The Verge: Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat

Over the past five weeks, Paranormal Activity's besieged couple Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat have gone from being virtually anonymous actors in a micro-budgeted horror movie to the stars of the top-grossing film in the country. Having found its cast via writer-director Oren Peli's cryptic Craigslist notices, the terrifying film works as well as it does thanks to the strength of their devilishly convincing and completely improvised performances. We spoke to the pair on Friday afternoon, just as Activity's snowball effect was about to turn Featherston and Sloat into the biggest movie stars in America. [Warning: Spoilers follow.]

MOVIELINE: So where are you on your Paranormal odyssey right now?

MICAH SLOAT: Good question. I don't really know what's going to happen tomorrow, so I can't put a timeline on it, so I'll just say that it's been good and continues to get better every day.

KATIE FEATHERSTON: I take it one minute at a time. You know, I'm on my phone waiting to get into an audition, and I'm getting a lot of static right now. So let me cross the street and see of that's any better. I apologize.

So what's the back story on how you guys came to star in Paranormal Activity?

SLOAT: There was a casting notice posted online on a number of actors' websites and Craigslist.

[At this point, an ungodly sound that sounds like a baby tiger screaming begins to interrupt our conversation.]

It sounds like there's a demon on the phone.

[They both laugh.]

What the hell is that?

[Chilling pause.]

SLOAT: All right, I'm sorry, that was just a little distracting. Can you hear me OK at all? [Sound is still there, but eventually fades away.]

So as I was saying, it was posted online, and it was a really mysterious notice. Most of the time it says, "Here's the sides, this is what the project is about." In this case, all that it said was "we need actors who are willing to work without a script or knowing what was going to happen next, willing to shoot all night with very little sleep." It was like an adventure.

FEATHERSTON: It was definitely an unusual posting.

SLOAT: It was more like a warning than a casting.

Did you guys meet at the casting?

SLOAT: At the callbacks.

What was the audition like?

SLOAT: The audition was completely improvised. He didn't even ask my name. I just sat down, and Oren [Peli] immediately asked, "So tell me why your house is haunted." And we had to come up with the story on the spot to explain what was going on.

Did he say the same thing to you, Katie?

FEATHERSTON: Yeah. The initial audition I just walked in and he said, "So why do you think your house in haunted?" And I said, "Well, I'll tell you." And we kind of went into it. And Micah and I met at the callback and just had to pretty much instantaneously start telling him how we met, and how long we'd been together, and all sorts of things like that. So it was heavily, heavily improv'd.

SLOAT: Yeah it was basically, "Micah this is Katie. Katie, this is Micah. Tell us how you met. Go."

Pages: 1 2 3