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Scott Cooper is an American director, writer and producer. His latest film Antlers is perhaps a departure from his previous works including Hostiles and Black Mass, being a fantasy horror involving the mythical Wendigo. Scott took some time to talk with STARBURST about bringing the creature to life, working in different genres, and his dark sensibilities.

STARBURST: It’s been a strange 18 months since Antlers was originally due for release…

Scott Cooper: Yes, and I’m so thankful that we’re finally releasing it into the cinemas as I believe horror should be experienced communally.

Your films have a grandeur to them; the visuals being just as important as the story you’re telling.

The atmosphere, the location, how I place the actors in the frame. And in this particular film, we shot on a large format camera. This is a story about a young boy with very big problems and the way I placed him in the frame is best experienced on that giant screen. All very deliberate.

A lot of your films are grounded, often in a not altogether pleasant reality. And there is a sense of that here with the decaying town. But Antlers is a fantasy horror. Was that a change for you, a challenge against your instincts?

I think the great danger for a filmmaker is in doing safe work; continuing to make the same film over and over. I have no interest in that. That’s why I made a musical drama with Jeff Bridges, a rust-belt drama with Christian Bale and Casey Affleck. It’s why I made a gangster film with Johnny Depp and Benedict Cumberbatch. It’s why I made a western with Christian Bale. And now this. I always like to be in an uncomfortable space as a filmmaker. I also know that this is my first immersion into the supernatural, but I wanted it to feel very grounded. So, I looked at another filmmaker who I greatly admire and who has been a mentor for me over the years, and that’s William Friedkin. And if you look at, say, the French Connection. And then he makes a film like The Exorcist, which also deals with family grief and the supernatural. But what’s so scary about the film as a parent is that it’s played so realistically. So, I ask myself ‘how can I use that as a barometer?’ Or Kubrick’s The Shining? Or Ridley Scott’s Alien? Or Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now? All that deals with the supernatural in a very grounded environment. And I would not have made this film if it wasn’t for Guillermo del Toro. Firstly, he approached me and said ‘Scott, your last three films have been horror films, and nobody knows it. Would you consider directing a horror film?’ And I said yes. I love the genre. Some of my earliest remembrances are of seeing films I shouldn’t be seeing at a young age with my older brother. It’s another challenge for me. But I wanted to hold up, as I’ve kind of done in my previous films, a dark mirror to the fears and anxieties we’re facing as Americans. And we’re facing a lot of them. How do I do that? And also merging with the supernatural. And because Guillermo is the foremost monster and creature creator, I knew that he would be able to help me in the execution, of the practical production of the Wendigo. Also, in terms of making that feel as haunting and realistic as possible. But for me, the scariest things are some of the themes that run through it: the generational trauma, familial abuse and addiction crisis. Our maltreatment of Native Americans. All of those things course through my other work. Let’s be honest, Guillermo and I are very different filmmakers, our sensibilities are very different. It’s a miracle that any of this works. But I’m very proud of the film, and I think it’s another step in my maturation as a filmmaker.

Having watched your earlier films there was a question over whether when the time came, would Antlers move into true fantasy, or would there be something else going on. Your other films do deal with human darkness. With what you’ve done here was it then about being respectful of the myths and beliefs of the native people?

As you can see in Hostiles, Native American people and causes are very important to me. I worked with Native American advisors on that film and certainly here. As a white, Anglo-Saxon protestant telling a story that deals with indigenous folklore, it was critical that I looked to experts. Chris Eyre, who was also a consultant on Hostiles, worked with me here. But so did Grace Dillon, who is a professor at Portland State University, and she is the foremost authority on the Wendigo in North America and has written extensively on it. So, from my screenplay to the creation of our creature, all through shooting and post-production, she was incredibly generous with her time and expertise. And I would never have made the film without Guillermo and someone like Grace Dillon to guide me through what this folklore means to indigenous cultures. It was a real challenge.

That’s interesting because the Wendigo doesn’t have a great deal of descriptive clarity.

According to Professor Dillon, the Wendigo manifests itself in many different ways, but first and foremost it’s a spirit. It’s a very antlered creature that has deer-like qualities. And we wanted to pay homage to that antlered creature for sure. But we chose to make our Wendigo represent the destruction of our natural resources, so it felt like it was born out of a mine, out of iron and ore and coal. Which is what the exoskeleton looks like and has embers and a glowing heart. But it also represents the destruction of our bodies through addiction. And it represents greed, and greed doesn’t have to be voracious about money but can be about natural resources and about narcotics. About taking something from someone else, that doesn’t belong to you. And that can emerge in familial abuse, which we realise through Keri Russell and Jesse Plemons’ characters. That we see through the abuse Lukas has endured. That all courses through in a very subtle way, but also reminds us that the Wendigo lives in all of us. That pain and misery run through everybody and eventually it will come out. You can’t escape it.

That’s interesting because when you watch your films, you get the sense there is a lot of guilt, suffering, dark souls. Is that something that appears naturally when you’re writing or is it something you seek out?

It’s everything you just expressed. One of my tenets as a filmmaker is that, if I can see myself in my work others will see themselves. As opposed to going to therapy, as I probably should, I tend to put it into my work. Or I tend to put it into my characters or my scenarios. The great musician Eddie Vedder, who wrote some music for Out of the Furnace, said that if you don’t write that stuff down it’ll just eat you up, and that’s true. So, I put it into my films and that’s therapeutic for me. My films can be divisive as they deal with some tough subject matter. Not everyone is willing or open to exploring that, and I’m completely fine with that. A legendary American director who shall remain nameless said to me that ‘if everyone likes your film it’s probably not very good.’

That’s interesting because, and forgive me, but Black Mass felt like the lesser of your films because perhaps there was less of you in there. Because you were dealing with a true story. With Antlers, you can go anywhere. And to get the performance from the child actors, when they have to convey so much horror.

I have had children in all my films apart from Out of the Furnace. Including my own kids who are in Hostiles. I’m quite familiar with child actors. But I never use ones who have acting coaches and agents. I have no interest in those kids because they don’t take direction, they’re camera ready, I want kids who feel like they’ve experienced some life. I want kids who can convey non-verbally, who have a rich interior life. And Jeremy Thomas and young Sawyer Jones absolutely do that. They’re shouldering the burden at too young of an age. As a young boy who lives by duty and self-preservation. In dealing with these dark themes, doing a film with a 7-year-old and a 12-year-old was incredibly challenging, as I had to constantly remind them this is a big sandbox we’re playing in, this is all make-believe. They were in dark attics, in cold dark mines, and faced with a big Wendigo. Themes that are too big for any child to deal with. And they give such heart-wrenching performances. For me, it’s as good as anything I’ve seen this year. Because it isn’t acting.

Antlers probably has the best character survival rate for your films; you do kill a lot of your cast off. Not to spoil other films, but the end of Hostiles is bold and dramatic and dark. There is a dark sensibility.

And I’m a generally light guy so I don’t know where that comes from! But I will say that from the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, there is a Hobbesian viewpoint in my films where life is nasty, brutish and short.

It’s definitely short! We wanted to speak about the Wendigo. It looks like there was a lot of in-camera effects, and presumably, there is an influence from Guillermo. Was that difficult to do on set as much is in darkness?

It was tough because it’s also a big creature. Dorian Kingi was the actor inside the Wendigo and it was heavy and laborious to move, so it was largely practical but with some CGI enhancement. I don’t have a lot of experience, but visual effects have come a long way and assimilating the two was quite successful. For someone who has never had that in their films this kept me up at night, to make it look a real as everything around it.

You’ve said before you have a script you want to make, The Pale Blue Eye?

I’m making it now. It surrounds a series of murders at a military academy with a young cadet who would later become renowned as Edgar Allan Poe. And as a Virginian, with a lot of Poe literature around me growing up, I’ve always been fascinated by him. And he is the godfather of crime and horror fiction.

Antlers is out now in cinemas.

Composer Pedro Bromfman is best known for his collaborations with directors José Padilha and Alex Winter, but his work on the score for the latest instalment in the long-running Far Cry series, Far Cry 6, will likely bring his musical talents to an even-broader audience. The first-person shooter takes place on the island of Yara, wherein the player must attempt to help topple a dictatorship, in the role of a guerilla fighter. The game’s vast landscape and multiple regions allowed Bromfman to really branch out and explore, so it was a joy to speak with the composer about his work on the game.

STARBURST: This is the sixth instalment in a series that’s been going on for so long – nearly 17 years. Even though all of the instalments are very different and unique, did you explore any of those before working on this game?

Pedro Bromfman: Not at all. I mean, I had heard about the franchise. I knew what Far Cry is, and I have a PS4 and I have an X-Box and I do play some games – especially the ones I’m working on or that I worked on – but I’m not a gamer per se. I didn’t grow up as a gamer. I had never played Far Cry and I purposefully decided I didn’t want to be influenced and I didn’t really want to hear what musically other composers had done.

This is such a different world from all the other Far Crys. I mean, it takes place in a Caribbean island. The setting is so different and the music we wanted to do was so different that I didn’t even want to go back and be influenced at all. The good thing about this is that I was brought in so early that most of the missions hadn’t even been thought out or hadn’t been developed and there was no music at all – referenced music – that was sent me. It was really a blank slate that we were able to figure out what the music needed to be. I wanted to have as, as little influence as possible, as far as other melodies, other themes that have been used in Far Cry – other sounds and things – to be able to just start from scratch as if it’s something new, even though it is part of however many years it’s been going on for.

In addition to your score, there is an entire soundtrack of other music that’s part of this world. How involved were you with that or did that work to influence you at all?

There were some references that were sent back to me. Our concept of the whole thing is my part of the music – which is probably three and a half hours of music for the game – my side is what tells the story, the narrative of Yara and the characters and the character themes and the cinematics and the main missions that were specifically scored to sound a certain way.

It’s basically the sound that brings the player into the game. The sounds that the players are listening to, but that the Yarans aren’t aware of. Then, there’s all this other music, like street music from like street bands throughout the game, music that they listen to on the radio, ome of the regime music that are like the national anthem and all the military marches that people are listening to on the streets constantly. This is the diegetic music. This is music that the Yarans are listening to. My music is like the subconscious of the whole thing, of the island.

But what happened is, when we were creating this sounds early on, like I said, we worked on the themes and there was no other music we listened to or anything else. I think I was the first one putting music to Yara, but as we evolved, there were bands being brought in. There’s a band in the game that’s called Máximas Matanzas and it’s a hip hop group. As they were making some of the music, Eduardo [Vaisman, audio director] would feed me some of that music too, because we wanted the central region to be more urban-influenced and have some hip hop elements. So I was listening to some of that music, just to get ideas and see what I could incorporate to make that whole region sound cohesive and borrow elements from other music that they’d be listening to in that region. But other than that, there’s very little back and forth between the different parts of the music.

I was really working with the main themes and the character themes and trying to develop what the sound of each character and the sound of each region. We have three main regions: Eastern, the central, and the Western region. We try to really treat each region – while having a cohesive sound for the score – but have each region really stand out on its own.

Then, you’d be able to tell musically when you’re listening to something – that you’d be able to feel which region you’re in, just from listening to the music in the background, in each mission and things like that. That’s what we tried to do. I think some of my score, you feel it more than you actually are singing along to it, although there are some iconic melodies and some beautiful pieces that stand out.

Talking to other composers who’ve worked on games, they say the hardest part when you’re playing a game is that you’re immersed in this world sometimes for literally 24 or 48 hours, depending on how many replays or missions you do, so the real challenge is creating music that people can hear over and over and over again. As you’re trying to work your way through certain areas,you might die and then come back and you’re going to be hearing this music a couple of times. What is that challenge like for for you and did it help to have done a couple of games prior to Far Cry 6?

Yes, I think so. I think that the mechanics of writing for games – some aspects of it are very different from working in film and TV. I think not only working on games, but also working on series that goes on for several episodes – so it’s like 10 hours – it’s more like a game. You’re able to have an arc, you have a lot more characters, you’re able to give more melodies to each character. That’s definitely, definitely an important plus that has helped me do it.

I think there’s a few things to unpack from what you talked about: you have the cinematics, which is the area of a video game that’s very similar to working on TV or a movie, right? I think in this game, you’ll have probably an hour and a half of cinematics or two hours of cinematics, altogether. I think I scored 50 minutes or so of cinema, so it’s almost a film within a game with all the backstories.

When you’re scoring a cinematic, they give me an edited version that’s usually locked and I know it’s always going to play that way, so when I do the music we know where the music needs to come in ,where it needs to grow, what it needs to say. When it comes out, every time a player plays the game, it’s going to play that same way, but then when you’re in the open world and when you’re dealing with missions is what is when what you talked about comes into play.

A player can play stealth mode through the whole mission and not really disturb all of the enemies and make them all come after you, so that’s only going to trigger one specific piece of music. Or ,you can go into full combat right away and have 30 people shooting at you. How do you make these things interesting? ‘Cause they can take two minutes or less skilled player can take 10 minutes.

It’s all about being able to create loops, bubble pieces, but also divided into stems or different tracks that, stacked on one another, vary the intensity and also to give variation, when a new element comes in that you haven’t heard in the first two minutes. Then that element becomes the part of the music and then another element drops out and another element comes in, trying to create interesting music that the player can play for for 12 minutes without being bored and saying, “It’s just the same thing over and over again.”

The expanded Far Cry 6: Complete Music is out this week from Ubisoft.

From H.G. Wells’ initial story, to Steven Spielberg’s major motion picture, to Howard Overman’s recent vision, it’s clear that audiences can’t get enough of the exhilarating War of the Worlds setting! This week, and under the title of Invasion, Apple TV will add to this diverse, legendary anthology with their modern twist on this classic Sci-Fi narrative! Told through complex characters based all over the world, this is a relentless retelling perfectly suited for a TV series format. Holding up the decorated navy seal segment as Trevante Cole in Afghanistan is Shamier Anderson (Stowaway/Awake/John Wick: Chapter 4)! STARBURST talks with the man himself to discuss the characteristics of Trevante, what Invasion was like to be a part of, and MUCH more!”

STARBURST: How familiar were you with the sci-fi story of The War of the Worlds before entering the project? Do you have any memories of it?

Shamier Anderson: Yeah, I was young when the Tom Cruise movie came out, but I was definitely familiar. Obviously, Tom Cruise is a legend. I’d be lying to you if I said that I did not watch that movie 1001 times before getting this job. It’s cool.

How would you describe your character Trevante Cole to someone that hasn’t seen the show, and how would you say that he fits into the show altogether?

Trevante is somebody who is very complex. He is a Navy Seal, and a decorated military veteran.  He has been in Special Forces for a very long time. He has a very complex past, a rich past, and he is from Florida. Not to give away too many spoilers, but this is a coming of age story for him. He starts to understand himself as this show evolves. It’s important to say that there’s a parallel and similarity with mankind, when something happens to us, that’s when we start to wake up to certain things. Certain things are awakened. We see that in Trevante’s journey in this series. Regardless of the sci-fi, extra-terrestrial elements, regardless of if you like Navy Seal/Military movies or not, this is a human experience that you get to feel through Trevante’s lens, and that’s what made me fall in love with him, and this character.

The characters in the show are based all over the world, so other than an alien invasion, what would you say really connects them all? Is there something in particular that they all have in common?

Something in particular that they all have in common is fear, let’s start with that. Everybody is scared of what’s going on. I think it’s clear as day that everybody is in fear of what is going on, but there’s also a wanting for love and understanding. I think that’s something that we see throughout. Everything is rooted in love, even down to the kid’s storyline. Billy Barratt’s character wanted to be liked. I think that’s something that’s a very interesting through-line that makes this story palatable, universal to those who may not be familiar to this genre.

Also, by having the story told from multiple locations all across the globe, what do you think that does for the show itself? We got a sense of realism from it being told this way.

Yeah! One of my favourite films is Babel by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, I love that film; I think it’s incredible. Along with Crash as well, and the different perspectives. I love those types of films, they get me excited. By doing this approach the creators at Apple TV have brought marketability to the show. They’ve been able to go into different territories. I love that they are unapologetic, I love that in the Japanese storyline; we’re just with the Japanese folks. We’re in their world, with their culture, and their language. When we’re in London we hear their rhetoric, their slang. When you’re with Trevante, with his seals, and his buddies, you’re in that shorthand. You get to see, from a fly on the wall point of view, the audience so to speak, gets to be immersed in these different perspectives throughout the series. Which also opens up our mind as the viewer, to be able to see that we are a lot more connected than we think. We are not so different, despite, race, creed, language, and those types of things. I love stories and shows like that, as it really offers another perspective outside of your own.

With a combination of modern warfare and The War of the Worlds influences, I was wondering what kind of research you did when it came to approaching your character?

I did a lot of research. A lot, more than you know! I actually went to school for criminology. I wanted to be a police officer at one point in time before I got the acting bug. So law enforcement, and understanding policy, those things were really fascinating to me growing up. So I just had an interest already, at the forefront, approaching this part. But I had to understand the nuances of playing somebody in Special Forces. It was important for me to work with a gentlemen by the name of Remi Adeleke, who is an ex-Navy Seal, and an incredible human being. He has an incredible story. He was brought on board, and he put me through boot camp, from the training, to the psychophysical aspect, to just being a Seal, and what it meant to be a Seal. That was really important to me, in my process. As we got to set, I wanted to maintain a lot of that training, so I would be up earlier before everybody else, I would be on set before everybody else, I’d be working out; I’d be sleeping in the desert. I’d be doing all of these things that would inform my character, and help me with the process. All of it was rooted in anxiety to be honest, it wasn’t me trying to be pretentious, or trying to be like this ‘actory’ person, it was just, I didn’t want to fuck up. So to speak. So that was where that came from, but also, giving the role justice and understanding that this is important to a lot of people, who serve currently today.

At this point audiences have seen a few versions of The War of the Worlds. Can you elaborate a bit more on what else makes Invasion stand out from what has come before it?

We pay respects, and we give respects to those incredible films, because they’re all singular in their approach, and I don’t think it’s even a conversation as they’re in their own lane. However, I think what makes Invasion different is this ensemble. I think this ensemble is different, and the fact that we’re telling the story in 2021. The fact that I’m a part of this ensemble cast, which I’m really proud of, being a Canadian boy from Toronto, which is really cool. But I think understanding the younger perspective, which I think is really cool, I’m a big fan of Billy and India, and that storyline. I just think that there are a lot of elements in this version of The War of the Worlds. Everyone may think it’s the same thing, but it’s definitely its own beast. This version offers a fresher perspective.

Also, what were Simon Kinberg and David Weil like to collaborate with, and what do you think they have brought to Invasion overall?

Those two guys are titans! I definitely felt like a fly in a cup of milk, with those two beasts. To be able to work with those two is just like, “Wow!” Andrew Baldwin, our show-runner, who is on the ground, he was the ultimate collaborator. I mean, I’ve shot a lot of films and TV shows, and this one takes the cake when it comes to the collaborative aspect of this show. Allowing me to bring my nuances, ingredients to this guy, along with supporting their ideas, and them supporting mine, it was just amazing. I look forward to hopefully doing more Invasion with them, or more shows with them. This was one of the best experiences in my life, truly.

Obviously you worked on Stowaway recently as well, so I did want to ask, what do you enjoy so much about working in a sci-fi setting/story?

I just love the green screens! Ha, no, it just happened to be that way. I don’t seek these things out, and say that they have to be sci-fi. I just like great stories that are entertaining with great actors, that’s just pretty much it. If something happens next week, and it’s like “Hey, we’re doing this comedy that makes sense!” then I’ll do the comedy. If sci-fi makes sense for the next ten years, then let’s do some sci-fi. However, for me, it’s just great stories. I just love great stories.

Invasion is currently streaming on AppleTV+.