INT: Alexi Hawley

Last Updated on July 28, 2021

The
Arrow interviews Alexi Hawley

In
case you hadn’t heard, “Exorcist: The Beginning” was shot
twice due to the studio’s unhappiness with the first version. Once
by Paul Schrader from a script by Alex Carr and William Fisher (click
here to read my set visit of that shoot),
and then by Renny  Harlin from a script by Alexi Hawley. I had
the chance to shoot the Holy Water with Hawley to get his two horns
on all that was his jamboree with “Exorcist: The
Beginning”. Here’s the scoop!

ARROW:
What’s your favorite horror movie?

ALEXI: I
can’t pick just one.  The top five = The Exorcist.  The
Shining. Poltergeist.  The Omen.  The Ring.

ARROW:
Exorcist: The Beginning was your first “produced”
screenwriting credit. What type of writing background do you have?

ALEXI: I
actually segued into writing from playing music in a number of bands
in New York City.  I was looking for a creative outlet that
didn’t involve carrying drums up and down the stairs at four in
the morning. My first script, Chasing Shadows, was set up at Artisan
pictures a few years ago (and has since landed at Ascendant Pictures
where it’s scheduled to go into production this fall). Since then,
I have been steadily working on assignments from MGM, Miramax,
Intermedia and, currently, 20th Century Fox.

ARROW:
How did the gig of re-writing “The Exorcist: The
Beginning” come to land on your lap?

ALEXI: Morgan
Creek was up against a deadline for “reshoots” on the movie. 
The way it was described to me at the time was that the writer they
had working on the script wasn’t going to have time to write the
third act of the movie.  So I was invited to pitch them how I
would end the movie.  I watched some footage, read some pages
and gave them my take on how the movie should end.  They liked
it so much that they asked me to look at the rest of the working
script.  I gave them a detailed rundown of where I thought the
script needed to go and, after several meetings, including a final
one with Renny Harlin, I was hired.

ARROW:
What kind of research did you undertake before tackling the
screenplay? 

ALEXI: Honestly,
I watched scary movies. Obviously, the original Exorcist and
Exorcist III.  I also read up on the Roman Rituals and anything
I could find on demonic possession.  Honestly, though, the
biggest challenge I thought we were facing was our setting. 
The movie takes place in 1949 Kenya.  The original Exorcist was
so terrifying because it was in your house.  Upstairs in that
bedroom, the devil was inside a 12 year old girl.  And that is
way too close for comfort for most of us. Because we were so far
removed from that, I felt that we had to go out of our way to make
the scares in our version identifiable.  We had to ground the
terror of this movie in reality.  Both physically and
psychologically.

ARROW:
How much time did you have to do that “page 1” re-write?

ALEXI: When
I was hired, there was only five or six weeks before they were
scheduled to start shooting.  However, the reality of movie
making is that you need time beforehand for pre-production (building
sets, getting props, hiring actors, etc.)  So the way it played
out was I was hired on a Tuesday afternoon with the understanding
that I needed to rewrite the entire script, knocking 30 pages off it
in the process, and could I do it by Friday? 72 mostly
sleepless hours later I turned in a draft that was my vision of the
movie (and 29 pages shorter). And while it wasn’t finished by any
means, there was a big sigh of relief at the studio because suddenly
everyone could see what the movie was. Shooting was pushed back a
few more weeks for pre-production purposes; ultimately starting in
December, 2003.  I went to Rome a week before cameras rolled,
and stayed until they broke for the holidays – fine tuning the
script during that time.

ARROW:
Every writer has his writing process. What was yours? Did you lock
yourself in a room? Did you get acquainted with a bottle of Jack…?

ALEXI: Red
Bull is more like it. Overall, my process really depends on
what I’m working on.  I’m pretty disciplined about sitting
down to work every morning and staying there until 5 or 6. 
With Exorcist, though, it was pretty much eat, breath and sleep the
project from October, 2003 through the beginning of 2004.  I
wrote at home.  I wrote on the plane.  I wrote at the
hotel.  I wrote on the set.  And I loved doing it. 
The reality in Hollywood is that the average development process on
a script is counted in years (and most of the time the movie
ultimately never gets shot).  To go from being hired, to being
in Rome on the set of a movie I had written in six or eight weeks
was a unique and incredibly exciting experience.

ARROW:
How many of Caleb Carr’s ideas, if any did you retain in your
Exorcist 4?

ALEXI: It’s
hard for me to say how much of what we based our movie on was Caleb
Carr’s, how much was William Wisher’s (who penned the original
version of the script), and how much was Paul Schrader’s (who did
a polish on Caleb’s script).  That being said, what Morgan
Creek did was (I believe) unprecedented in movie history. 
Usually, when a studio decides a film needs work, they do reshoots
to fill in what they perceive to be holes in the film.  What
Morgan Creek decided (before I came on board) was that rather then
put things into the film, they were going to see what they could
take out of it in order to craft a brand new film around those
ideas/scenes.  What that means is that, when I was hired, the
skeleton of the new film was already beginning to take shape based
around several existing ideas from Paul Schrader’s footage. The
biggest two being: the set up of a mysterious church in Africa that
Father Merrin investigates (from which I created a whole mythology
for why this area was so important), and Merrin’s backstory of
what happened to him in the war that caused him to lose his faith
(although I integrated it into the film in a different way).

However, the
problems of trying to craft a new movie using scenes from the old
version soon became apparent.  Specifically, as I crafted a new
story, with new characters and new twists and turns, the scenes we
were thinking of keeping either stopped making sense or contained
actors that were recast.  By the time I got to Rome, we were
looking at using only about ten minutes of Schrader’s film –
scenes that all involved Father Francis.  When the actor who
played him, Gabriel Mann, was unable to make the shoot on time,
James Darcy was hired to play the role literally the weekend before
he was supposed to start filming. From a story standpoint, this
was a blessing in disguise because Gabriel’s existing scenes had
really ceased to make sense. I was, therefore, thrilled to be able
to roll up my sleeves and rewrite them for James, who did a
fantastic job.  Ultimately, the only footage that remains from
Paul Schrader’s movie is exterior establishing shots that were
filmed in Morocco.

ARROW:
Without giving too much away, what is your favorite “scare” set
piece within your version of Exorcist 4?

ALEXI: One
word. Claustrophobia.

ARROW:
How would you describe the experience that was collaborating with
King Renny Harlin?

ALEXI: I
had a great time working with Renny.  He was an absolute
professional who put the quality of the movie above all else. I
found him to be a generous, intelligent director who showed extreme
patience in a high stress situation.  To his credit, he
actively wanted me in Rome when they started shooting and wanted me
right next to him on the set.  He had no ego about asking my
advice, and I feel like he challenged me to give my best at all
times.

ARROW:
Have you seen Schrader’s version of Exorcist 4? If so, what did
you think?

ALEXI: I
have the deepest respect and admiration for Paul Schrader, both as a
writer and a director. The truth of the matter is that I have
not seen Schrader’s cut of the movie.  I hit the ground
running so fast on this project that I only had time to watch the
scenes that Morgan Creek was thinking of using for Renny’s movie.
It obviously wouldn’t be right for me to comment on those.

ARROW:
What are your thoughts on Exorcist 2 and 3?

ALEXI: I
really have no thoughts about Exorcist 2 – other than I avoided it. Exorcist
3, on the other hand, had several truly scary moments: (1) The black
confessional window with the mysterious voice coming from behind it;
(2) the old woman crawling on the ceiling; and (3) that incredible
locked off camera shot in the hospital, where you just know
something bad is going to happen but William Peter Blatty makes you
wait and wait and wait and then – when it finally comes – it still
scares the hell out of you.

ARROW:
What’s next on your plate? I heard you have “Grimm”
going on. What’s that picture about? 

ALEXI: As
I mentioned, Chasing Shadows is currently getting ready for
pre-production.  I’m also doing a rewrite for Fox on a
project called Bulldog Dance that Catherine Hardwick wrote for them. Grimm
is (for easiness sake) Seven with Grimm’s fairy tales. It
is one of those development stories that happen far more often than
what I experienced on Exorcist.  It was supposed to go into
production last year, but didn’t. At the moment, I have gotten the
rights to it back and am currently talking to several places about
setting it up.

ARROW:
What do you hope audiences will get out of Exorcist 4 when it’s
released?

ALEXI: Scared.

I’d
like to thank Alexi for sharing his “Deep Thoughts by Jack
Handy” about his experience. Only time will tell if this
“second” Exorcist: The Beginning will rock or be renamed
to “The Exorcist: The End of a Franchise”.

VISIT
THE OFFICIAL EXORCIST 4 SITE

READ
MY SET VISIT OF SCHRADER’S EXORCIST 4