Siobhan Williams Reveals How Important Until Dawn Was To Prep Her Role Of Laura In The Quarry - Exclusive
While she's acted in a variety of different film and TV genres throughout her career, Siobhan Williams found she was entering a whole new realm with her pivotal role in the new video game "The Quarry." Rooted in horror, the game is not only an interactive challenge that presents several different paths to its players — it also hearkens the dread associated with such movie classics as "The Evil Dead," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and "The Hills Have Eyes."
"The Quarry" begins with an intense prologue where camp counselors Laura Kearney (Williams) and Max Brinly's (Skyler Gisondo) car runs off a road in a secluded, wooded area in upstate New York. Soon, the couple encounters a local sheriff, Travis Hackett (Ted Raimi), and against his advice, they continue on to Hackett's Quarry, where they are to join seven other camp counselors. The destination is far different than Laura and Max expected, though, and soon they — and eventually, the other counselors — fall prey to the Hackett family and a curse that could result in their bloody demise.
"The Quarry" is the brainchild of acclaimed writer-director Will Byles, the creative force behind the worldwide video game smash "Until Dawn." Luckily for Williams, she was already a fan of "Until Dawn" before she was cast in "The Quarry," and was able to put her gaming experience to good use.
While not a sequel, The Quarry is made from the 'same breath' as Until Dawn
Siobhan Williams said that while she revisited "Until Dawn" as a way to prepare for her role in "The Quarry," she was excited to learn that it was not a sequel to its blockbuster predecessor, but rather its own horrifying entity.
"When we were making it, I knew that it was the follow-up, but everyone at Supermassive and everyone we were working with were stressing, 'It's not a sequel. It's not the sequel to "Until Dawn."' I [said], 'I know, but I love "Until Dawn" so much. I hope that it's still associated,'" Williams recalled for Looper in an exclusive interview. "When [Game Informer published an article] that said it was the 'spiritual successor,' I [said], 'That's perfect. That's a perfect way of saying it,' because it is. It's the same breath as 'Until Dawn,' but unrelated in lots of ways. I was so happy to be associated with that game because I'm such a super massive fan of it."
Williams loves the cinematic quality of The Quarry
Siobhan Williams said her approach to Laura in "The Quarry" was unique in that it allowed her to use her sensibilities as both an actor and video gamer. "[If] I wasn't a gamer at all, I would be looking at it a bit differently and be a bit less aware of how things would translate after the fact, but I was thinking both ways," Williams observed. "When I'm in the scene, I'm not thinking about it from a video game perspective. When I'm prepping, and when Will [Byles] and I and the other actors are going over blocking and whatnot, I'm able to picture how things are going to be shot."
Since Williams and the ensemble cast performed their characters via motion capture — resulting in a stunning, photoreal presentation — Byles and his cinematographer, Amrit Bajwa, were able to give "The Quarry" more of a cinematic feel.
"It was a lot more like a movie in terms of the shots that they were using," Williams said. "Sometimes, I would think it would be more like an older video game, but really, it would end up being a lot more cinematic. I was pleasantly surprised by all of that. I was going in order [as an actor and gamer] to visualize because of what I'd done before and played before."
"The Quarry" is new in stores and online from Supermassive Games and 2K Games.