Gareth Von Kallenbach: How did you
get into writing/producing and what was
your big break?Kevin Grevioux:
Getting into writing is actually quite
easy. All it takes is for one to have the
discipline to sit down and actually put
pen to paper and "viola", you're a writer.
So, I've been writing for a few years now.
Breaking into the Hollywood scene is
another issue.
UNDERWORLD was my first produced piece
of work. You could say that began about
ten years ago when I met a guy named Len
Wiseman, who did a phenomenal job
directing UNDERWORLD, on a movie called
STARGATE. He was a prop guy and I was an
extra trying to learn the business. He
approached me about being in a small
independent film he was working on at the
time and liked my look for a character in
a script he was going to direct.
Through our conversations he discovered
that I was trying to become a screenwriter
and that we both were genre nuts. We
developed a friendship, wrote a couple of
scripts together and here we are years
later with UNDERWORLD. I've always had a
penchant for the fantastic, especially
science fiction. My entrance into it was
actually comic books that I've been
reading since I was about eleven or
twelve.
GVK: What was the inspiration
for the film and how did you go about
making your vision a reality?
KG: Well, the actual direct
inspiration was my love of the old
Universal horror classics, THE HOUSE OF
FRANKENSTEIN and FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE
WOLFMAN. In those films you had the
monsters of legend going at it toe-to-toe
and as a kid I just ate it up!
However, thematically, the inspiration
was a little more real, and I have to say
more tragic. And that's the experiences
I've had with interracial dating and
different biracial children I had come in
contact with over the years. It's amazing
the hatred that's hurled at you because
you may date someone from another race.
It's almost as though man has learned
absolutely nothing about brotherhood in
the past fifty years.
Bringing the concept to film was no
small task. I remember it started out as a
simple werewolf project that Len was
interested in developing, but even he
wasn't sure if it was going to work. So,
since I had already written a script he
liked and wanted to direct, and he liked
my ideas and ways of thinking, he called
me one day and asked me what I thought
about doing a werewolf movie. Well, my
immediate reaction was, "No."
The reason being is because there had
only been one or two decent werewolf
movies to speak about and the "cheese
factor" is so high. But after kicking the
idea around a bit over the course of days
I said, "What if we do a love story, like
Romeo and Juliet or Westside Story? But
instead of Montagues and Capulets we have
werewolves on one side and vampires on the
other." We put together a good working
script and got a lot of bites around town,
but we were having trouble with certain
aspects of the script. That's when this
genius of a writer, Danny McBride came
along and basically told us how to fix it.
GVK: How would you describe the
film and what did you setout to do in
creating Underworld?
KG: UNDERWORLD at its core is
about a race war between two warring
factions that are essentially the same,
and the relationship that occurs when a
woman from one side falls for a man on the
other. Furthermore, there is an edict that
the races should never "fraternize" in a
sexual sense for fear of creating what we
call the "hybrid."
The hybrid is a fiercely powerful
progeny of the union between lycan
(werewolves) and vampires. We tore this
aspect from the pages of real life racial
hatred and fear that still exist in the
world. In our film, the fear is that
biracial hybrids will one day take over
and the races will cease to exist. It's
really funny – they're both monsters yet
they can't see that. It's the ultimate
manifestation of "the pot calling the
kettle black."
To answer the second part of your
question, this material had the high
potential to be corny or cheesy if not
done improperly. Face it, how many good
vampire and werewolf movies have there
been? What I wanted was a sense of history
with this story. I wanted to go back in
time and give an origin for these
creatures of legend – how they came to be
and how the war started. I have to tip the
hat to Danny because he took part of that
history and took it even further and
really made something special out of it.
Interview Continued >>