"Boasting savagely violent battle scenes and an adrenaline fueled chase through the breathtaking Scottish highlands, CENTURION is set during the war between Roman soldiers and Pict tribesmen during the 2nd century Roman conquest of Britain. Fassbender stars as Quintus Dias, Roman centurion and son of a legendary gladiator who leads a group of soldiers on a raid of a Pict camp to rescue a captured general (West). The son of the Pict leader is murdered during the raid, and the Romans find themselves hunted by a seemingly unstoppable group of the Pict’s most vicious and skilled warriors, led by a beautiful and deadly tracker (Kurylenko), who are hell bent on revenge."

David Harley: Coming off of DOOMSDAY, which is the exact opposite of a film that's grounded in reality with its exploitation angle, did you find it hard to transition to something more reality based when making CENTURION? What made you decide to move toward something less outrageous?

Neil Marshall: The transition was actually very easy; it's all about the story and the characters and whatever was going to fit in that particular world. DOOMSDAY was the epitome of outrageousness because I threw in everything and the kitchen sink. This is a much more controlled piece in dealing with these characters and the situation. It naturally fit that world I wanted. It has a sense of humor about it but that's just from the characters. So as far as transitions go, it was fairly easy.

BD: CENTURION follows a Roman legion that's completely wiped from the history books. How did the story formulate for you? What sparked everything?

Marshall: Well, the myth is that the ninth legion marched into the Scottish mist and vanished without a trace. So, that raises a question: how could that have happened? I wanted to explore what could have happened and wanted it to be a combination of them actually being massacred and also the idea that it's a Roman cover-up. Politically, it makes sense that the Romans would rather it be a mystery than seeming to be getting their asses kicked by a bunch of Picts because, you know, news would spread around the Empire and it might not necessarily look good for them. So, I thought it might have to be a sort of mixture of the two.

BD: Where did you shoot the film? Because it's a really beautiful looking film, not only because of the cinematography and presentation but because of the natural beauty of the locations.

Marshall: We shot on location in the highlands of Scotland and a little bit outside of London. It was a stunning place to go shooting. The mountain ranges during the winter so the snow and the ice made it freezing and it was challenging but we pulled it off.

BD: Your leading man, Michael Fassbender, just came off of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS and between that, 300, CENTURION and the upcoming JONAH HEX and KNOCKOUT, he's really starting to cement himself into the action genre.

Marshall: We kind of sensed that Michael was going to breakout. He had just finished shooting INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS when we started shooting – I still haven't seen it yet. We milked him for all the stories we could (laughs). Casting him was really straight-forward; he came on very, very early in the process. He was really keen to be on board. I've liked him since before DOOMSDAY. We actually auditioned him for a role and that didn't work out but we just really wanted to work together.

BD: The other big standout to me was Olga [Kurylenko] character, The Wolf; she's the epitome of a psychotic, vengeful warrior and she's pretty much the most bad-ass character in the film. I know for her, she must've had a little bit of experience with physical training before CENTURION – because she was in QUANTUM OF SOLACE and HITMAN – but in general, how much training did all the actors have to go through for their roles? The choreography of the fight sequences look extremely intensive.

Marshall: Well, actually Axelle went through the training so she could answer it better. You said that The Wolf is the psycho character but I don't think she is at all. She knows what she's doing; she's very justified in what she's doing. Axelle's character Aeron, on the other hand, is completely psychotic. (laughs) She just loves killing Romans for the sake of killing Romans, there's no revenge about it. She just likes doing it.

Axelle: The training was essentially horseback riding. It was the main thing we all did. Olga had never done any, so she only had two or three weeks to get into shape for that.

Marshall: We had weapons training as well with the stunt guys.

Axelle: And choreography for every fight sequence, but that was during the shoot. But, it was just a question of who personally would decide to go the gym and learn how to handle the weapons to try to make it look like you had done that all your life.

Marshall: Just trying to get everybody into being a Roman or Pict. We wouldn't set them up against each other but they would train together. Just different weapons, different disciplines. The Picts tend to use axes and spears a lot more, while the Romans preferred to use swords and I wanted to try to differentiate between the two so there's different styles of fighting and training.

BD: There are a lot of really solid action scenes in the film but the one that really stood out was when the Romans are walking th rough the woods and they're encroached on both sides by these flaming haggises. (all laugh)

Marshall: Yeah, that was just one of those great sequences that was amazing to do because we did it with real fireballs rolling down these hills towards these guys. (laughs) We did do a bit of replication to make it look like there was as many as there was in the shots but we definitely did use real fireballs, there was no CGI in there.

BD: It looked real to me, but I was like no, there's no way.

Marshall: They were about a meter to a meter and a half in diameter and they were built out of these kind of steel cages things that we soaked in petrol – or something like that – and put on these ramps at the top of the hill and set on fire and rolled down. All these stunt guys had to just basically stand there and wait for them to hit and see what happens. (laughs)

BD: Oh, wow.

Axelle: And, you know, it's always raining in that area. So, you can do that and the core is not going to burnt.

Marshall: Yeah, and there was this great risk that we were going to set fire to the whole area, but luckily nothing happened. (laughs)

BD: Speaking of stunt guys, how many stunt men and women were employed on the film? Warrior after warrior is slaughtered in every scene, you must've actually employed an army of them.

Marshall: There were a lot of stunt guys. I mean, if you really look carefully, you can see that a few of the people getting killed are the same stunt guys twice, just with different disguises. (laughs) One day they're a Roman and the next they've got a wig and blue paint and they're a Pict. But, we had a big stunt team and the extras during the big battle sequence as well. I mean, I'm amazed nobody got hurt because they were just given these weapons and set up in different sides and were told to just start knocking the hell out of each other and they were really getting into it. Some of them were even Roman battle re-enactment people and things like that, so they do this every weekend where they dress up as Romans and go out and fight each other. So, it wasn't entirely out of control but there was an element of risk. But, basically, it was a big stunt team because we had so much going on.

BD: Did the location ever pose a risk? Because, like you said, you shot in the Scottish Highlands and it rains all the time; it's freezing cold.

Marshall: So many of the locations we filmed at were on top of cliffs and in the freezing cold wind, rain, whatever and we had actors in ice cold rivers. The biggest stunt, I guess, is the cliff jump when the stunt guys jumped off these cliffs into, again, a freezing cold river. They had to make sure that they jumped out a certain amount of space – I believe four meters – before they started to fall because there was an area of shallow water beneath them that if they didn't get over, they would have landed and broken their legs.

Axelle: Some of the locations were so remote and so insane that getting there was the hardest part. (laughs) There were Land Rovers having to drive through rivers with all the actors in the cars and one of them broke down with Olga in the car. The water started to go up and the car was stuck with the nose in the water and she was just stuck there and had to wait for someone to lift her up and take her out.

Marshall: It's a bit of a hairy experience when you're driving through a river in a Land Rover and the river starts to come up over the bonnet. And, we had these little Norwegian troop transport things; these little tanks which we used to ferry the cast and crew up to the top of this mountain in the snow.

BD: I want to go back to the Wolf for a minute. She's a mute in the film; a mute warrior. What gave you the idea to present her anguish and past in that way?

Marshall: I thought it was really interesting that she had had her tongue cut out by the Romans and it was something that I hadn't seen before. I just wanted to make her the silent type.

BD: As you go through the film, the characters learn more and more about her by ways of other people that explain her backstory, what happened to her growing up, and her experiences.

Marshall: I can't remember exactly when I had the idea of making her a mute but it just seemed to fit so basically the dichotomy of the fact that she is this lethal killer but she's also totally justified in her actions.

BD: Aside from working on CENTURION, you were also the executive producer on THE DESCENT 2, which is being released in the states shortly. Is that a universe you ever thought would be visited again and would you stay active with the films if they turned into a franchise?

Marshall: Ultimately, kind of like the second one, it won't really be up to me; it'll be up to the distributors and production company behind it. For me personally, it didn't need to be revisited a second time. The first one had everything it needed, but they wanted to make a second one and it got made regardless.

BD: I know you have two upcoming films coming in some sort of production that are going back to the horror genre – BURST and SACRILEDGE. Which one of those is up next?

Marshall: The one that I know I'm tackling next is the film that Axelle has written – GHOST OF SLAUGHTERFORD – which I'm producing and we're going to shoot that in June, hopefully. And then BURST is probably going to go next further on in the year with Sam Raimi in 3-D. People exploding in 3-D should be a lot of fun. SACRILEDGE is still in the cards and I need to write more, but that one's still a way off.

BD: Was BURST written with 3-D in mind? Or was that an idea that came about while you were writing?

Marshall: Oh yes. This has been a 3-D project since it was first discussed.

BD: And you're doing that with Ghost House?

Marshall: Yeah, I met Ghost House through Lionsgate. I had a relationship with Lionsgate following the Descent and they had wanted to work with me again and they had this idea for a project called BURST and I had my own idea for another story – which I pitched to them – and we ended up kind of joining the two together to make what is now BURST 3-D.

BD: With the 3-D effects, are you going for camp or are you going for something serious and kind of use the effects for layering and some exploding heads?

Guy: I'm not entirely sure yet. It is – in its nature – gratuitous because there are a lot of people exploding in 3-D, so I don't think I can take it too seriously. (all laugh)

BD: Is there anything beyond that? Have you done any casting or scouting of locations or anything?

Guy: No, we're not nearly far enough for that.

BD: Going back to GHOST, what inspired you to take a stab at writing?

Axelle: It's inspired by the trip we took through the British countryside where we saw a sign that read 'Slaughterford' and we were like, "Wow, that is such a cool name." We went to see the village and it looked like it was this incredibly typical British place you would see in all the Hammer films that have no church but it looked kind of creepy at the same time.

Marshall: The village sign was all kind of covered in ivy and it seemed all grown over. Everything about it was just creepy.

Axelle: Yeah, and we really wanted to work something that took place there and it's the story of a woman who moves into a house there after her husband dies and the villagers start warning her about the house, saying that the house might be haunted. She later realizes that it is but instead of running away, she starts talking to the ghost.

Marshall: And instead of being terrified of the situation, because she's already sort of had a brush with death, she's kind of fearless about it so the relationship develops between her and the ghost. But then things start to take a nasty turn.

Axelle: It's kind of THE OTHERS meets THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR, with a hint of THE WICKER MAN. It's meant as an homage to all those old British movies.

Marshall: Yeah, there's a lot of weirdness in the countryside and just seeing places called Slaughterford makes you kind of want to start asking questions about that. (all laugh)