The ringworld is proud to present the very first interview with director Nakata Hideo to address his work on both The Ring Two and the original Japanese films in the Ring canon. The 45-minute interview was conducted via telephone and is transcribed below.

How did you come to work on The Ring Two?

In 2003, I was working on a project called True Believers. I was working on it for MGM, but somehow it became a Dimension project in 2004. And then, Dimension studios thought it would need some more work, or further development. That's why I wanted to find another project, and DreamWorks offered me The Ring Two.

Did the fact that this is an American film affect your filmmaking style at all?

Whenever I make horror movies, I do my best to make them look scary and frightening to a universal audience. This time of course, The Ring Two is going to be released initially in the US, so I was very conscious of what would be the most frightening things for an American audience. When I make Japanese movies I think about the Japanese audience first, but here I have to think about the reaction of an American audience. I'm kind of confident how the American audience will react, and I hope the Japanese audience's reaction will be very good as well. But there will be some, you know, slight differences [in style].

That being said, will The Ring Two still keep your trademark style?

I hope so. It's funny, because I saw your website last night and someone talked about the trailer, or maybe part of the trailer, which was shown on CBS yesterday. I think someone on the Ring forum said "The shots look very 'Nakata.'" I was pleased to read that. The shooting style [for this film] was different because we needed to shoot from many different angles. I usually edit the camera in Japan. I shoot bits and pieces from different angles, but here, we have to shoot from beginning to end, from position A to position B to position C, again and again. So sometimes I was a little concerned, "Can I maintain my directorial style?" But when I came to the editing point, I found out, "Yeah, this really looks my style." I think my DP -- my Director of Photography, Gabriel Beristain -- understood my style very well, so he tried to maintain the kind of similar feeling which my Japanese movies have.

Did you watch the first American The Ring?

Yes, I did.

So, did you try and kind of bridge the feeling of that film with this new The Ring Two?

Yes, of course. And of course, Naomi is the one who can connect the same feeling from the previous movie to this movie. The story is set not immediately at the end of the previous movie, but is set something like six months later. She's decided to move from Seattle to a small town in Oregon with the boy, but because she made a video copy for her son... you know, it was an inevitable decision, but her feelings of guilt remained. This feeling remains the same at the beginning of The Ring Two.

And as for the directorial style between Verbinski and yourself...

Uh... [laughs]. Well of course that's different. I really respect Gore's work, and actually when I visited the set of The Ring two years ago when he was shooting in LA, on a soundstage, he told me that he really respected my style on Ringu. And then I saw [The Ring] and I loved it. To be honest I was expecting something more gory, but he kept the similar kind of feeling which Ringu had, and it seemed kind of faithful to the original. So, I really liked it a lot. You know, people who loved The Ring won't be disappointed with The Ring Two. I hope. Of course, the directorial style will be a bit different -- we're different directors. But I think Ring fans will like The Ring Two.

Was it strange for you watching the American The Ring and seeing scenes very similar to your work but also different?

Actually, no. I'm pretty sure you know another film called The Ring Virus, a Korean movie [laughs]. When I first saw that movie I felt really... let's say strange. I was not informed that they could remake Ring and Rasen, the Spiral. I was told that the Korean version would be based on the novels but not on the movies. But actually [laughs] some of the scenes looked so...

Very similar.

Yeah. But when DreamWorks bought the remake rights it was for a remake, based on the [original] movie. So I was not surprised, and I didn't feel any disappointment. Rather, I really appreciated Gore's work and I liked it a lot.

What was your reaction to seeing the way they did the victims, the people killed by Samara, in the remake? The corpses are much more gory in the American version.

Um, I'd say I liked the difference. I completely understand Rick Baker's work, and I was thinking [of doing] the same thing, with special makeup and dummies. But we couldn't afford it, so we asked the actors, "Please open your mouth as much as you can and please hold your breath." But of course we could see that their eyes were still moving, their eyelashes were moving. So, for example, for the girl victim in the closet *1 we had to freeze the frame [laughs]. We had to use that kind of low-tech [approach] as much as we could. We couldn't afford to make, say, very good-looking and precise corpses. That's the interesting difference between Hollywood and Japan. Our Japanese way sometimes works but, you know, the American way is more kind of advanced, or elaborate. So I liked watching it.

Is it true that you used a translator on the set of The Ring Two? I heard you did, but your English is so good...

A translator? No... Are you talking about the PA's diary? I read a kind of a diary written by a Production Assistant, but I think he misunderstood my assistant as my interpreter. She is an assistant who speaks Japanese, but almost 100% [on the set] I was speaking just English. She works as my assistant but she is not my interpreter.

I see. So, it was fairly easy for you to direct in English?

Well, it was not easy, but I can speak some English, and I just thought it would be much better for my crew and especially for my actors if I spoke directly to them, rather than... Well if I have an interpreter, he or she could misunderstand me, and if the explanation becomes different from my thoughts, that would just take time and confuse them. That's why even if my English is not perfect, I just thought it would be better to speak in my words. I think that worked. Sometimes I used body language a lot, and it was completely understandable. You know, good actors can sense what I am feeling. What kind of changes I would like to make. Every good actor can sense it. And Naomi, David, Simon Baker, Sissy Spacek -- they all understood me very well.

From what I’ve read about you making Ring and Ring 2 in Japan, you and screenwriter Takahashi Hiroshi collaborated a lot on the script. Did you collaborate with Ehren Kruger for the script of The Ring Two?

Yes we did. We worked together a lot. He worked on the script revisions very, very hard and very sincerely. I had notes and he responded to my notes very well.

Did you find yourself being influenced at all by the Japanese Ring films, or were all these changes directly for this American movie?

I would say the latter. I mean, this The Ring Two is completely different from Ringu 2.

So you couldn’t borrow any elements.

No. Almost none at all. Of course, the heart of The Ring Two is a mother who has to protect her son from Samara in the worst situation. Obviously Ringu 2 had a different main character, the student of the husband’s character *2. These films are completely different, so it’s safe to say there’s no influence from Ringu or Ringu 2.

Does the American The Ring Two leave the possibility for a sequel?

Yeah, I think so.

If there is another sequel, would you be interested in doing that, too?

Yes, I would.

I'd like to shift gears and ask about the Japanese films. The big question of course is, Who is Sadako’s father?

[laughs] First, I want to be clear. This is just the original films, and not the American version. In Japan, the scriptwriter and I interpreted like, Sadako’s mother conceived her not with a human, not with a man, but...let’s say an evil existence from the sea. She couldn’t tell exactly, she couldn’t remember exactly [what it was]. Sadako’s mother was going to the seashore almost every day, and she kept looking at the sea every day. And at a certain point, she found out that she was pregnant. So, in the original versions of Ringu and Ringu 2, there is the suggestion that Sadako’s father is not human, but is a mysterious, evil, let’s say monster from the sea. But we can’t say what he looked like.

You know, we [Japanese] still have a tradition that the sea itself, the water -- like floods, or the recent tsunami -- it can take many people’s lives, as in natural disasters. Because Japan is such a small island country, people get killed in the sea for many, many years. So there is an almost subconscious level of fear towards the sea. And that’s what the scriptwriter and I discussed. Like, "OK, Sadako’s father can be a non-human existence from the sea." And this is actually half-based on a [true] story. A real person was the model for Sadako’s mother. She used to go to the sea every day and just stare at it. So of course she was not saying like, "Well, I got pregnant," but we thought the fact that [this woman] was going to the sea every day and looking at it every day for no reason was significant.

Was there any sort of influence from H.P. Lovecraft?

Me, no. But the scriptwriter, Takahashi Hiroshi, is a huge fan of Lovecraft, I think.

And that’s maybe where some of the similarities come up?

Yes.

I remember in Japan when Ring was a hit and there was talk of a sequel. Many people wrote scripts and turned them in, but they were eventually published as a book, Motto Kowai Yottsu no Hanashi *3. The scripts were never used, and you and Takahashi wrote a whole new script.

Yes.

How did that happen?

Actually, I was one of the judges [on the selection committee]. The president of Kadokawa Publishing, Mr. Kadokawa, was very quick. He decided to make the sequel on the release date of the Ring, because now he knew that the Ring and the Spiral would become very successful movies. And then in two weeks’ time, he suggested to me and producer Taka Ichise and Suzuki Koji that some professional writers could write very interesting stories, so let’s ask them to [try]. Kadokawa publishers announced that they would welcome ideas, and please write your own scripts. Actually, 400 people submitted their own scripts. I read them, and I think Mr. Suzuki, but I can't be a hundred percent sure. Definitely Mr. Kadokawa, producer Taka Ichise and myself, and I think Mr. Suzuki. So four of us, I think. We excluded Mr. Takahashi so that he wouldn’t be influenced by it. We discussed the scripts, but unfortunately, we couldn’t find the one which could be developed as a movie script. We felt that they couldn’t become a very good movie. But, we chose four of the better ones. We couldn’t use them even as a basis for the story, but there were some good ideas, very interesting ideas, and so Kadokawa wanted to publish them as, you know, as a paperback.

There's a rumor I have to ask you about. Is it true that there's another version of your Ring where the corpse effect is different? One that uses a different face for the corpses? *4

What? They're not talking about the TV series?

No, they're talking about your movie. There's a rumor that when your film was shown in Brussels, there was a different cut.

Brussels? Uh...no [amused]. The answer is no. As far as I'm concerned [laughs]. Unless someone did it intentionally [laughs again]. I don't think someone could, though.

So the rumor that there is a different cut of Ring is not true?

No, it's not true.

OK, different topic. Have you heard any news on the remake of your film Chaos?

Not really. But recently I was informed that, I think it was Universal, finally made a deal. They closed a kind of option deal. They didn’t buy the rights, but they optioned them.

What was it like being nominated one of Time magazine’s most 100 influential people?

[laughs] Yeah, that’s amazing. Well, you know, I think the timing was good, because they were looking for some people in the entertainment areas, and that’s the time that I was hired by DreamWorks. I think the writer who wrote about me liked my other works Dark Water and Chaos, and remembered my name. Then there was the news that I would be directing The Ring Two, so the timing was very good, I think.

So they called you up and let you know you’d been selected?

No [laughs]. Actually, I was not aware even after the issue was published. A friend of mine in Japan e-mailed me, "Wow, you were selected by Time magazine!" But I didn’t know about it. I asked my assistant to look for it, and she said "Yeah, here’s your name" [laughs].

Finally, are you ever surprised by the popularity of Ring?

Yeah. I’m still surprised. Now, the Ring has [had] a very long life. I directed the first movie seven years ago, and there was even a TV drama prior to my movie. Mr. Suzuki wrote the novel I think in 1991, and there was a TV drama in 1995 or 1996, and I made my movie in 1997. So seven years have passed, and here I am making The Ring Two [laughs]. So it really has a long life. When I was making Ringu in Japan, I was hoping, "Please make enough money! Please recoup the money that Kadokawa invested!" That was actually my goal, so that I could continue working as a movie director. From that point it has been really surprising to me.