Ashley Bell, Patrick Fabian on 'The Last Exorcism'

Hollyscoop caught up with Ashley Bell and Patrick Fabian at Bing's 'Celebration of Creative Minds' event and asked them about their new movie, 'The Last Exorcism', and what it was like working with Eli Roth. Interviews by Bridget Daly.

Interviewer: You are going to be in what I hear is supposed to be the most horrifyingly scary movie of the summer. Ashley Bell: Thank you so much; thank you. Interviewer: Tell me about it. Ashley Bell: I’m coming out in The Last Exorcism. It opens in theaters August 27th and it will be preparing at the LA Film Festival on June 24th. Interviewer: Wow! That’s coming up Ashley Bell: This Thursday; yes. Interviewer: Get scared; get ready to get scared. So, you seem like such a sweet, innocent, nice girl; what drew you? I mean seriously. Ashley Bell: This is watch out. I’m pending in here Interviewer: I’m a little nervous. I’m really afraid of scary movies like I just sleep with the lights on for months. So, tell me about his one but don’t scare me too much. Ashley Bell: Absolutely, Eli Roth is one of the Producers on it and he is just a master at horror. He builds suspense like no other. So, you know it’s going to be good and it’s shot like a documentary, so the fear in it is very palpable because as an audience, you’re up close and personal with what is real evil. Interviewer: People are drawing comparisons of course to paranormal activity, what do you think are the similarities and differences? Ashley Bell: I think it’s shot in the vein of that very handheld camera, it’ll hit you thoroughly in that way but it is a film about an exorcist, so it’s a whole different genre. You’re opening up a whole different element of it. Interviewer: You are going to be in one of the scariest movies of the summer. Patrick Fabian: I hope so. I hope it keeps all the 14-year old boys awake at night. Interviewer: How about the 30-year old women, like me? Patrick Fabian: They’ll be streaking as well absolutely, yes. Interviewer: So, you look such a nice guy, what drew you to this role? Patrick Fabian: I love horror films. Growing up, I used to love watching Alien, The Changeling and the Dark Secret of Harvest Home; so I’m all a big fan of that plus, it’s an exorcism movie, so I get to be the exorcist which is the preacher and that’s always a fun role to do. It’s larger than life, you get to use a lot of words and I get to do a lot of research. I went to like a Baptist Church and a Born Again Christian Churches and all those sort of things. So, it was very educational as well. So, a lot of things I didn’t know that ended up learning and using in the movie which is good. Interviewer: We just spoke with Ashley, what was it like working with her and with Eli? Patrick Fabian: She was scary looking wasn’t she? Or she all cleaned up because she was scary on set. I can tell you that much. She was great. She had a lot of things to do. To be the preacher is one thing but to be the possessed girl is a totally different animal and she was fantastic. Like I said, it almost was no acting involved because I can react to whatever she was doing and Eli Roth is so enthusiastic about what he does. It was infectious and it really fed itself into the set. So, we’re really excited about it; August 27th don’t miss it. Interviewer: So, exciting; now people are doing a lot of comparisons to paranormal activity, what do you think about that? Patrick Fabian: Well you know, I saw a paranormal activity and I also shrieked to the end without a doubt and the only similarities I would say on it is that it’s a handheld thing, so it’s that sort of jerky camera thing and other than that, they’re completely different movies. If we can be as successful as paranormal activity, I’ll count ourselves lucky but I’ll tell you what? I think it’s a lot scarier.