Anderson is the son British theatre actors and he told me that even though he grew up surrounded by the profession, he didn’t think he’d ever actually be an actor. After backpacking around the world, he decided he wanted to become a director. But since he couldn’t afford coming to America and go to film school, he thought he’d go to drama school to learn about actors. And the rest is history.

Joe talked to me about the shoot and what it was like to work in freezing weather, working with Liam Neeson, and one particularly bad audition where he had to play an espresso machine.

For the full interview, click the link here.

The Grey, directed by Joe Carnahan, led another good weekend at the box office. So far, 2012 revenues are running nearly 10 percent ahead of 2011 as moviegoing continues to pick up the pace.

Tom Ortenberg’s Open Road Films is distributing The Grey, about a group of men stranded in the Alaskan wilderness after a plane crash (the cast also includes Frank Grillo and Dermot Mulroney). The $25 million pic was produced by Liddell Entertainment and Scott Free Productions.

Audiences gave the action-thriller a B- CinemaScore, with males making up 60 percent of the audience. Heading into the weekend, tracking suggested the film would open in the low to mid teens.

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You’re British, and typically Liam Neeson plays an American. Since Liam was playing Irish, why weren’t you playing British?

It was funny because when I walked into the room to meet Joe Carnahan, according to Joe, I kind of bounded into the room, and he looked at me and said, “You’re Flannery,” immediately. That was almost the first thing he said. Then I said,”Oh, okay” and that was that. We never really discussed it much more. He kind of told me who he though this guy was, and when he saw what I was doing, that was it. I think Flannery has to be American. I just don’t think there are those characters in England. I think he’s quintessentially something from over here. Well at least I think so because I’m from over there, so how would I really know?

There’s no sniveling British equivalent?

No, there definitely is a sniveling British equivalent. The way things physicalize are quite different. It’s one of the things I always have to be aware of. If I find the British equivalent, does he physicalize himself in the same way? Are the gestures the same? The American body language and way of communicating are actually quite different to European body language. And I know that sounds strange and such a small thing, but there is a definite difference.

And given the cold and the danger and the wolves, this is a very physical film.

Yeah, it was unbelievable. I didn’t actually do that much with the wolves. We did some stuff around the plane with the wolves. It was a shame, actually. I was dying to meet these dogs and to check them out. To be honest, that would have been a treat, because the rest of it was sub-subzero and just brutal. We would jump out of the back of the Snowcat that we would be sitting in, that would be heated. And we would jump out and shoot the scene, and then jump straight back in again. Some days due to the nature of the scene, we would be out there for hours and hours and hours, and that was when it really became difficult. There are moments when all the guys are standing around sort of facing about and wondering who’s going to crack. Who’s going to say,”I just can’t do this anymore!” in the middle of a scene? No one did of course because everyone wanted to power through it, but there were times when the cold does something to you. The importance of shooting a film, and the importance of everything, suddenly goes out the window when you’re cold-and you were really cold. So it was a challenge sometimes to really stay in it, and power through that horrible feeling of being on the verge of hypothermia.

This is kind of a method-y question, but how into the character can you get if you know you have a warm place to go when you’re done?

I mean if were going to talk honestly, I think it’s different for every actor and everyone approaches things differently. But I think there are two ways of approaching something, and whether I take a month to think about this thing, or I have to think about it right now and just do it right now. The head space that I put myself in, or the way I allow myself to think about this character-or this situation, circumstances, whatever surrounds this is—is the important thing. I mean, obviously you’re shooting a film. There is a camera in front of you. There are lights. There is a focus puller looking at you, pulling focus. There is a camera operator. How method can you really be? You’ve still got to hit a mark. You’ve still got to know that you can’t suddenly lean forward because you’re going to be out of focus. You can’t really hit the person. It’s just about the head space, the honesty, the integrity and the balls. The balls to be like,”Are you going to go for it?” Are you really going for it or just pretend it? Are you going to do it for real or are you going to fake it? I think you have to try to say to yourself, “No, no, no. Do it for real.” I remember watching a whole documentary about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Danny DeVito saying that the director was saying over and over again, “It has to be real.” These guys are just watching themselves constantly just trying to get rid of the fake, and find it grounded. So whether you’re in a Snowcat or you’re in a trailer, it’s the same head space you have to get into. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got six months or five minutes. It’s still the same approach.

You mentioned that your character was automatically an American man because of his job and his role there. As part of the bigger arc of the movie, what is the fate of your character saying about manhood?

I suppose one could look at it that way and say, “For god sakes boy, stop sniveling. Pull your shit together.” Otherwise you’re not going to make it. And therein lies the lesson. That is something to be taken from it. If you’re going to be a person who is going to panic, and you’re going to that place, then ultimately you will fail. Or at least the odds will be more greatly stacked against you. So I think it speaks greatly of that—but more importantly, questions are raised in this movie about doing it yourself. Liam has a line at the end when he’s talking and he’s calling on whoever his God may be, or whoever is up there, and he’s screaming, “I’m calling on you,” and he gets nothing. And he’s in the middle of this wilderness, and he has this line which is, “Eff it I’ll do it myself.” I think there is something to that. Like my grandfather used to say, “If you’ve got to get the job done, you do it yourself.” In terms of speaking about manliness-that a man is someone who takes the responsibility—it’s like Dallas Roberts’ character carrying Diaz [Frank Grillo]. He wanted to carry that idiot. That guy who’s caused so much trouble because he’d given up in terms of manning up. In that respect, I think there are some really large examples made which are quite cool. But my character definitely sits on the other end of that spectrum.

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And, yes, Anderson says, “there have been talks, but nothing official. Until it comes to fruition, I just have to wait.”

Not wait around.

A natural musician — he starred in the Beatles-based “Across the Universe” — Anderson worked on three projects in one year — “The River,” “The Grey” and “Breaking Dawn.”

In less than a week, he went from minus 40 temperatures in Canada to scorching heat in Puerto Rico.

The former was for “The Grey,” a drama about a group of airplane crash survivors fighting off wolves. The latter, a role in “The River,” a new ABC drama about a wildlife expert who goes missing.

“Throw in ‘Twilight’ and it was a pretty interesting year,” Anderson says with a smile.

While he knew his fate in “The Grey,” he doesn’t in “The River.” “I honestly cannot say what’s going to happen. It’s kind of appealing to come to work and know it’s going to be different week in and week out. It’s not a procedural. There’s opportunity for a massive amount of flipping and shaping in the character’s arc. It can turn on a dime and become something else quite quickly.”

For the outdoor enthusiast, “The River” affords plenty of chance for physical activity. The actors are filmed outdoors, wrestling with real problems.

And then? Then there’s “Breaking Dawn,” the last two parts of the “Twilight” saga. In the vampire drama, Anderson plays Alistair, a particularly complex vampire who intercedes for the Cullins. The actor read the books, saw the early films and “tried to absorb as much as I could” but knew he’d never be as savvy about the character as some of the popular books’ fans.

No sweat. “It’s nice to play against the grain of the film,” Anderson says. “He can do what he wants because he is who he is.”

The 29-year-old British-born actor, however, didn’t realize the devotion of “Twilight’s” fan base.

“I hadn’t even arrived at the motel and already there was fan mail. They figured out where I was going to be — and I didn’t even know. But every one of those letters was so genuine and so sweet.”

The creepy stuff? That was saved for other actors. “A woman was standing outside the Sutton Place in Vancouver with a pair of scissors. She had flown from England to cut some of Robert Pattinson’s hair for a doll.”

“Breaking Dawn, Part II” (slated for release in the fall) came with such high financial stakes “tension was ripe,” Anderson says. “There’s not a lot of rehearsal. So before a scene with Kristen (Stewart) I had to gun up the character from the trailer to the stage. It’s the first time you see this guy come to life. But until you get the gear on, you’re not quite sure what he’s going to be.”

Because Alistair pops up “and is rather aloof,” Anderson found he could “take a little bit of literary license with him.”

“The Grey” (which arrives in theaters today) wasn’t quite as touchy. Starring Liam Neeson, it’s the story of men trying to survive following a plane crash. Because director Joe Carnahan wanted it to be as authentic as possible, he shot the film outside in those bone-chilling temperatures.

Anderson, however, loved it. “I’m a big survival freak. My wife and I go to the Sierra Nevada mountains for a week at a time and back pack. That’s probably why I like ‘The River’ so much. I love being in the jungle with these toys.”

The son of an actor (Miles Anderson) and a talent agent (Lesley Duff), Anderson didn’t choose the profession because it was in his blood. “Dyslexia may have played a part,” he explains. “I’m completely dyslexic. Speaking and doing was better than writing it down and being an academic. Little did I know the first day of drama school they give you the complete works of Shakespeare.”

While living with naturally dramatic people probably had an effect, Anderson says he had to find his own way into the business. Dad is “way better at the classics and the plays than I am. So if I’m having trouble with a piece, I pick up the phone and ask him. It’s just wonderful.”

And with those contemporary survival stories? Joe’s just fine, thank you.

“127 Hours” didn’t scare him, he says. “I’d still like to go on that kind of adventure. I’d just have a sharper knife on me.”

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The opening sets the tone: while the other roughnecks on his oil-drilling crew celebrate the end of their Alaskan stint, loner John Ottway (Liam Neeson) wanders out into the snow, kneels down and puts a shotgun barrel in his mouth. For whatever reason, the howl of a far-off timber wolf makes him opt out of suicide — for now. One horrific plane-crash later, Ottway finds himself lost in the wilderness, the wolf’s brethren relentlessly stalking him and his fellow survivors, a fire slowly sparking to life in our hero’s eyes.

It’s a meaty role, and Neeson sinks his teeth into it and doesn’t let go, whether he’s growling lines like, “I’m going to start beating the shit out of you in the next five seconds,” or quietly talking a man through his protracted death. You believe, 100 per cent, that this is the man you’d want by your side when everything goes to hell.

Ottway’s clearly the alpha male of the pack, with the rest of the group far more hazily sketched — there’s an ex-con (nasty), a family man (wears glasses) and so on. But that’s kind of the point. The whole tale can be read as a metaphor: a grief-stricken man wandering in the woods of depression, haunted by demons that just won’t leave him alone, trying to hold himself together long enough to make it out the other side.

Or you could just grab some popcorn and enjoy it as one of the best survival horrors in years. Carnahan succeeds where the likes of The Way Back failed, making this trip to the edge of hell more thrilling than draining. No green screens here, just a bona fide freezing forest where even the trees can kill. As for the wolves — a combination of puppetry, real beasts and 300-style CGI — they’re as wily, implacable and haunting as fairy-tale creatures. Except Red Riding Hood never strapped miniature bottles of liquor to her knuckles.

Verdict
Carnahan’s best work since Narc, with a powerhouse performance by Neeson and real emotional heft. So, as much Gut Puncher as Wolf Puncher.

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Dread Central recently caught up with Anderson to talk about his experiences working with such a brilliant ensemble of actors on The Grey, his thoughts on his character Flannery and how nothing can ever prepare you mentally for the kind of shoot they endured alongside filmmaker Carnahan. Anderson also briefly chatted about his next project on the horizon, ABC’s upcoming found footage horror series “The River”, which was created by Oren Peli and Steven Spielberg.

Anderson, a classically trained actor, discussed how he first learned of Carnahan’s work as a director and what his first impressions were of the script for The Grey.

“The first time I learned of Joe Carnahan was while I was in drama school,” explained Anderson. “They showed us his movie Narc, which is this incredibly brutal cop story that was so dark and haunting. But there was this one shot that always stuck with me, and it was Jason Patric standing in the shower, holding his child, and that’s not the kind of sensitive moment you see very often in that style of storytelling. Who would have thought a handful of years later I’d be working with him and on something just as brilliant as Narc was when it was released?”

“The Grey has that kind of sensibility to it that Narc did ten years ago. When I first read the script, I realized that this story could be done a dozen different ways, but only one way would be honest to the story being told and thankfully that was also the route Joe took. There’s certainly a ‘hero’ aspect to the story, but that’s not the only thing going on; there’s also the brutality of the conditions, the lives of these men and their will to overcome insurmountable odds,” added Anderson.

Of course, the up-and-coming actor knew it was going to be bitter cold when he set off to shoot The Grey last January; however, Anderson discussed how nothing would ever be able to prepare him for what it would really be like once he arrived in British Columbia. “I was blindly gung-ho about going to make this movie in the middle of nowhere; sure, I knew it was going to be cold, but I figured it couldn’t really be THAT bad since we’re shooting a movie there. Little did I know- basically making The Grey was akin to an Arctic expedition, and I don’t know if you can ever really prepare yourself mentally for something like that. There’s cold, and there’s what we endured while making The Grey.”

Anderson went on to talk more about his character Todd Flannery and how it was integral to the success of Carnahan’s story that everyone add their own touches to each of their respective characters.

Anderson said, “Flannery is a young and ignorant guy; that ignorance breeds fear within him. He’s got a lot of mouth and is always saying the wrong thing, but he’s not necessarily a bad guy for it. Ultimately, he’s scared and that’s his reaction to the situation he’s thrown into. I would say there’s a little bit of Joe inside Flannery, but I think I had to do that so he’d feel natural in the film. There’s a naturalness to The Grey so playing him any other way would never have worked. He needed to be himself but in a way that you still want him to survive by the end, too, so I never would have made him this over-the-top type of character.”

“We had such an amazing cast all around, really,” added Anderson. ” Liam is fantastic as always, and both Dallas (Roberts) and Dermot (Mulroney) really blew me away on set; they’re these rough and tough kind of characters, but when their characters begin talking about their families and lives, you just get lost in the softness that is lingering below the surface, and I think what they did in The Grey was brilliant. It was such a fantastic experience getting to work with all of these guys and Joe on this.”

With The Grey coming out this weekend, we asked Anderson about another big project on the horizon for him: ABC’s “The River”, in which Anderson stars alongside Leslie Hope, Bruce Greenwood, Eloise Mumford and Paul Blackthorne. Anderson explained the irony of working on these two vastly different projects back-to-back. “We were joking on the set of The Grey that our next projects had to be in Hawaii so we could enjoy a warm climate for a change- then, a few months later I get offered “The River”, which was filming in Puerto Rico and eventually Hawaii, so I thought that was pretty funny how everything worked out.”

“But working on “The River” was pretty extraordinary, so unlike anything I’ve ever filmed before. When working in movies, you get used to shooting in front of one camera, maybe two, and that’s that. With this show there are cameras everywhere, and we’re pretty much knocking down the fourth wall, which is a bit of a challenge to adapt to as an actor. It’s sort of like acting in the round, but after a few days I got used to it. ”

“I think fans will really enjoy it, and I’ve been surprised by how scary the show is – and I worked on it – but with so many cameras you just never know what’s going to make it when you’re shooting. I’ve only seen up to Episode Four so far, but I’m really proud of our work on it,” added Anderson.

Open Road Films will release the highly anticipated, action-packed survival thriller The Grey in theaters nationwide on January 27th, 2012.

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