Nick Tomnay: Yes. The Host was a short I did in Australia. Same story and I expanded it into a feature. It was based on a story I heard from a friend about an incident that occurred with a guy who escaped from prison, which I thought was pretty interesting. I took that story and then channeled some loneliness that I was feeling at the time into the script. It just sort of evolved, as these things do, and became funnier and darker.

D: At what point during the process did David Hyde Pierce get involved? That's such a key part, getting the right person for Warwick.

Nick Tomnay: Towards the end. It had gone through three different production companies and we got the money, we got everything lined up. We just needed to find an actor. So we then went through that process: talking, drawing up a list, and thinking about who would do that. One of the producers rang me up and said, "I've just been watching Frasier and what about David?" And I said, "Yeah, that's a really good idea." He read the script and a meeting was set up between David and I, we talked and he agreed.

D: David, you've been doing a lot of Broadway and theater work lately, so this is kind of a good segue, the "I've just been watching Frasier bit." I mean, in terms of the parts you are looking for, are you concerned with breaking out of that role, or is it something that you can embrace?

David Hyde Pierce: Both. I loved the part on Frasier and loved doing it. And what is great about this particular film is when you first see my character you think, "OK, this is a Niles Crane sort of a person." And then it turns out that it's really nothing like that at all. And it was great for me because it was really fun to do, and professionally, it is good to open up for people and do it in the course of a single film.

D: Watching it, it really struck me that a range of personas need to reside in a single character. Even towards the last half hour, you think you know what's what, and then all of a sudden it gets even more complicated.

David Hyde Pierce: It is a real gift to an actor to be able to do that.

D: It is kind of an actor's piece. I thought of the movie Sleuth as a forerunner.

Nick Tomnay: Actually, Death Trap, because I always think of those two together. I mean, yeah, Sleuth, but Death Trap in particular. The idea of presenting something with gradual reveals that expand story and the characters. The audience finds out more as the film progresses and because of that, the understanding of what happens changes. I love plays, generally, I like the theater. I mean some of my greatest experiences in entertainment have been watching a play that I'm really enjoying. I like the simplicity of the actors and text and staging. There was an aspect of that in the writing of this film. And there is a sort of theatrical aspect to the film.

David Hyde Pierce: Well, it is theatrical, in the sense that Warwick's character in particular is a little bit larger than life. But also theatrical in that it is not a special-effects film. It is a film where you capture what happens between the characters and between the actors.

Nick Tomnay: There's something interesting about a confined space as well. As an audience member, when you are watching a film that is in a confined space there are rules that are set up and you kind of fit into that, and there is a meter and a pace that develops that is different than other films where you have an open world. I guess it is something called a "closed film," and someone like Roman Polanski is very good at doing that.

D: So much of the film relies on the two lead performances. Can you talk about getting those performances and then the experience of being involved in it?

Nick Tomnay: With David, I had written Warwick a certain way and there was a certain attitude in the script and then it was a matter of thinking "is David the right man for this role?" And the answer for myself was, "yes." So at that point it is really about me trying to help David achieve what he wants to achieve with that character. And at that point it is not me anymore. My job then was to just to see if the performances were true and real and working. The way that the script was written, the two characters are quite different. Warwick is more flighty and cerebral and more eccentric. And John is more salt of the earth. So, inherently, that is different. By putting two people in a room like that who are like oil and water to some degree, a dynamic is going to occur. I think it became clear when we were rehearsing the film that we made the right decision. I started to see that dynamic unfold.

David Hyde Pierce: And that was the cool thing. Nick was able to cast two people who were suitably different, even in our acting styles. But we could work together — happily work together. We enjoyed working together. Because as much as there is conflict in the film, there is also a lot of chemistry. I think the film really hangs on that perverse chemistry between those two characters. We had a really good time — all of us, doing that.

D: At least one of the last movies you’ve done before this was Full Frontal in 2002. And you’ve been doing a lot of theater inbetween. Are you waiting for the right kinds of projects, because that was Soderbergh; it was a very particular kind of movie. This is very theatrical, and it is another kind of movie. Are you sitting and waiting for special kinds of projects?

David Hyde Pierce: I've kind of gone back to the theater because that is where I came from, and I love it. There are a lot of things about film that I don't enjoy, as an actor — part of it being that so much of it is out of your hands. But when I am drawn to a project, because of the people, because of the material, then it is very exciting for me. Because it is not like I am in the film world doing films all the time and I think, "Oh, here comes another one." I do it because I really want to.

D: Filmmaking is also such a start and stop process as opposed to being on stage.

David Hyde Pierce: Yeah, but it wasn't in this case, because of the way Nick chose to shoot it, and had to shoot it, given the budget and the time constraints.

Nick Tomnay: Yeah, we had to shoot it very quickly for no money, really. So I think it was really lucky we had that rehearsal period because we were able to work it out like a play, like one whole piece. And so when we got to actually shooting it was like, okay we are doing this chunk now, and there was very little downtime.

David Hyde Pierce: Right. We all were clear on the arc of the story, because we worked it out in rehearsal, so if we had to shoot out of sequence or something, it didn't matter as much. And the main thing as the actors was that we were constantly shooting because of the schedule. So it wasn't like stop and start, you go away for a month and come back and do two days. Instead, it was a sustained, very intense, and really creative process.

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