Dane DeHaan, Gore Verbinksi, Mia Goth Talk THE CURE FOR WELLNESS

The new psychological thriller from 20th Century Fox, THE CURE FOR WELLNESS promises to take movie-goers down a dark and twisty rabbit hole.

During a recent roundtable interview in West Hollywood, I was able to speak with actors Dane DeHaan and Mia Goth, plus writer-director Gore Verbinski.

DeHaan talked at length about the many challenging sequences he had to endure to bring to life Lockhart, an ambitious business man tasked with returning back to NY an executive from his company, now in a wellness center at the top of the Swiss Alps.

The rising star will also appear this year in Luc Besson’s sci-fi movie Valerian. I asked him to compare the French director to Verbinksi, another visually unique filmmaker.

“They are very different, as the movies I did with them. This one, The Cure for Wellness, is more intimate, you can’t miss a beat. It depends on my performance because throughout the whole thing the camera is right here on me. In Valerian you have an intense world around you, it’s full of special effects. It’s way bigger in scope.”

Mia Goth plays Hannah, a mysterious young girl at the strange facility. I was curious if the mood was light during the shoot to compensate the darkness of the material.

“It was pretty tense, and I liked that. The more you can create in real life, the less you have to do on-set. Jason Isaacs, who plays [the director of the center] Volmer, has a lighthearted nature, so Gore had to pull him aside and ask him not to break the tension.”

Before being known for big-scale blockbusters like the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Gore Verbinksi left his mark in the horror genre with The Ring. This is what the director responded after I mentioned that I could see parallels between that movie and The Cure for Wellness:

“Well, this movie is about a health center, not a video that will kill you after seeing it. But what it’s nice about both movies is that they slip you away from the waking state and into a dream-like logic. Lockhart is off-balance. He is a reluctant patient, but really the patient is you. We are using sound, image, and everything in our power to do this experiment on you.”

Check-in yourself into a nearby theater and check out THE CURE FOR WELLNESS, now playing nationwide.

An ambitious young executive is sent to retrieve his company’s CEO from an idyllic but mysterious “wellness center” at a remote location in the Swiss Alps. He soon suspects that the spa’s miraculous treatments are not what they seem. When he begins to unravel its terrifying secrets, his sanity is tested, as he finds himself diagnosed with the same curious illness that keeps all the guests here longing for the cure.