Excited star gazers gathered on Main Street hoping to see the cast of “Demoted,” a comedy about two tire executives who suffer payback when a mistreated employee gets ahead, and they are demoted.

“I bought a coffee and heard they were filming,” beamed Milford resident Linda Shady.

“This is just so exciting! Michael Vartan was posing for pictures.”

Michael Vartan (”Alias”), Sean Astin (”Lord of the Rings”), Sarah Foster (”The Big Bounce”) and Patrick St. Esprit (”Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”) walked the streets of Milford between scenes.

“I am really enjoying my time in Michigan,” said Vartan. “People are very nice, and it’s great to be here.”

St. Espirit echoed the sentiment adding, “This is a charming community.”

Gina’s Bridal Shop and The Village Florist were two of several Milford locations selected for scenes. Judi Licavoli, owner of Gina’s, was thrilled to have a shopping sequence take place in her store.

“They had a silly scene here with the groom (Vartan) and father of the bride (St. Esprit) modeling bridal veils for the bride (Foster),” said Licavoli. “Sean Astin was here, even though he was not in the scene. He and Michael Vartan have some Scrabble word game they are playing on their phones. Sean was just here working on the game.”

Down the road at the Village Florist, the scene involved selecting flowers for the upcoming wedding. Shop owner Kathy Brock said the set designer moved things around and decorated the front of her store with soft white netting.

“It’s a gift,” said Brock. “I would definitely do this again.”

David Rumble, location manager for “”Demoted, is responsible for Milford’s moment of fame.

“I love Milford’s look and chose these locations because the town is film friendly,” said Rumble. “They made it easy for us to film here.”

Rumble’s comments brought a smile to the face of Village Manager Arthur Shufflebarger, who is pleased the community is basking in the glow of a movie spotlight, and receiving a financial boost from “Demoted.” The Bar, Coratti’s and Main Street Tavern all report cast and crew members dining in their restaurants. Last Thursday, a group of 20 lunched at The Bar, and several have become regulars.

“We like having a positive impact on the community and state,” said J. B. Rogers, the film’s director. “About 90 percent of my crew is from Michigan.”

The movie may be called “Demoted”, but around Milford these days the warm feeling of being promoted is in the air, along with the crisp, cool chill of fall in Michigan.

Source: hometownlife.com

UGO: So how did you get involved in the film?

Michael Vartan: Well, kind of in a very normal way. My agent had me read the script and I thought it was very good, and they had me go see one of (director) Greg McLean’s first films, which was called Wolf Creek. It was really, really scary and I just loved the way he shot that. And after hearing all of that, because the thought of going to the Northern Territories for four months wasn’t necessarily number one on my agenda. But it turned out to be a great adventure, and it’s probably one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had. So it worked out.

UGO: So did it end up being a really difficult shoot, four months in the Northern Territories?

MV: It was. It was a weird shoot because the cast and crew, all of us, got along so well. In a weird way we got through what would otherwise have been a real nightmare. Let’s say it had been an American crew and cast, I think it would have been very different. (laughs) We had days of 115, 120 degrees, 98% humidity. There were crocodiles everywhere, snakes, wild dingos, all kinds of spiders. We were in the middle of nowhere. If someone had gone down, that was pretty much it, because we were probably about 300 miles from the nearest hospital. So we were really looking out for each other’s safety, making sure we all drank water. In a weird way we all had a common enemy, which was the elements. I think that brought us a lot closer than a normal crew would have been. So, yeah, it was really hard. The temperature was, to me, the hardest thing to deal with.

UGO: I can see how 115 degrees would be a problem.

MV: (laughs) It was the humidity really. I see what they mean by ‘a dry heat’. I used to scoff at that notion, but there is certainly a difference between 115 in Las Vegas and 115 in the Northern Territories. (laughs)

UGO: So snakes, spiders…any animal phobias?

MV: I don’t really have any phobias. I mean, I’m not a huge fan of snakes. I have nothing against them. I would never hurt a snake purposely, unless my life or my dog’s life depended on it. But if I’m swimming in a lake at night, like I had to do for a month, I’d rather there not be any snakes. And there were snakes, and there were a lot of eels. It’s very hard to discern which is a snake and which is an eel at 3 o’clock in the morning in pitch darkness with only camera light illuminating the water. (laughs) It made for a very interesting second part of the shoot. But you know, we all had to do it. All the actors had to go in the water. I surely wasn’t going to be the one who complained, because all the girls were really brave and sucked it up and did it. I couldn’t be the one who said, “Excuse me! I think there might be snakes in the water. Has anyone thought of that? I hear tiger snakes are nocturnal hunters. Hello? Ok, the girls are going in. I guess I’ve got to go.” That guy. (laughs)

UGO: Did anyone actually get hurt?

MV: Our DP actually got bit by an eel. I actually think of the crew got bitten by a snake while they were doing some pre-rigging. We weren’t there yet. He was fine. But no one got seriously hurt, no. But that’s because, in the environment we were in, we were super careful, making sure of where we were at all times. Because if you’re four feet from the edge of the water, a fifteen meter salt water croc, can literally just torpedo out, grab you, and that ball game’s over. It doesn’t matter how many crew members are there. You’re done.

UGO: How do you feel about working with CGI? Actors seem to love it or hate it.

MV: You know, I didn’t love it…I’m pretending that something is going to eat me and kill me and there was actually nothing there except a stick with a tennis ball, and sometimes the crew would draw a little smily face on it before the take, so that was always helpful. You know, it is what it is. It’s one of those things where if you can imagine that a crocodile is there and you’re about to be eaten, and you just, pardon my french, lose your sh*t on camera, and if you’re not imagining it quite hard enough, that’s what the director is for. (laughs) Then he says, ‘nope, I need you to scream louder and sound more afraid.’ There’s a lot of screaming at the end, that’s for sure.

UGO: Speaking of that, do you have any favorite disaster movies?

MV: Disaster movies? That’s actually an interesting question. I really like the old classics in the seventies. Towering Inferno and the original Poseidon. They’re just great because of the actors involved. I don’t even really care that much for the movies. Just to see Steve McQueen (The Thomas Crown Affair) in a movie is awesome to me…oh, you mean animal disasters? Well, Jaws is the ultimate? I think that’s the granddaddy of them all. And I’ll say Aliens because it’s such an incredibly scary movie. Obviously they’re not real animals. (laughs) I understand that. But in terms of the sheer fear factor, I think Aliens is right up there with any horror film you can think about. But Jaws is probably the quintessential animal thriller.

UGO: I know that they named the animatronic Jaws…did they name your animatronic croc?

MV: Yes! We named our crocodile “Geroge”. Greg McLean being the historian that he is, we talked about it and we came up with a great analogy. It’s a reference to the George Forman and Mohammad Ali fight. Mohammad Ali was actually quite an underdog in that fight because this monster George Forman was going to take his head off and he ended up knocking him out. So I was kind of Ali and I was facing this monsterous…I didn’t say any of this, mind you. This is all Greg. Don’t put those words in my mouth. I would never compare myself to Mohammad Ali in any way, shape or form. (laughs) So, yeah, we called him George.

UGO: I hear you’re a huge Star Wars fan…

MV: Yeah I am! Well, I’m an original Star Wars fan. The very first one, and The Empire Strikes Back are my favorites. They kind of started losing us a little bit at Return of the Jedi. And the first three. It’s not that I don’t enjoy them as movies. They’re entertaining, but it seems like technology has become such an integral part of filming that it’s almost losing the magic. When I see something unbelievable on screen, I think, well of course. They do that in the studio all the time. But when Jurassic Park first came out, that blew my mind. I think that was one of the first times we really saw such amazing CGI that looked so real! The flesh tones, the ripples of water. How old is that movie? Fifteen years old already? So anything that’s CGI today impresses me less and less because, well, it’s not that impressive anymore. We’ve done it. We’ve seen it. I’m much more impressed by, I don’t know, a paper mache cartoon that some guy did in his garage. (laughs) I mean, let’s get back to the basics here. How about a silent film? Let’s try that. That’s a great idea for my next project! There’s no words, I won’t have to remember my lines! (laughs)

UGO: So your next project is Demoted, right? What’s that about?

MV: It’s about a couple of hot shot tire salesmen in the midwest who are too big for their britches, and their boss dies. The next guy in line in terms of seniority is their arch enemy at the tire plant. And we’ve treated him so poorly over the years that, instead of firing us, he demotes us to secretaries. And now we have to hang out with all the girls that we treated like sh*t for the past ten years. There’s some very funny dialogue that’s probably not PG, but that’s why I like it.

UGO: You’ve still got a ton of Alias fans out there. Did you have a favorite Alias moment?

MV: Favorite Alias moment…I’ve had a few…my favorite moment was, and I have no idea what season or what episode it was, but I fought a giant, 6′7″ giant of a man in a train car. And he just picks me up by the neck and slams me against the wall. And he actually did that in the take! (laughs) And when you see it on TV, the look on my face is priceless, because I can’t actually believe this is happening to me. I mean, that’s the greatest stunt I’ve ever been apart of. And it sure made me laugh when I saw dalies. I was like, ‘oh my god, look at the look on you!’ His hand fit around my neck like my hand fits around a pencil.

But in terms of the show, I think some of Jen’s fights were just awesome. (co-star Jennifer Garner) Our fight/stunt coordination team were so great at coming up with moves that facilitated what we could do and make it real without stretching us too much so it would look completely fake. And Jen had some nasty fights with some big dudes and it always looked real to me, you know? And I’m really critical with all that stuff. I always think, ‘oh you can tell that punch missed or there’s no way she could have ever…but her fights were semi-believable to me and that’s a huge achievement I think. She’s fighting a guy that’s 6′4″, 250 lbs. That’s a big dude. Not many women could beat a guy that size up.

Source: ugo.com

TVGuide.com: Based on the DVD’s cover, with the giant crocodile jaws, you think we’re looking at another Anaconda. But this has a very Hitchcockian feel to it.
Michael Vartan: Yeah, that’s Greg Mclean, the director, who’s such an interesting guy, such a talented, fun guy to work with. You know, something as simple as the fact that my character and Radha Mitchell [playing river tour guide Kate Ryan] never make out seconds before impending doom—which happens in every Hollywood horror film—we’re about to be eaten by a 15-foot crocodile and you still have time to make out? What is wrong with you?

TVGuide.com: I know. Or you make some sort of last-second soliloquy.
Vartan: Exactly! [Laughs] So it’s a very different kind of movie and I’m kind of sad that they didn’t sort of give it a chance, to distribute it a little bit more widely and with more publicity. But hey, those things are completely out of my control.

TVGuide.com: Now, I hear that it did pretty well in Australia.
Vartan: It did. Obviously, their market is much smaller than ours and whenever you have an Australian director and an almost all-Australian cast do a big movie, you’re gonna get people into the seats. Most of the people who have seen it have enjoyed it. That’s the only thing that’s sad for me…there are so many bad movies out there that get wider release, why not give this one a chance?

TVGuide.com: Never once do you feel like the crocodile is too much. There is a scene in the cave, where you only see its back…very creepy.
Vartan: Very creepy. I think Greg made a conscious decision, a la Jaws, to keep the creature hidden for as long as possible, so our imaginations would do the work. And the effects guys did a tremendous job with the CGI croc. The scariest thing is to hear that there are actually animals that size.

TVGuide.com: I couldn’t believe that, when Radha’s character mentions that they can get up to 25-feet long.
Vartan: Yeah. Obviously, it’s very rare and they are rogue, so they’re increasingly hard to find…but good God.

TVGuide.com: How long were you down in Australia filming?
Vartan: We shot for four months.

TVGuide.com: Wow!
Vartan: Yeah, it was a long shoot. There were three very distinct sections. The first was in the Northern Territory and that was a tough shoot because we were about 300 miles from anything civilized and the temperatures were in excess of 115 degrees everyday, 98 percent humidity, and there were real saltwater crocs everywhere, spiders the size of footballs…all kinds of things that could do a lot of harm. [Laughs] And all we had was a little first aid kid, so we made sure to watch each other’s back.

TVGuide.com: What about the night stuff? Because most of the film takes place after dark.
Vartan: We moved to the southwest, to this little town called Warburton, which is really cool. And that’s where we did all the night shoots, on this man-made lake. That was the wildest stretch of filming I’ve ever done. You never really get used to a night schedule no matter how long you’re on it, and we did that for about five weeks.

TVGuide.com: Oh my god.
Vartan: [Laughs] Exactly! It was insane. I wouldn’t say we were going crazy, but people were definitely getting squirrelly by the fifth week. And it was cold…we were in the water and it was freezing. They had all these eels swimming around and we knew they had a few tiger snakes in the area. When you feel something brush up against you in the dark, my tactile response isn’t defined enough to determine whether it’s a snake or something else. There were some funny panic moments.

TVGuide.com: I’d be having none of that. Whatever happened to filming on a set?!
Vartan: The whole final sequence was shot on a soundstage in Melbourne. That was quite an amazing feat of set decorating.

TVGuide.com: And that was basically you acting against nothing, right?
Vartan: Yeah. They gave me a tennis ball on a stick [as a stand-in for the CGI croc]. Sometimes they’d draw a little smiley face on it.

TVGuide.com: Is this the first time you’ve ever worked with serious effects like this?
Vartan: Definitely. On Alias, we’d have scenes where we had to jump out of airplanes and things like that…

TVGuide.com: And you had the zombies…
Vartan: Right. [Laughs] There was green screen and stuff, but this is for sure the most extensive CGI experience I’ve had. And I don’t know if it’s easier or harder. It’s definitely different and it takes time to get used to. You know those actors that tell you ‘oh the fourth wall, I never notice the cameras’? If that’s true, then God bless ya, because I don’t know how to do that. I know exactly where the boom operator is, the D.P., I know where everyone is. It’s very hard to block that out.

TVGuide.com: You’re surrounded by like 50 people!
Vartan: Exactly! So this was sort of liberating for me because I didn’t have to wait for anybody get their lines right or hit their cue.

TVGuide.com: The tennis ball didn’t pull attitude?
Vartan: [Laughs] It’s a very docile tennis ball.

TVGuide.com: You say on the extras that you wanted to work with the director after seeing his Wolf Creek.
Vartan: Yes.

TVGuide.com: That movie is so wrong.
Vartan: I know, isn’t it? I’ll tell you…I was gonna say my career, or my lack thereof, has been centered around these very soft, vanilla good-guy characters. And there is nothing wrong with that. I wouldn’t be on the phone with you if I hadn’t played those roles. But I have always wanted to do something darker and edgy, but I just don’t seem to get those jobs. The funny thing is, the way my agents presented Rogue to was by saying ‘how would you like to go to the Outback for four months and do a giant crocodile movie?’ And I said I would rather have needles in my eyes! But they said read the script and go see his movie Wolf Creek. And I agree with you. Hands down, one of the most disturbing, scariest, realest films I had ever seen. It freaked me out to such an extent that I thought ‘I want to work with this guy!’ He may have been a completely twisted lunatic or he might be this incredibly hardcore, cool, talented young director. And that’s what appealed to me.

TVGuide.com: So it didn’t take much convincing?
Vartan: I got on the phone with Greg and we had a nice hour-and-a-half talk and he said it was gonna be really hard, I wouldn’t have a trailer, it would a million degrees and there would be snakes everywhere. So I said ‘let’s do it!’

TVGuide.com: Your next gig, Demoted, is a little cushier, no?
Vartan: Yes…I’m looking forward to air-conditioned hotel in Detroit and nice sets and having a good time.

TVGuide.com: Tell me about this one.
Vartan: It’s a full-blown comedy. The script is one of the funniest things I have ever read and I was shocked when I got the offer. No one ever offers me that kind of stuff. It’s about these two hot-shot tire salesman in the Midwest who treat their coworkers like crap and think they’re God’s gift to the world. Lo and behold, the boss gets fired and their archenemy gets promoted, but he hates us so much that, instead of firing us, he demotes us to the role of secretaries. So we now have to hang around all of these people we treated so horribly. It’ll probably get an R rating…the comedy comes out of the dialogue. It’s nice to go to work and not spend half the day in the dark parts of your mind.

TVGuide.com: And of course, you are still a part of that J.J. Abrams world.
Vartan: Hey, I text him about once every six months so he doesn’t completely forget about me. [Laughs]

TVGuide.com: You should keep that tie. I think that guy’s gonna be huge.
Vartan: I know. He’s done all right so far. [Laughs] He’s relatively talented.

Source: tvguide.com (thanks to Damian for sending in the link)

In a step down from his character’s success on Big Shots, Vartan will play a guy named “Rodney McAdams, a hotshot Treadline Tires sales associate who delights in tormenting his less-than-cool colleague, Ken (Cross).” But wait — before you think Cross is being relegated to another role where he just gets tormented and takes it, or has a fear of nudity, read on: “When their boss suddenly dies, Ken is promoted and assigns Rodney to a secretarial job as payback, giving the male chauvinist a taste of his own medicine.” You just don’t cross the Cross!

Source: cinematical.com

Leave it to Greg McLean to change my perspective. Here’s a croc that’s scary! Here’s a croc that has motivation! Here’s a filmmaker who knows his shit! He winked at it in Wolf Creek, using characterisation and a slow start to make the horror and violence hit that much harder, but in Rogue McLean steps up and takes seat as a full fledged master of suspense. It’s wonderful to see a monster movie that knows exactly what it is and exactly what it wants. There’s no unnecessary filler, no distracting love story, nothing but a slow building ride that ends up more thrilling than the ones that start at 100mph.

Again making good use of the Australian outback, McLean dumps his protagonists, the tourist freight of a croc-cruise, literally in the middle of nowhere, stranded on a teeny-wheeny island with a man-eating croc in the water and no chance of being seen or heard by anyone. To make matters worse the island is slowly being devoured by the incoming tide and sundown is only hours away. The tools are well-known, the story not particularly original, but gosh-blimey is it effective! After seeing this I have the feeling that this guy could make a garden-hose scary, or make me jump at something as stupid as a cat-scare. McLean proves that it’s not what you work with, but how you put it together and how you tweak the details that make a thrilling movie. He has that Hitchcockian sensibility and sense of suspense that puts him in total control of his audience, and that’s rare these days, almost non-existent in English-language horror. A detail like the fact that the deserted group of people are only about a hundred feet from the mainland, but damn near certain to get eaten if they go in the water, is genius. A way out is always visible, lurking in the background of the frame, but it’s unreachable, making panic and frustration that much more palpable.

Same thing goes for McLean’s approach to his monster. There are no mad scientists at work, no government experimentation, no abnormal, environmental reason for this croc to be aggressive, just the very real fact that crocodiles are territorial animals and these people are stranded on the monster’s turf. For every minute the animal gets more agitated, but unlike most monster movies you get a very believable reason why, adding to the tension even more.

I wasn’t one of those who praised Wolf Creek, but I saw lots of potential that I think has evolved here and I definitely find Rogue to be the better of the two. Almost everything works like a charm in this little film. The cast is above par, with Radha Mitchell sporting a charming aussie accent and TV-actor Michael Vartan putting in the punch to carry a leading role. The scares are scary, the humour is funny and subtle, never undermining the threatening mood. Even the CG is pretty good. Most of all, though, Rogue is carried by the expertly crafted curve of suspense, the small seeds planted throughout that grow into full-fledged panic and horror, without ever letting the film succumb to comedy.

Second-time filmmaker McLean has put veterans Steve Miner and Tobe Hooper to shame by making a film that towers way above semi-comedies like Lake Placid and Crocodile. Blissfully relieved from scientists and explorers saying “That’s a giant croc!” or explaining why, the film wins by simply doing what it does and doing that well. Hugely entertaining, smart enough not to be condescending and thankfully not too long, Rogue deserves all the audience it can muster. As genre-filmmaking goes, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Source: bloody-disgusting.com

Mclean’s “Rogue” stars Aussie Radha Mitchell (“Pitch Black”) as Australian riverboat tour guide Kate Ryan and Michael Vartan (TV’s Alias) as an American travel writer who, along with a dozen or so others, take a ride down the Australian river on a lazy, hot day. The tour is mostly uneventful, with only a minor stop to accommodate a couple of local troublemakers (one of whom is Sam Worthington), but the ride back to land proves to be disastrous. It starts with an emergency flair in the distance, and ends with one seriously enormous crocodile chowing down on the tour group one by one. Which leads to this observation: The Australian tourism board must hate Mclean. He’s already convinced tourists to scratch the Australian outback from their travel plans, and now he’s made the country’s rivers mightily uninviting.

The croc in “Rogue” is a nasty little bugger, though “little” is not the correct description; the words, “bigger than a friggin’ Mack truck and ten times as fast” might be more appropriate. Fortunately for the gore fans out there, Mclean also has a tendency towards the nasty. Before the film has even hit the 40 minute mark, Mclean has drowned an entire boat full of tourists, unleashed his croc to chump down on one of Kate’s tourists, and taken out a local. For those keeping track, that’s three boats down, and one very hungry croc circling. The explanation we are given for the aggressive behavior is that the humans are encroaching on its territory, and the croc is none too pleased. To make matters worse, Kate’s boat is damaged, and the tour group ends up stuck in a small island in the middle of the river that is, as night falls, about to get flooded by the rising tide. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it sucks to be a tourist today.

What makes “Rogue” such a perfect little creature movie is its simplicity. Mclean seems uninterested in providing pathos or personality for his creature. No radiation leak by Big Oil or, as is more likely in a creature movie, Big Uncaring Genetics Company Conducting Illegal Experiments™ to blame for the croc’s freakishly huge size. Nope, none of that Sci Fi Channel Original Movie nonsense. This thing is natural, and it is, first and foremost, a killing machine. The croc doesn’t show its entire length until the 50-minute mark, but by then we’ve already seen what it can do, and our first actual look at its massive length is awe-inspiring. This thing is off the scales in size, and combined with its natural speed, and it’s going to take a miracle to save our tourists. Or a bazooka. Maybe more. A dozen, definitely, might do the trick. Maybe. Did I mention this thing is as big as a building and has learned the benefits of hoarding fresh meat?

Technically the stars of “Rogue” are Michael Vartan and Radha Mitchell, but let’s face it, while it’s nice to hear Radha do her natural Aussie accent in a movie for once, and Vartan no doubt has a nice career ahead of him, the real star of this bad boy is the bad boy himself – the croc. My DVD copy was not exactly pristine, but I would imagine the croc was achieved with a combination of CGI and practical effects. Whatever they used, however they did it, it worked. The way this thing moved, the way it looked at you, even the way it slept, is the stuff of nightmares. And yes, the lack of reasoning behind the croc’s rampage only makes it more horrifying. Why is it killing so many people? Simply put, because it’s big, because it’s got teeth the size of your ankles, and because it can, that’s why. There’s nothing more terrifying than a killer that does what it does simply because it knows it can, and you can’t stop it.

If you’re a fan of creature movies, definitely pick up “Rogue” when you run across it at your local DVD shop. It’s got everything a movie about a big, giant killer animal is supposed to have – gory, violent deaths, outstanding pacing, and plenty of “scream at the screen for them to run or die” set pieces. There is only one real stupid move by the survivors that I can recall, and that is easily chalked up to human nature. Once the killing starts, the film rarely lets up; it’s only towards the end, as the film enters its final 20 minutes or so that the loud action disappears, replaced by some truly harrowing sequences as Vartan’s hero goes mano-a-mano with the killer croc. You wouldn’t think a world-weary travel writer would have much of a chance again a living, breathing killing machine like our giant croc, but you’d be wrong.

Source: beyondhollywood.com

Soon after hitting our shores yesterday, the Alias and Rogue star was seen showing concern for a bird that had fallen out of its nest in Melbourne and ensured it would be cared for by professionals.

Vartan is Down Under to take part in the Aussie Millions poker tournament, which kicks off at Melbourne’s Crown Casino on Saturday.

The Never Been Kissed heartthrob will be here until January 22 and also hopes to take in some matches at the Australian Open.

Source: The Courier Mail