It feels appropriate that Ben Feldman is starring in a horror movie with a philosophical bent. The deeper meaning found within the Parisian catacombs in As Above, So Below provides a unique spin on the found-footage genre, in the same way that Feldman himself offered a surprising spin on the 1960s ad men we’d grown accustomed to on AMC’s Mad Men. His character, Michael Ginsberg, made quite the exit this past half-season, but thankfully, it’s not the last we’ll seen of the actor. Paste caught up with Feldman to talk scary movies, summer in Paris, and—yes—his poor nipple.
Paste Magazine: So, I just got a chance to screen the film yesterday.
Ben Feldman: Yes, this summer’s happy rom-com.
Paste: (laughs) The best part was that I was at a late screening, and everyone else had gone to the one before mine. I was alone in the theater with a security guard, and I was just freaking out.
Feldman: Did the security guard like it?
Paste: I could tell that he did. There were a few times when we looked at each other and laughed—you know, during the three funny moments. But the rest of the time I was curled up into the fetal position.
Feldman: (laughs) My wife’s not even going to watch it. She’s just going to cover her eyes the entire time.
Paste: (laughs) I support that. Now, I’d read that when you were younger you taught a videography class.
Feldman: Oh, you did some research! There’s a camp that I went to in Maryland, when I was little. That’s when I became a loud, obnoxious, creative, narcissist. So, I figured I’d give back to the kids when I was a little bit older. I taught videography, playmaking, mime, and then did things like “Capture the flag.”
Paste: Since you’ve had that behind-the-camera experience, do you find yourself looking at your own performances from a directorial standpoint?
Feldman: More and more. I used to not do that, just because you’d have to be a lot smarter than me to do that kind of stuff. My learning curve is a little bit slower, but I’m coming around.
It’s weird, I never think about this. But, when I was a kid, I made movies all of the time with my friends. I would steal my stepdad’s video camera, but I was never in the movies. I was always just yelling at them, like, “Okay, your dog died! You need to sob over your dog’s corpse.” And my yellow lab would be sitting there staring at me, and my buddy Justin would be sobbing over him. I used to do that all the time.
Paste: (laughs) That’s awesome.
Feldman: Just yesterday, I was on a set and I asked a question. And the DP said, “Look at you—you’re thinking like a director.” I was just glowing for the rest of the day.
Paste: Now, this isn’t your first experience with a found-footage horror movie. I know it’s been a while, but do you think Cloverfield prepared you in any way for this?
Feldman: Sort of. It prepared me for the physical aspect of things, in that you’re not relaxing. You’re not setting up a shot, shooting a few, then going to sit down in your trailer. You have to constantly be up and on your toes. And you’re sort of living in the moment—from the moment the camera would be turned on, to the moment it would be turned off. It’s sort of one, long, non-stop go at a scene over and over again. But I was in Cloverfield for, like, a minute (laughs).
Paste: I love the moment in As Above, So Below where your character sees his little brother in the water. Was there one particular scene that stood out to you when you first read the script?
Feldman: I should start off by saying I don’t particularly like horror movies. At all. There was some thing kind of special about this—like those sort of scenes—that made it feel like a bunch of other genres, and not just a horror movie. There’s adventure, and, to a degree, there’s character study. There were moments like that—and the one where my character is working in the clock tower—that made me fall in love with the script. Moments that felt like they could live in any movie, those made me excited.
Paste: Yes, I’m not particularly fond of horror movies, either. But as you make your way to the end, you can see that it’s not typical.
Feldman: Yeah, you fall for these characters. They’re not just archetypes, so you feel like you went down there [into the catacombs] with people you know. And—to a certain degree—it’s really an adventure movie, and a treasure hunt. I grew up on those kinds of movies—like Indiana Jones. And all of the things that are referenced in the movie, you can type them into Google, and they all have their own Wikipedia pages. It’s all real—alchemy, and history, and then there’s folklore.