias when he transforms there’s a stage of let's say warrior arousal when he just gets teeth and eyes that’s the typical stuff we have seen before just for him it’s a little bit different he has those yellow eyes and a different looks to him but when general wolves are transformed all the way they are the typical liken you have seen in the movies and we have suits which we are using for close-up work like foreground stuff like people being wrestled out of frame and actual human contact with the, For wider shots or with more lycans or lycans on all fours running up a cliff or something that would be CG lycans then specifically for Marius when he transforms I think there’s a little surprise because he’s not the liken you have seen before. There’s a new design for him and a new idea on why he looks the way he does. When Marius transforms all the way he is a CG creature. Was that your question?

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Image via Screen Gems

Yes… You come from a lot of TV backgrounds, how does your day to day change when it’s a film like this of this size or do you sort of approach it as you would an episode of television?

FOERSTER: Obviously the scope is different but I am not sure you know but I have worked as a director of photography on a bigger scope—

Independence Day

FOERSTER: Yeah, yeah. It’s a size question sometimes about how many stages at the same time, how many parallels, and how many cameras. I think the approach is not that different for me for the television stuff. Its funny enough the fact that this is a franchise actually has some parallels to that because when you jump into a television series that is running already like Outlander for example you are jumping on something that has specific characters yet everyone is looking to you to bring something new to that specific episode, some more than others obviously. For example Outlander was a very good example for that, that they were very open and happy to bring something to it, you have the new characters you have a lot of input like who does what. I would say there is more prep here then for a television show, in a weird way it didn’t work that way for this movie there were changes on the script and things that were in flux for a very long time it was not as comfortable prep wise as I would have hoped.

Would you say it’s a big difference to television?

FOERSTER: I would say it's actually not the page count obviously is different, what you have to shoot per day and again the complexity of stuff you have to shoot is different but it's not a completely different world.

 

You mentioned the script was there a lot of rewriting happening right up until production?

FOERSTER: Yeah there was for many reasons, I would say most of them positive, most of them constructive. It has to do with locations you're finding, it has to do with specific actors you suddenly have in mind and you think oh my god you should go for this and this, it has to do with things like you go along and there’s suddenly questions not answered. I don’t know how much I'm allowed to say.

[laughing] Oh we’ve learned enough today.

FOERSTER: Yeah things like what happened to Eve, what happened to Michael.

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Image via Screen Gems

You kill off Michael, finally from what Tobias said.

FOERSTER: But this is something that got added very recently I mean literally very recently and that means their needs to be some sort of build up. That’s kind of where it become so more like television and I'm not saying that in terms of how quickly you need to react and prep and be kind of flexible in a way of ok that’s the set you already have how can we work with this. It’s more for schedules of the producers it's very tough and they have to be flexible so in that sense I think there are some similar

Can you say why the Michael change happened later? Was it that you were hoping for Scott and it didn’t happen and your like we should end this?

FOERSTER: No that was never the case it was just not in the script. It was something that wasn’t mentioned, everybody felt it was ok to not mention it. To me it always felt like it was an open end that deserves to be wrapped up as well as wrapping it up we're giving this Michael-Tobias connection, now that you all know about it [laughing] so that gives him a much bigger layer, why he’s so powerful, why he’s suddenly needs blood so badly, why is he suddenly rising and being so powerful and that was to me always a question I couldn’t answer myself. Where is he coming from? Why does he suddenly have a strong side and there needs to be some mythological or whatever background to that work and that just seemed to be a great way to do it.

How did they find you to direct this? Did you say, “I need to do this.”

FOERSTER: I actually came into Lakeshore, that is the production company that’s doing this for a general meeting after I did Outlander because the producers and his wife are big Outlander fans and I guess they have met with the actress before and anyway he called up a agent and said I want to meet this person. We started talking and he didn’t know at the time that I have cinematography and visual effects background and I guess they looked me up before I went into the office and we started talking and in the room it came up like so we have this project do you think you’ll be interested, that was it

Hopefully this won't be a question that needs to be asked in the future but asking now which is, it’s a female led franchise how about time is it that a female director leads this as the director, it's time right.

FOERSTER: Yeah its time but I think it’s great if it works out like this. I think in the future there will be much more and I think that this is how sometimes things have a slow progress and I do actually feel that progress is happening. Looking back at my cinematography days and the way I started there and seeing how this is happening now and you see so many more women taking those roles in bigger movies and the same thing for directing. I think, and maybe I'm too optimistic here but I feel this is all going in the right way lately and I’m super excited that Selene is an ultra-women in a way so it's great.

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Image via Screen Gems

The four episodes you directed of Outlander are the ones I would argue as a fan of the show are the most striking episodes because as you said you were able to put your stamp on it. You were able to show real sensitivity to beautiful things like the wedding episode but also the horrible things like the end of the season. So what freedom did you have to do something like that, to show that sensitivity, show your own personal brand as a director that obviously got the attention to do this movie?

FOERSTER: What I liked about that was that it was such different episodes, that it had different feelings to it which in a way watching this underworld there is this too that you have a bit of campiness and then sometimes you have obviously the action stuff and then you have some pretty intense character stuff.

I was just curious what personal stamp you were allowed to put on this as a director and obviously it’s in this larger franchise that’s already established.

FOERSTER: I mean I think it starts with the input for casting which I was very happy to have some great people I was hoping for in casting everyone agreed in which is great that’s already one step and then I think the idea of working with the production designer and the costumes. In a way when I first put my look book together of I how I imagined it I went pretty far in terms of the looks and the fashion and the designs of everything and I was scared that somebody says stop but they didn’t and that was really good I mean again within the Underworld rules.

How would you describe the Underworld rules?

FOERSTER: That’s a good question, I mean there’s a certain look to it that you can veer from nut you have sort of established something that is monochrome a blue scion look, the blackness that’s in the costumes and stuff, which I think is something, that’s established and the tone of the environment. I think that’s a pretty good thing that’s established but how do you expand that? How do you go further that was the interesting part like we created a completely monochrome palette in the costumes and the set of the eastern cabin for example so in a way this almost looks like a black and white thing, it's only textures and different leathers and sheen. The only real color is blood so instead of filming everything and making it more blue we went further and was like let's make this work almost monochrome like with, we were laughing because it's fifty shades of black [laughing] and that’s kind of what it was and the when we would go into the north you would have fifty shades of white, silver, whatever kind of light. For example the rules that the werewolves, how they turn that’s a given. The fact that when they die they turn back to humans and are naked is a rule and I think it’s a great rule and you should stick to it and suddenly you have a bunch of lycans that turn back or get killed then suddenly you have a bunch of naked bloody corpses on the ground. I think that’s the underworld rule that was dictated, I think you could take that rule and apply it in a bigger scope or in a visually more interesting sense.

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Image via Screen Gems

What’s it been like working with Kate on this especially with regards to your thoughts on Selene and hers since she’s been with the character since 2003?

FOERSTER: Yeah I mean first of all she’s an extremely, extremely intelligent woman to talk to generally and she obviously has a clear idea about Selene. We had some really deep and good conversations once she came on the movie and fortunately were pretty much on the same page with that and it was a very good collaboration. She brought up certain things that we change in the dialogue for example and I came up with stuff that I was not sure she would like that idea; Selene coming back from the north wearing white or beige or fur or whatever and having the hair tips white. That I had no idea how she’s going to feel about that for Selene and yeah it was a good collaboration.

I'm curious how Selene being a mother affects her in this movie because obviously that was a big plot change introduced in the last film, it happened so quickly that there wasn’t a resonate affect on her character.

FOERSTER: I think that’s a very good question because this is I think really driving a line through this movie that everything she’s doing, everything that’s dictating her actions is based on being a mother and how she potentially failed as a mother and how she can make up for that. That is actually in a weird way almost her through line for the whole movie.

For more from my set visit, click on the links below: