Movie review: A Cure for Wellness starring Dane DeHaan
THE star of a new psychological horror thriller says he experienced regular nightmares and disrupted sleep while making the film.
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US actor Dane DeHaan may be counting down the days until he becomes a father but he already knows about surviving on limited sleep. DeHaan, married to fellow actor Anna Wood who is pregnant with the couple’s first child, says he experienced regular nightmares and disrupted sleep while making his latest movie, A Cure For Wellness, which is set in a remote alpine health clinic where no one leaves.
DeHaan has tangled with the dark side in previous film roles, including playing the villainous Green Goblin in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and as outcast Andrew Detmer in his breakout role in Chronicle (2012). But he says nothing has been more terrifying than making eerie psychological thriller A Cure For Wellness, which has a similar tonal vibe to landmark psychological thrillers such as Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Shining (1980).
“I didn’t have to act scared, I was scared. I was waking up every night and constantly having nightmares,” DeHaan says.
“I suppose with method acting you want to be living it as much as possible, but making this movie was really having an effect on me. I was genuinely freaked out and creeped out every day; it was darn scary, and the water tank was especially crazy.”
Shot over the course of two and a half weeks, the water tank scene he refers to saw DeHaan trapped in a harness inside a sensory deprivation tanks. He could only communicate by hand signals and is thankful the eels seen swimming in the tanks with him were computer-generated.
“I could only breathe through my mouth because my nose was covered, like scuba diving,” he says.
“In between takes, I wasn’t exactly having panic attacks but it was a full-on experience.”
The film was shot mainly on location in Germany, including in the Gothic-styled Hohenzollern Castle in the Swabian Alps, and DeHaan, 31, stars as Lockhart, a go-getting executive who has traded his ethics for career success.
When one of Lockhart’s dodgy deals is exposed, he is offered the chance to redeem himself by travelling to a Swiss health spa to bring home the company’s chief executive, Pembroke (Harry Groener).
“It’s a mind-bending psychological thriller that follows my character from Wall Street to this interesting, evil and sinister place full of secrets. My character walks the fine line … he is someone people would like to have a beer with but also may want to punch in the face.”
When Lockhart is involved in a mysterious car accident near the Swiss clinic, he finds himself as a patient under the care of evil Dr Kildare (Jason Isaacs) and subjected to bizarre experimental therapies. He is haunted by ghosts, becomes trapped in disappearing rooms and is forced to drink the water, which has dangerous properties.
“I hope people root for him (Lockhart) the whole way through with all the crazy things he faces in the movie,” DeHaan says.
For somebody who doubted he would ever make it as a working actor, DeHaan has assembled an impressive CV, including roles in The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Kill Your Darlings (2013) and Life (2015), in which he played James Dean.
In 2015, within a two-week period, he was hand-picked for plum lead roles by two of the world’s most acclaimed directors – Academy Award-winning American Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) for The Cure for Wellness,and César award-winning Frenchman Luc Besson (Lucy, Nikita) for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, released later this year.
“It’s always an honour when you are approached and offered a job,” DeHaan says.
“Gore is so accomplished; I met with him and he showed me some of the visual stuff for the movie and I was interested in trying something new.
“The roles are beyond a dream coming true. I’m not spending too much time thinking about it but I appreciate things every day. Hopefully I can make both of these directors proud after they’ve given me such great opportunities.”
In Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, DeHaan stars in his first action-hero role, opposite English actor/model Cara Delevingne, playing a time-travelling agent out to save the universe.
“That was the most fun I ever had making a movie and I get to play the hero, a real uncomplicated dude,” DeHaan says. “And I didn’t have any nightmares; I was always in a good mood.”
The American has come a long way since graduating in 2008 from acting school in North Carolina in the US.
“I thought I had a zero per cent chance of becoming a working actor,” he says. “I didn’t think it would happen; honestly, I thought I would be a starving artist working in the New York City theatre scene and waiting for opportunities. I never imagined I would be here today. Luck has a lot to do with it, at the beginning anyway.”
It was Queensland-born director John Hillcoat who gave DeHaan one of his first breaks with a role in Lawless (2012), a Depression-era American crime drama that also featured breakout appearances from Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain and Jason Clarke.
“When we made Lawless, Tom Hardy hadn’t made Batman (The Dark Knight Rises, 2012) yet and was not known, and neither was Jessica or Jason,” DeHaan says.
“It was a talented bunch of people, so I’m not surprised at any of their well-deserved success.”
A Cure for Wellness opens Thursday
Originally published as Movie review: A Cure for Wellness starring Dane DeHaan
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