John Moore, you had a heckler at a recent early screening in New York, right?

Moore: We showed the movie last night to writers and commentators. During the introduction to the Q&A, a gentlemen purported to have a question which really turned out to be a statement. He asked if I was from New York, and I said no. Then he said, "How dare you use an image of 9/11 and your movie's a piece of s--t," and then he stormed off.What was your reaction to the comment? The heckler referred only to the 9/11 footage and not the other depictions of recent tragedies.

Moore: I did stay up late at night wondering whether or not to use that in the movie. Other people said, "For God's sake, use Rwanda," or something like that. Which in and of itself is interesting. But you'd have to be churlish to not understand that this is America. If you're using images of pain that happened in America and you're showing it to Americans, you can expect there to be an emotional reaction. But what I simply did—believe me, I looked into a lot of cases of pure evil, and it's undeniable that looking at the last few years you can't walk away thinking that's not one of the most significant events. That's why it's used. I tried to use it in an analytical context. I didn't use it to get people upset.David Seltzer's 1976 screenplay is used extensively here, but didn't Dan McDermott work on the remake, too?

Moore: Dan McDermott was a credited writer, but due to the machinations of the [Writers Guild of America] he lost his credit. We did use Mr. Seltzer's script extensively.Just to clarify, though: Seltzer did not ever work on your film, correct?

Moore: He didn't work on the movie. I've never met the gentlemen, never even spoken with him. But when I was given the project I was sent "The Omen by David Seltzer, Copyright 1975." I didn't feel a great need to rush out and fix what wasn't broken. The story of the movie is extraordinarily good and extraordinarily tight. Especially by today's script standards, it's a damn good script. So I didn't feel the need to completely rework it.The film, in many ways, echoes the original film. Why not put more of your own touches on the material?

Moore: I think I did by default. It's a different cast, it's a different movie, it's a different experience. The story is the same. I don't mean this in a flattering way to myself, I mean it in a flattering way to the text: It's a bit like a Shakespeare play. You very much want people to enjoy the experience of the play, but the text is so good and the story tracks so well that you feel inclined to stick with that. I asked Richard Donner to see the movie, which he did on Monday night. He's happy with it.OK, so you chose to stay remarkably faithful to the original film, yet you dropped the memorable chanting music cue. Why?

Moore: Among the many differences is the music. There were voices saying, "Go with the original soundtrack if you're following the 'If it's not broke, don't fix it' line." But I wanted a soundtrack that was different. I think to use the original would have been pointless. But ironically enough, the fellow who did score it, Marco Beltrami, who I had worked with before, had studied under [Jerry] Goldsmith. They were friends, and he was a bit of a prodigy of Jerry's. So it felt very natural, and if you listen carefully there's a three-note motif in there as a tribute to Mr. Goldsmith.

Julia Stiles, had you seen the original Omen?

Stiles: Yes. I first saw it on VHS when I was a child. I don't know why my parents let me see it, but then I watched it again when John Moore approached me about doing it.



Did watching it again help you in any way as you prepped for the remake?

Stiles: It did. I was just watching it to refresh my memory about the plot, and also John had said to me—I had asked him how much he wanted to make it like the original, how much he wanted to do different, and he recommended I watch the original, because there was a lot that he was going for. I remember the scene where Lee Remick tells Gregory Peck that she wants to see a psychiatrist, and it's such a chilling scene. There's very little said with words, but so much is said. And I thought—that's really intriguing, I want to explore that, and that's why I decided to do it.What's your take on the difference between restaging a play and remaking a movie?

Stiles: I think because film is such a visual medium that when you remake a film, you're confronted with the decision whether to reuse some of the imagery that was powerful about the original or change it, and we disappoint [people] if we change it. Whereas in theater, if you have a really good story, it's going to want to be retold, and you don't have to worry so much about the visual imagery. I had horrible nightmares the first month that we were shooting of all images from the original Omen, and that's a testament to how powerful it is. But I think that it works as a story on its own. It hits on some truth, some fundamental fear that we all have, that's stuck with me that long.

Liev Schreiber, your previous remake, The Manchurian Candidate, had the same central idea as the original, but the script was markedly different. The Omen is pretty much the same from top to bottom, right?

Schreiber: Yes, in structure. It is, certainly. Well, I'm rehearsing Macbeth right now, and we're not tweaking the script very much [laughs].Do you think the devil is still scary in 2006?

Schreiber: I do. I do. I'm not entirely sure if it is merely the Christian embodiment of the devil that scares people, but I think that the idea of the manifestation of evil is something that still really, really gets people. I think that there is a reason why in 1976 this film rattled so many people. I think that there is potential that in 2006 the conditions are similar and that it will rattle people again.You've done a few horror films over the years, most notably the Scream trilogy. Do you like horror, or is it just a matter of doing the scripts that were coming your way?

Schreiber: Honestly, I think that it has something to do with my eyebrows.How much concern did you have about stepping into a role previously played by Gregory Peck?

Schreiber: Having been through that before, with Orson Welles [whose Citizen Kane role he essentially re-created in the HBO movie RKO 281] and Laurence Harvey, I was kind of primed for it. I don't think that in a million years I could come anywhere near to reproducing Gregory Peck's performance in The Omen, and for that matter the same goes for Laurence Harvey and certainly Orson Welles, but I also don't think that it's possible. I think that if you're doing your work honestly as an actor, and you're responding to things intuitively, you will own the role. That's just the way it is.

Mia Farrow, it's a bit of a wink and a nod to have you in The Omen, wouldn't you say?

Farrow: So I'm finding out. I keep hearing that. It wasn't in my mind when I did it. I was doing a very intense play, "Fran's Bed," with Julia [Stiles] when I got the call from John [Moore] asking if I would like to be in The Omen. I asked why, and he said, "I've got to do it. I just have so many passionate ideas about how to make it exciting for today's audiences," and he, at that point, scarcely had to throw in Liev's name. I'm like, "I'm there." And he said, "And Julia Stiles." I said, "She's in the next room." He said, "What? What are you talking about?" I said, "She's in the next room. We're doing a play together. Do you want to talk to her? She's right here." That's an omen [laughs].How did you go about setting your performance apart from that of Billie Whitelaw, who played your character in the original film?

Farrow: Well, I think that my second question to John Moore was "Why me?", because the great Billie Whitelaw played this role, and very well, and he said that in his interpretation of it this nanny should not be ominous in any way. We were all in agreement that it was another one of Ms. Whitelaw's great performances, and we love to be scared by her, but he felt that it would be much more effective to have someone who didn't look sinister and didn't show that hand until later on. Of course, on reflection of it, too, who would hire a nanny like that, today especially? So my job, I think, when I come in is to convince that family and the lovely audience into believing that I'm going to be the best nanny.You did Rosemary's Baby early on in your career, and now you've done The Omen, both of which tackle the theme of evil. What are your thoughts on evil and satanic influence?

Farrow: Sometimes I think, and this is for me, and this is besides the movie, but it's definitely at the core of it ... I grew up a Catholic. In my catechism book there would be pictures of the devil whispering in your ear, and he was a guy with horns and rather sinister with a long tail and a pitchfork. And then in the other ear there would be an angel. I think that the duality of human nature is the thing to look at here. We see everywhere evidence of altruism and goodness, and we also, we don't have to look far ... not farther than the Darfur region of Sudan, as we sit here in the third year of a genocide, with 400,000 people slaughtered.

We see how the destructive elements in our components can be exercised. So I think that it's more accurate, unfortunately, that it's not a little cartoon devil, but really to look inside every human being. I believe that there should be genocide education at the earliest possible levels of schooling and home to say that this isn't outside of yourself. This is inside all of us. Until we can acknowledge that and address it, there is no hope for a more responsible leadership and behavior in the world. We look to that. The fact that in this film evil is portrayed in the angelic face of a child, it's more accurate than my catechism book.