In "Gone," Amanda Seyfried plays Jill, who survived a kidnapping at the hands of a serial killer and is convinced that he's now come back for her sister. Trouble is, no one else believes that this killer really exists and they think Jill made up her entire ordeal. The film takes place in one day as Jill tries to save her sister before it's too late. Seyfried told Moviefone she learned some Krav Maga for the part and got genuinely creeped out when one scene went on longer than she liked.
Your character kind of kicks ass in this movie, is that why you wanted to take on the role?
Yeah, she's pretty normal and I think that was kind of awesome because the script is really rounded. We're talking about serial killers abducting their prey and all this stuff that does happen. There's no blood and guts, there's no super-powers. It's very grounded, and I liked how it's about this regular kind of girl next door who's been damaged and is really vulnerable, but at the same time, just has this strength to her. And you see her take action and come out at the end strong. It's just nice to see a normal girl find that she's capable of anything.
It's a thriller, but it's also sort of an action movie.
It is, a little bit. In my opinion, action movies can seem kind of fake in some ways, but I did most of my driving. I did my own Krav Maga. I did handle the gun, I was shooting. It's not like a lot of it was done with other people or CGI, it was all real. It's nice to have a smaller movie and to keep it in one vein. It's nice that we never really went out of the boundaries of reality.
Did you study Krav Maga just for this role?
Yes, but I just learned specific sequences. It wasn't extensive whatsoever.
So, you versus Matt Damon, how would that work out?
Matt Damon seems like he could throw down!
Have you ever done any other self-defense training? Do you feel like you could handle yourself if something happened?
I don't. My trainer in New York is trying to teach me this fight training, I forget what it's called, but it looks really physical and you have to be really coordinated. I don't know, but I'll try it. When I'm in New York, I'm going to give it a shot. I think it would be great, I just don't see myself getting good at it. I mean, we are capable of anything we put our mind to, like you see in "Gone," but...
The scene where you're held captive in a deep hole in the ground, how long were you in there? It looked pretty creepy.
All day. In and out though. We had several holes, like four all together, one really deep one and one that had different compartments in it that would open up for the camera and it wasn't really that scary. Except there were a few takes where they kept rolling on me screaming at the bottom of it and all the compartments at the bottom were covered up so I did actually feel really claustrophobic. Part of that was really me screaming and to cut the camera.
So you were happy when that scene wrapped.
Yeah. It is fun to go out of your comfort zone, but you're never fully out of your comfort zone because you're never really doing anything that's dangerous. Except in "Mamma Mia," I had to jump off of a cliff. I wasn't very happy about that. It was so not fun. But that's the only other time I had to do something so dangerous. But it's fine, there's 100 people around who are trying to protect you for insurance purposes.
"Gone" is out on Friday
