Denis Villeneuve was actually “deeply scared” while making this crime-thriller masterpiece of his!

Denis Villeneuve is inevitably one of the biggest jewels in Hollywood’s crown of filmmakers. The magnificent brain behind a ton of absolute gems that have ever been created in the entertainment industry, he has given his fans everything they could ever ask for, including his Dune live-action adaptations too. But there is one movie that is somehow better than all the other masterpieces.
Denis Villeneuve. | Credit: Film at Lincoln Center.
This movie is none other than his 2013 worldwide acclaimed crime-thriller, Prisoners. However, as profoundly great as this piece of work of his was, Villeneuve was actually terrified of making it at first, and it was all because of his personal fear. But then, the Dune 2 filmmaker decided to follow his “inspiration,” and eventually gave a film that is now considered one of his best works of all time.

Denis Villeneuve was “Deeply Scared” of Making Prisoners

Released in 2013, Prisoners was a true piece of masterwork in the crime-thriller genre helmed by none other than the beloved Canadian director. With Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal in its lead, it tells the story of Keller Dover who takes matters into his own hands, and even jeopardizes his life, to find his daughter and her friend as the police take time in their investigation.
Jake Gyllenhaal as Detective Loki in the film.
But as much as this film was acclaimed by both critics and general audiences alike, filmmaker Denis Villeneuve was still “deeply scared” while approaching it initially. Why? Well, because of his personal fear and because he “felt that it was too much darkness, too much violence” when he had just come out of working on his other masterpiece, Incendies.

As he shared in an interview with IndieWire:

“I was deeply scared of the material at first. When I read it, as Maria Bello said a few days ago, when you make such a film you don’t necessarily think about your own kids because you will go away from it so violently.”

Hugh Jackman as Keller Dover in the film.
Continuing, he then explained how he felt that the script was “too much” and that he “was looking for something different.” But despite these feelings igniting from his personal fear, Villeneuve ended up taking it on, because “it was coming back, coming back, coming back — sometimes you are doomed.”

Why Denis Villeneuve Ended Up Creating Prisoners Nonetheless

As the Dune: Part Two director explained, the script of the masterpiece kept on coming back to him and torturing him until he finally found it in himself to take it on as a project.

“The thing about filmmaking is that you follow your inspiration. You don’t do what you want. You do what you can do.” ~ Denis Villeneuve.

A still from Prisoners (2013).
Thus, following his inspiration, Villeneuve decided to work on the Jackman-led crime thriller, although he also shared how he was still “very afraid” of working on it, especially on the shoot.

Plus, there are a lot of instances in the movie that can make just anyone squirm in fear — like Jackman threatening Paul Dano‘s character with a hammer — so what must have gone into creating it must have been even more unimaginably hard for the ones shooting it.
The brutal hammer-torture scene in the movie.
This is why they were “walking on the edge all the time” during filming, as the Dune reboot franchise helmer admitted:

“I was very afraid of going through the process of shooting. I was very anxious about a lot of scenes and there were a lot of scenes I was afraid of. I kept saying to myself all of the time, ‘We cannot fall into that cliche.’ We were walking a fine line and I was so lucky to work with Roger because he helped me so much staying on the edge of the cliff. We were just walking on the edge all the time.”