Pet Sematary: Bloodlines BTS Clip Details Creation Of David Duchovny’s Grieving Father [EXCLUSIVE]

David Duchovny explores the emotional landscape of a grieving father in an exclusive Pet Sematary: Bloodlines clip. The four-time Emmy nominee stars in the prequel to the Stephen King novel as Bill Baterman, a local in Ludlow who uses the eponymous graveyard to bring back his son after he’s killed in the Vietnam War. Despite knowing the dangers of the cemetery, Baterman’s actions unleash a wave of gruesome terror on the small town.

In honor of the movie’s digital release, Screen Rant is proud to present an exclusive Pet Sematary: Bloodlines clip. The video, as seen at the top of this article, features behind-the-scenes footage from the King prequel movie in which co-writer/director Lindsey Anderson Beer and Duchovny offer an in-depth look at the creation of his grieving father character. The X-Files alum humorously draws parallels between being a father in real life and his character, noting that while he’s never walked in on one of his children eating bloody raw meat, he has walked in on enough horrific things to give him some basis to work on.

How Pet Sematary: Bloodlines’ Director Helped Duchovny Create Bill Baterman

In addition to the exclusive clip, Beer offered Screen Rant some deeper insight into how she and Duchovny went about crafting Baterman for the movie. The Pet Sematary: Bloodlines co-writer/director discussed building a trusting relationship with the actor to allow him to be appropriately vulnerable for capturing the character’s grief, as well as balancing making him a sympathetic character with a potential villain.

Screen Rant: Bill requires a lot of vulnerability from David, how did you go about building a relationship of trust with him to allow him to go to those depths, and what scene would you say proved the most exciting to get to film with him?

Lindsey Anderson Beer: My early discussions with David about the role centered on how his own experience as a father informed Bill’s actions that set the movie in motion, and Bill’s regret. There was a lot of collaboration about the backstory of Bill and Timmy, and their time spent as father and son in an era where open emotionality was not common in that relationship. My favorite scene to shoot with him was him in solitude in his bedroom, contemplating all he has done and what comes next, with the weight of everything overwhelming him. This is the moment where he realizes he truly has to say goodbye to Timmy, and that, as the franchise asserts, “sometimes dead is better.”

Bill is a character who, even knowing what his origin is supposed to be, could very well have been something of a villain for the movie. How did you go about finding the right balance between his ominous presence for most of the movie with a sympathetic portrayal of a father unable to cope with his loss?

Lindsey Anderson Beer: The balance was very key of him feeling like a threat, an antagonistic force, but not a malevolent one. The heart of Pet Sematary has always been the relatable choice of someone who can’t let go of a person they love. That’s not villainous; it’s just human folly, and the dangers of love and attachment. While his actions are wrong and ultimately selfish, I wanted to make sure they came across as something any of us might contemplate doing in his circumstance.

I noticed many of Bill’s scenes, in particular, utilize a lot of close-ups on David. Was there a particular creative thought behind this?

Lindsey Anderson Beer: Pet Sematary is an intimate portrait of our confrontation of mortality and death, and Bill is our closest POV character into that confrontation. It was important to me to show his angst, his decision, his regret, his sorrow, in closeup.

In a prior interview with Screen Rant, Beer also noted the seeming parallels between Duchovny’s casting in the movie and the actor’s own past in The X-Files franchise. While admitting she didn’t initially look to his past as Fox Mulder in casting him for the King prequel movie, instead looking to his work in the acclaimed dramedy Californication, she does acknowledge Baterman would be a character his FBI agent would investigate.

It wasn’t in my mind! It’s such a good point, and it’s so funny that yes, he’s absolutely somebody who he’d be investigating as Mulder. But no, what was in my mind was Californication, and what a beautiful father he was in that. I wanted to make sure that whoever played Bill Baterman could play it in a way that felt sympathetic and relatable, and didn’t just come off as an arch villain who does the wrong thing. I just thought he brings a lot of gravitas and beauty to that role, because I saw it in Californication. He read the script, he’s a father, he really related to the themes and the grief that Bill Baterman was going through, and he just really connected with it.