Posted in: Exclusive, Horror, Interview, Movies | Tagged: Alice Lucy, Casper Van Dien, exclusive, interview, Johannes Hartmann, Mad Heidi, Sandro Klopfstein, Swissploitation Films

Mad Heidi Stars Alice Lucy & Casper Van Dien On Swissploitation Remake

Mad Heidi stars Alice Lucy & Casper Van Dien talk to Bleeding Cool about the Swissploitation Films grindhouse romp, action, and more.

There's probably little doubt when Johanna Spyri originally conceived the 1880 children's book "Heidi," she would never imagine anything that would come close to the grindhouse-esque slaughter fest that is Mad Heidi from Swissploitation Films. This wicked odyssey of blood and cheese puts a new spin on the classic tale of Heidi, finding our heroine (Alice Lucy) all grown-up and living an idyllic life in the Swiss Alps with her beloved grandfather (David Schofield) far above an increasingly-dystopian landscape presided over by Our Very Swiss Leader (Casper Van Dien) – a ruthless dictator bent on world domination through dairy. Lucy (Junction 9) and Van Dien (Starship Troopers) spoke to Bleeding Cool about directors Johannes Hartmann and Sandro Klopfstein, their script (with Gregory D. Widmer), the action-horror comedy, stunt work, and weather. Note: The interview took place before the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Mad Heidi: Great Rivals & Best of Friends

Bleeding Cool: What intrigued you about Mad Heidi?

Lucy: I got sent the script by my agent, and she said, "Bit of a wild one, but take a look at this." I read through it and thought it was utterly bonkers and crazy. It had so much heart in it and passion from the team. It sent over all the reasons why they wanted to do it and why it was being made. Something that is believed in so wholeheartedly by such an immense group of people, I needed to be a part of and share that passion.

Van Dien: They sent me the script, and my agent also said that this was a wild one. I loved it, especially for the 'Starship Troopers' references. The insanity of this was incredible. I was excited because I loved that it was all crowdfunded and that they were all involved. When I got over there, it was an even more incredible experience with everybody, especially meeting Alice and seeing how cool she was, the rest of the crew, cast, and everybody involved there. A wonderful experience.

What was it like working with Johannes and Sandro on the film and the set they ran?

LucyIt was fab. They were great. They worked well as a team. They can delegate different roles to each other at different times and play to each other's strengths. I was glad that both got to direct because it's such a merge of the two of their brains that it needed them to bring it to life. There was a lot of laughter and care given.

Van Dien: They were so good and thorough. They even put name tags of great directors like [Robert] Rodriguez, [Quentin] Tarantino, and [Dario] Argento. They even put Carl Schenkel, who was the director of my Tarzan [and the Lost City (1998)], who was a Swiss-German name. Nobody will ever know that, but it's in there. Little details like that are key to a film, and not that it's featured in any shape or form, but it's still there. All those things add to a film's quality.

Given the grindhouse format, were there any performances you channeled that help guide you in Mad Heidi?

Lucy: I watched Kill Bill, two or three times in preparation for this. Lena Headey's performance in [The Terminator] 'Sarah Connor Chronicles' series was one of the big things that I tried to emulate that sort of drive, grit, and determination to be stronger and learn more. They were the two inspirations I looked up to for this role.

Van Dien: I had been studying for a German accent beforehand for another film, and then I got this one, which was Swiss-German. I was seeing the over-the-top nature of it and combined a whole bunch of different types of people that I might like, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, a little bit. I wanted to be over the top and wild a little bit. I went for some other characters and people that I recognized and would be cool to play in there. I went as wild as I could be, and I had fun. It had to be a role that you had to play. I'm like, "Just believe in it." Being over the top, I enjoyed this one, and It was a lot of fun for me.

Alice, can you kind of break down the type of stunt work that you work with, and was it difficult planning through those sequences, especially given the indie nature of the film?

Lucy: I'm a second-dan black belt in taekwondo, so I have a martial arts background before joining the film, which helped me pick up choreography and learn the skills. We had two and a half weeks of stunt training before we started shooting, so I was grateful to have that time to work with the team because we had a week of learning about the halberd and the katana. We would practice routines that had nothing to do with the film, but it was more of a way to assess both my skill set but also of the other people that I would be fighting against and work out what complemented each of us the most. In the second week, we built the choreographies for the film, and the longest gap that we had between learning a choreography and needing to remember it to shoot it was about a month and a half. When we're rehearsing and practicing, the team is building these incredible scenes, we're on flat ground, and we're in a nice warm space. When you get to shoot it, you're outside; it's slippery. Most of the time, I wasn't wearing any shoes, so they had to go in, and clear out all the rocks and all the twigs to make sure. The nuns' sequence, for example, was on a slope, and we had to keep sliding back up the slope because myself and the nuns were moving further and further down the hill when we were doing the fight. Little things like that were interesting to take from start to finish.

Was there any sequence or aspect of the film that was particularly difficult to kind of master or take a little more time than expected?

Van Dien: You always want more time. That's always the case in every movie and budget. You always want more time for things. I had a lot of fun doing it, but that would have been more of an issue that Alice would have had to deal with.

Lucy: Probably the arena scenes were tricky not only because of time, but also its location, a real Roman amphitheater, which is beautiful. We were right in the middle of a valley, so we only had a certain amount of time in the day when the whole arena was lit by the sun. You would start the day, and it would be in full shade, and then we'd slowly start warming up, rehearsing, making sure the second the shade left the arena, we would shoot. You could then see the shade creeping back on the other side of the arena towards the end of the day. It was tricky because we had to make sure that we did it right, and that the continuity was as close to perfect as possible despite there being also a big shadow chasing you to get you back out of the arena again. If we'd had more time, that would have been perfect.

Van Dien: It was also very cold. It was cool, then it got warm, and then it got cold. A lot of people were in T-shirts, so they'd have to take them off and put them back on. It was great, all the Miley [Cyrus] T-shirts. Oh, should I tell them about you?!

Lucy: Go on then [laughs].

Van Dien: There is one scene in that arena where Alice plays a fan in the stands with a Miley T-shirt, and nobody knows this. She's even in there out of character for that, a little bit behind the French people, and if you look carefully, you might catch her.

Lucy: [laughs]

Casper, did you offer any veteran tips to Alice on set?

Van Dien: I love her, and I would do anything to help and take care of her. She's family to us. My wife and I kind of adopted her.

Lucy: [laughs]

Van Dien: We love her to death. As far as mentoring, I was saying, "Keep being you," because I don't know what her experience is, but I enjoyed watching and seeing her. I'm proud of her. I was proud of how she was on set and how she was as a person. We hit it off right away, and I was like, "Wow! She's so fucking cool." That's awesome to have that when you have when your lead is that cool. I enjoyed working with her, being around her, watching her, and being in the scenes with her, like coming up and pretending to smell her and doing all the creepy things like that. On our scenes, I was like, "Oh, I'm going to go like this." She was like, "Yeah." She gave her everything, and it was awesome.

Alice, what was your takeaway leading this film that you'll take into your next project?

Lucy: I've had a long time to process that experience, but the biggest thing is to trust yourself because I can spend so many times overanalyzing and overthinking what I should do, what I shouldn't do, but just trusting in who I am and what I have to offer and knowing I've been selected by this group of people, because of who I am and what I have to offer. If they can believe in me, then I should believe in myself as well.

Mad Heidi, which also stars Max Rüdlinger, is available on digital, Blu-ray, and DVD.

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