Unfortunately, the Troy Nixey-directed, Guillermo del Toro-produced redux is still in limbo, but here are a few remarks from the KING’S SPEECH actor on his work and role in the eagerly awaited film.

Collider spoke with Pearce, who appeared in THE ROAD and RAVENOUS, but hasn’t really ever acted in a straight-out horror movie. “It’s a bit of a side-step for me, doing a sort of thriller/horror film, it’s certainly not something I’ve done before,” he says. “[We had] a producer [del Toro] who is a director himself, a great eye looking for great young talent. DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK was made as a TV movie back in the ’70s, [and] they reworked the idea and changed various aspects of it. Great to work with Katie Holmes and young Bailee Madison, who’s the lead girl in the film.”

In DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, Pearce plays “the dad who’s not the great dad. I’m very busy with my ambition and what I’m sort of caught up in at the time, which is restoring a big ol’ house, really trying desperately to get my architectural career back on track. Working on it with my now-girlfriend who Katie Holmes plays, and my wife who lives on the west coast of America says, ‘It’s time for you to start looking after our daughter now,’ and sends our 8-year-old daughter across to me, which is incredibly bad timing for me. And really then the story becomes the girl’s experience in the house, which we discover is haunted on some sort of—not really haunted but, it is haunted but not in the way we think with ghosts, etc. And I think it’s a reflection on the lack of love and attention she’s getting from her family, and Katie Holmes is the one—the girlfriend, the potential stepmother—is the one who really bonds with the girl and tries to connect and I’m just off being busy and being a terrible dad really.”

For more on DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, check out our interview with director Troy Nixey from this past summer's San Diego Comic-Con.

 

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