The Star of ‘Avatar’ and ‘Drag Me to Hell’ on Acting in LA & Working with Horror Legend Sam Raimi

Today we continue excerpting interviews from the Acting in Horror documentary I’m directing with Kristina Klebe (whose credits include Rod Zombie’s Halloween & Zone of the Dead, for which she just won Italy’s Fantasy Horror Award for Best Actress).

As we work, I’m continually struck by how many of our most established stars and filmmakers got their start in the horror genre. On the Academy Awards telecast this year, Ron Howard toasted horror producer extraordinaire Roger Corman, who received the Academy’s Governors Award for his contributions to filmmaking.  He recalled Corman’s tough love during his first directing gig (on the Corman-produced Grand Theft Auto): “Ron, I have to tell you two things: 1) you’re going to have to make this (huge crowd) scene work with 47 extras, and 2) and I can promise you this – if you continue to do a good job on this picture, you’ll never have to work for me again!”

With its technical demands, tight schedules, and expectation of profitability, it seems that horror is a proving ground for those of us breaking into features, and particularly for those of us not born into the Hollywood system. If you can deliver truth and entertainment in this structure, under these conditions, you’ve got some goods.

I met Dileep Rao when I was a student at American Conservatory Theater. Dileep had graduated and had returned to the theater to appear in the American premier of Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink. After several more years of regional theater and pounding the pavement in LA (during which the one-time science major found time for a winning stint on Jeopardy), he was cast in his first feature film in 2007. My first film was Calico’s Tale, a SUNY-Purchase student short in which I got ‘hit’ by a car in the parking lot of a Yonkers A & P Supermarket. Dileep’s was Avatar. Avatar. Shortly after filming what would become the world’s highest- grossing movie ever, he was cast in a leading role in Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell.

Despite these recent high-profile gigs (a streak he continues with a role in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film Inception), Dileep remains the journeyman’s journeyman, always quick to come out to support colleagues and offer newcomers encouragement and advice. Today he shares his perspective on the particulars of auditioning in LA, the relationship to one’s fans in the horror genre, and staying present while filming special effects-laden scenes.

To view more of this series, check out these earlier posts in which director Paul Solet discusses acting in horror and the making of his feature Grace.

Photo of Alison Lohman and Dileep Rao in Drag Me to Hell. Courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Video Intro by Ryan Kravetz