Written and directed by Adam Ethan Crow, Lair tells a terrifying tale about what one man would do for fame and wealth. That man in question is Steven Caramore (Corey Johnson), who decides to rent a house to a family that contains his potentially possessed totems. Caramore is known to be a collector of the occult, but doesn’t believe in the dark arts. However, after his close friend Ben (Oded Fehr) kills his entire family and blames it on one of Caramore’s totems, he’s willing to experiment — at least on others. What comes next in Lair is a thrilling mix of found footage horror in a good ol’ possession tale with plenty of gore and demons.
To dig into what it took to bring the villainous Caramore to life, Corey Johnson sat down for an exclusive interview with CBR. He was joined by his co-star and longtime friend, Oded Fehr, who delved into what it was like acting alongside Johnson and the joys of working on a micro-budget film that deeply valued what everyone brought to the creative table.
CBR: I spoke with Adam [Ethan Crow] the other day and he told me that it was Corey who pitched you, Oded, to be a part of Lair. I would love to hear what that pitch was like. “Hey, stop filming Star Trek Discovery and come make this movie!”
Corey Johnson: It involves groveling, crying and me being on my knees to beg him to come!
No, Oded and I, have been friends since The Mummy. I remember a moment in Morocco when the director took Oded — we had a base camp — and they walked away from the base camp, along this road in the middle of the desert. A production assistant, who was a friend of ours, was standing next to me. She said, “He’s telling him that they’re so thrilled and pleased about what he’s doing that they’re going to not only let him live at the end of this movie, they’re going to put him in the next movie.” I looked at her and I said, “He’s going in this as one kind of actor, and he’s coming back another.” It was literally the truth because he went out just doing one of his first jobs and he came back a nascent star. He was basically telling him for the next few months you are going to be for the hottest thing in the solar system. He was right about that.
Oded Fehr: What are you going on about? [laughs]
He’s just signing your praises. [laughs]
Johnson: You don’t say that because you’re tall, and the editor likes you, so we’re gonna make you a star. You do that because you were absolutely blown away by what someone’s doing. Even though it didn’t happen to me, I was willing it to happen. It was like a dream come true that that idea can occur. You can actually see it when it’s going on and you know that this guy was going out and he was going to become a star. It was just amazing. Here’s the big thing: he did not change at all as a human being. That’s a miraculous thing in this business.
We managed to stay friends for 25 years. It was a no-brainer to try and find something where he could do this. Adam said, “Any of your friends might want to work on this?” I suggested a couple of guys I know from London, like Jason Isaacs met with Adam — he really wants to work with Adam. But when I said Oded, he went, “Oh my God. Oded would be great.” I was just thrilled that Oded was so willing to go the extra mile to do it.
And wasn’t it like, you only five or six days on set and then had to fly back to Star Trek land?
Fehr: It was very short, yeah.
Corey and I have been friends since The Mummy. I gotta tell you, the funny thing about being an actor is a lot of people are very sensitive about their work and a lot of people don’t like other actors directing them or stepping on their toes and so on. Me, on the other hand, I feel like most of the good work that I’ve ever done in my life is thanks to my co-workers — other actors or directors or somebody giving me a great note.
I don’t know if you remember in The Mummy, there’s that scene when they’re coming out — I remember this story specifically because this is the first time this happened to me — and they’re coming out of the pyramid. I’m out there saying, “You have unleashed this creature,” and it ended up making it to the trailer.
Corey was there on set and I was rehearsing it. The Mummy was my first job. I was very nervous. I came over to Corey, and I go, “What do you think?” And he goes, “Yeah, it was good. It’s good.” I said, “No, no, seriously. Corey, what do you think? Do you have any ideas?” He goes, ” Really, you want my opinion?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Are you going to do it like that?” I said, “Well, that’s what I was thinking. Do you have any ideas?” He said, “No, no, no, just relax at all. Just make everything much calmer, much more relaxed. The density is there in the lines.” So I come back and do that and all of a sudden, Stephen Sommers is there. They’re getting excited like, “Oh, this is for sure a trailer moment.” So that moment is all thanks to Corey, of course. I’ve been very thankful for that ever since.
So when he called me up — to be totally frank with you, it could be with anybody or anything, I would have done it — but [it was also] the fact that it was with Adam, whom they’ve worked together before. One of my favorite performances of Corey’s is the short that they did together, “Warhol.” He plays a radio jockey and it’s so intense. It’s so amazing. It’s so well done. I was just thrilled and excited to get the opportunity to work with them.
In Lair, Oded, you play Ben, who’s going through a very dark time. Then there’s Corey’s Steven, who’s a skeptic and very explosive. I loved how your energies played off each other. Stephen’s a bit more bombastic, and Ben is quiet until he lashes out. What was it like developing that balance on-screen — especially because that beginning scene sets the tone for the whole film?
Fehr: Well, I have to say one thing. Working with Cory is, on one hand, I love him to death. He’s the most wonderful human being on the face of the earth. On the other hand, I want to kill him. I’m dyslexic. It takes me forever to learn my lines. This guy has got a photographic memory, and he only needs to read it once and he knows it. It just seems so easy to for him. It always feels, to me, like I’m killing myself with this work. [laughs]
Johnson: Yeah, you got to understand, though, you were like literally reading the first third of the Old Testament. I would say, “What?” And then you’d read the next third, and I go, “Really?” It wasn’t hard learning those lines. You had the big stuff.
Fehr: [laughs] This is 25 years of this, of him like reading with me at auditions and he knows my lines and the lines he’s reading opposite me, right off the bat. I’m struggling and he goes, “Well, come on. Why are you stopping?” I was laughing earlier that it’s 25 years of frustration that I put into that prison scene.
You two are no strangers to working on sets with really rad SFX work. Oded, you’ve worked on everything from Charmed to Star Trek: Discovery, and Corey, you’ve done everything from X-Men: First Class and Hellboy and a bunch of political dramas. Lair is a micro-budget horror film, which makes it really hard to do effects right —
Fehr: — it doesn’t look like a micro-budget film.
It looks amazing! I would love to hear what’s something about Adam’s approach that helped elevate the film’s effects and look?
Fehr: I think Adam made it very clear from the get-go that this was not a one-man show. I think, to be totally frank with you, the collaborative execution of shooting this film was what made it so incredible, and that Adam made it that way. It’s wonderful to feel like you’re sharing this communal experience, and it makes you just give your best. Everybody practically worked for free on this project and gave their hearts out. I think that’s really the key to it: get as many of the most talented people you can get together and share it together.
What about his process stuck out to you, Corey?
Johnson: I remember there was a pickup we had to do. We did it in another location, but we were doing a real tight on my face. Adam was telling me, “Okay, this is that moment we shot a couple of weeks ago, and we just need something tight on your face, like you’re making this decision.” I remember, there was a lot of work going on around and he said, “Do we need to have quiet?” I said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.”
I started thinking about what it was that was going on as they were setting up, what it was that I remembered about what we shot. I started to get a little emotional about it. Adam was filming it, and he’d stop, and something would go on. He said, “Dude, do you want to step out and take a break?” I said, “No, no, I’m in a good place. Just do your thing. We’ll keep going.”
Immediately, he started picking up the pace on what they were doing, so there was less time between takes. Instead of being five or 10 minutes [between takes], it was now three minutes or five minutes. They were rolling and it got to a point where I was really… I had given him something on one level, but the level was rising, and he was getting something else. He knew, as young as he is as a director, these aren’t the kind of things you can just go, “Oh, okay, let’s break for lunch and come back and Corey will pick it up.” He just really quietly, really calmly put the screws to everything so that it went even faster.
They kept getting these shots and we finally finished and broke. He said, “We got it.” He was aware of where I was, and he was aware of what was going on. Neither one of us had to make a big deal out of it. We were reading each other in the situation. That is what makes a really great director.
That comes across a lot with Caramore. As the movie goes on, he’s unraveling.
Johnson: That’s good. That’s great that you got that.
Speaking of Caramore, I really loved how at times he knows he’s a charlatan, but then is in complete denial at other moments. Adam told me that he saw him as “the kind of villain you could grab a beer with.” How would you describe him?
Johnson: There was a note Adam gave me one time. He said, “What you’re doing is really, really nice. Just give me one take that’s more Caramore.” I went, “Okay.” I did this take and he was like, “There you go.” That really was who he was.
I was doing a scene in Kingsman: The Secret Service, and I was replacing the dialogue and this guy says, “Matthew [Vaughn] wants you to go a little bit further with the dialogue.” It was already quite racy dialogue, so I went a little further and the guy went, “Yeah, it’s good. It’s good. Can you do a little further than that?” So I really started going, “Okay…” He said, “All right, a little further than that — just for the hell it.” The only place you can go from where we were filming is like barnyard animals and the Kama Sutra put all in a blender and thrown together. I’m regurgitating this garbage and the guy calls cut and goes, “Oh my god!” You can’t ask for that and then get bummed out when it happens.
Adam knew where he wanted me to go with it and wasn’t afraid that I was going to go too far. When someone gives you a license like that, you can go too far and find out there’s actually a nice little island there with a palm tree that you can spend time in, which is nice. Even for a nasty person, it’s nice to know that you don’t have to dive into the depths of hell. There was a friend of mine who did a movie and I said, “How did you get that? How did you get that moment where you just looked peaceful?” He said, “The director whispered in my ear. He said, ‘It’s like, you’ve gone to hell and found out it’s not that bad.'”
Fehr: Wow.
Johnson: I went, “Oh, my god, that’s amazing.” That’s an amazing line. I’ll never forget that as long as I live because it was brilliant. If I told you the movie, you’d look at that moment and go, “That’s it.” Really, that’s what you do. Everybody’s afraid to go too far. But what a good director does is let you do go there and find out, “Hey, this I can live here. This is not so bad.”
Corey, you’re starring as Mr. Fox in Morbius. I know you probably can’t say too much, but do you get to play more of a villain again? I love seeing you as a villain in Lair and I would love to see future villainous roles for you!
Johnson: Yeah, it’s kind of tough to say. He’s a bit of an ass. He’s full of himself. People like that always get the thing they deserve. I think he does. There’s not enough time for him on screen. I can tell you that. [laughs] But no, it’s fine. It’s good. I’ll just wait for Adams’s next movie because he’ll guarantee me a lot of screen time.
I heard Adam’s already working on a new film, Bone Harvest, and said he’d love to have you both back.
Johnson: Yeah, hopefully. That’d be great. I’d work with him anytime.
Fehr: Definitely.
Created by a family of filmmakers, Lair is available to stream now on VOD.
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