Chris Eigeman Breaks Down How He Came To Write And Direct The Blumhouse Thriller ‘Seven In Heaven’

When he’s in front of the camera, Chris Eigeman predominantly ends up playing parts which involve him being smarmy and sarcastic, which is to be expected, because he proved himself to be tops in that field from his very first film, Metropolitan, which hit theaters back in 1990. Since then, Eigeman has continued to turn up in films and on TV, but he’s expanded his repertoire over the years, delving into writing and directing. In fact, just before Halloween, his latest film, a disconcerting little thriller called Seven in Heaven, made its way onto Netflix with limited fanfare. Thankfully, word of mouth has slowly but surely helped put this tale of a high school party gone wrong in a really weird way onto a number of people’s Must Stream lists. Decider hopped on the phone with Eigeman recently to talk about his new film as well as some notable moments from his on-camera work, along with his appearance in an attempted American adaptation of a classic sci-fi sitcom from the UK that never actually made it to air.

(Some spoilers for the film follow; proceed thusly.)

DECIDER: Seven in Heaven didn’t exactly sneak onto Netflix, but it was definitely a surprise to spot your name as the writer and director of the film.

CHRIS EIGEMAN: Yes, and both of those credits are true. [Laughs.] Netflix wanted the film for Halloween, and it was a bit of a scramble to get it done in time for them, but we just made it.

So how did this project come about in the first place? Was it something that you came up with and pitched to them, or did they come to you in search of a project?

It’s something that I wrote, and then the folks at Blumhouse read it. I was in L.A. putting together something else altogether different, and when I got a call saying, “Could you swing by Blumhouse?” I was, like, “Oh, I can’t because I’m doing this other stuff.” And they sort of suggested these times, and I was like, “I really can’t, but maybe the next trip.” And they said, “Okay, well, whenever you can, just swing by Blumhouse.” And I was, like, “I’ve never really heard that expression before in show business.” [Laughs.] So I went, and that was, like, a Thursday. We had a deal on Tuesday.

Wow.

Yeah. It was great. I really liked working with those guys a whole bunch. They’re just incredibly smart and fun to work with.

You haven’t really worked at the horror genre, at least as far as your back catalog goes, but are you a horror fan?

Yeah, I am. I’m never in those movies, but I tend to go to them. It’s highly possible that one has to do with the other. But my enthusiasm for them is strong.

What were the origins of Seven in Heaven? How did the concept come to you?

I remember being in high school, and one day could just be terrific, and the next day it could just be soul-clutchingly terrifying, but if you turn the sound off, both days would look the same. I kind of liked that. And then I remembered reading a newspaper about a house party in Westchester, New York, where there was a standoff with the cops, and I thought, “Well, that’s funny.” But others have seen the story, too, and tried to make a movie out of it, and I was, like, “I don’t think it’s an A-story..I think it’s a really good B-story, but I don’t think it’s much of an A-story.” So then I started trying to think about, well, how could you use this?” And then the idea of going back to being in high school, and this sort of sense of being lost in a very familiar place but still being able to recognize what’s around you, if that makes any sense. 

So that’s sort of how it started, and I just started writing it, not really sure whose movie it was. Actually, it was originally more going to be much more Jude and Nell’s movie, but then in the first closet, when June says, “You could touch me if you want,” I was, like, “Oh, Jesus, I think it’s June’s movie!” I mean, just because I laughed so hard when I wrote it. I was, like, “Well, I guess it’s going this direction!”

As you were constructing the script, did you find yourself creating rules to this alternative universe you’d made?

Yeah, I had really strict rules. Now, whether those rules get conveyed or not, whether it reads or not, is sort of, you know, “Your mileage may vary.” But, yeah, why doesn’t the closet take anybody else? Why can Kent see more than Nell can see? And that’s fundamentally to do with the fact that the primacy of the friendship is actually stronger between Kent and Jude than it is between Nell and Jude. Which is telling. So those rules existed, and… I remember when I saw The Wizard of Oz, and at the end, it was all because she just got clocked on the head during the tornado, and this was all just a dream. And even as a kid, I found that super unsatisfying. It was, like, “Oh, come on! She clearly went there! That really had to have happened!” So I think it’s probably a passing swipe at that. Although it does, by the way, happen in the Wizard of Oz books. She actually does go to Oz. Or so I’m told.

It’s true. I’ve read several of the original L. Frank Baum books. 

Oh, really? So there, you see? [Laughs.] So there’s a little bit of that. And there was a line for Wallace at the very end, when they’re standing out on the lawn, and Wallace says, “And you were there, and you were there, and you were there, too!” And I finally decided that it just didn’t work, because it just so radically pulled you out of the film. But I think there are still echoes of that in there. 

So here’s my wife’s big question: was there another Jude, and if so, where was he?

Yeah, that’s always very interesting, but… No, there isn’t, and I don’t think there can be, because you can still only have one of each. I think it would be more disruptive to be another of him. In other words, he just walked in on himself. Now, certainly when he sees his room and his parents, and his dad is back, that certainly gives rise to people saying, “Yes, there must’ve been another Jude!” But I don’t think there is. I think everything that Jude sees is somewhere inside of Jude. And the same for June. That was that world. I think it falls off-message if you have another one. I mean, maybe it tells the same story. Maybe you still get home, and these are all multiple parts of this person. But it feels more confusing if you have another Jude and June running around.

Have either you or Netflix considered a sequel?

If you’re to believe Reddit, yes. [Laughs.] But I don’t think that’s a great starting point! I don’t know. I mean, there has been talk of it, but Netflix… You know, it takes awhile, I think. It bobs around in there, and you trend for a week here, and then you trend a week there. But sometimes it’ll be trending on my wife’s computer and it won’t be trending somewhere else. It’s a very weird thing. But I think it’s super cool, and I’m all for it. The end of this one certainly teases the idea of one.

Do you have an idea as to where a sequel would go?

Yeah, I suspect I know what Derek is going through. What’s a little trickier about that one is that he went by himself, and that can be either very good or it can be paralyzingly tough, in terms of writing it.

I want to run through some of your other career highlights, but before I do, I wanted to go way, way back and ask you how you found your way into acting in the first place. What led you down that path?

Again going back to the ’70s, I was really a product of “everybody has to take an art class,” so I just ended up in middle school doing drama or whatever. And then out of high school and college, I did it all the time, and I just sort of thought, “Well, maybe I can make this work.” And then my first paying job was a production of Biloxi Blues in the Poconos, and it was really a production that only a mother could love. But Noah Emmerich was in it with me, and Noah and I talk about it to this day, that it was possibly the most fun we’ve ever had doing a show. [Laughs.] Again, I don’t think the end result was particularly good, but it was just incredibly fun. And then I just sort of stuck with the acting.

How did you first cross paths with Whit Stillman?

Oh, I just auditioned for [Metropolitan]. I mean, I got very lucky. It was a casting call for anybody who could credibly be believed to be just out of college, and that’s the largest acting population in New York City, because attrition hasn’t really set in yet. So I just got lucky.

Did you find it hard to wrap your mouth around Stillman’s dialogue?

No, not really. I really liked those really long runs of his, those two-page runs. I’ve always liked those things. I’m actually better at those than I am at short stuff. I remember we did, like, 45 takes of me going “huh.” That stuff I really suck at. The longer stuff I tend to be better at. Same thing with Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino and Gilmore Girls. Those runs I just find really fulfilling.

I didn’t tag you on Twitter when I posted about it because I thought it might be too painful, but I watched the pilot for the failed American adaptation of Red Dwarf.

[Laughs and groans simultaneously.] Where did you find that? Is it on YouTube?

It is, although it’s terrible quality.

So that’s probably just as we shot it, then.

Touché. So when you did that, had you been familiar with the original British series?

Uh, yeah, a little bit. That was Linwood Boomer, who then went on to create Malcolm in the Middle. But Llewelyn was around. Robert Llewelyn, who had been on the original, he was around. And it was fun. But then I got fired. And then I think somebody else in the cast got fired, too. And then, as I recall, Linwood got fired. And then the whole thing fell apart. I still see [Craig] Bierko around town.

I’m not even sure I realized that you’d gotten fired.

Yeah, I got fired after the pilot.

Okay, well, I knew there was a second version of the pilot where Terry Farrell played Cat, but I haven’t seen it.

Yeah, that was after I was fired. And now that you mention it, maybe it was after that that they fired Linwood. But I think what happened was… I mean this was ages ago, but I think the head of NBC called Linwood and said, “I’ll go ahead and give you a series order, but you’ve got to fire Eigeman, and you’ve got to fire…” [Hesitates.] Somebody else, but I can’t remember who. And then Linwood called me and fired me, but we were friends, so it was bad, but it wasn’t the worst. Then Linwood called the head of NBC back, and the head of NBC said, “Well, I’ve changed my mind, and now you’re fired, and the show’s dead.” And then I think we all went to Hamburger Hamlet in Brentwood and had dinner.

When It’s Like, You Know premiered, it got a lot of buzz and critical acclaim, but it didn’t last. Do you think it was “too hip for the room,” as they say?

I don’t know what the issue was. I think we were probably… [Long pause.] I don’t know. I’ve always sort of maintained that we probably shouldn’t have been on ABC. We probably should’ve been on some other network, maybe, so I always sort look at that. Even though it didn’t last, I had a sincerely great time doing it. That was a time when you really wanted a sitcom. It was, like, that was the thing. And our first table read was the day after Seinfeld‘s last taping, which was like a religious holiday in Los Angeles. [Laughs.] It was, like, there was no postage, the banks were closed… And then Jerry Seinfeld introduced the pilot at our taping! I think that sets expectations a little higher than they should be. And if you look at the curve of Seinfeld from birth to amazing end, it didn’t do well in the ratings for a good awhile. And we didn’t get that kind of time. But I thought the pilot was incredibly funny.

It felt like a Seinfeld for the West Coast, but one where the audience was represented via your character, who was staring at the insanity and just going, “What the hell?”

Yeah! I mean, I always felt the structure of it was pretty tight, and I liked a lot of the writers that Peter [Mehlman] had working on the show. I mean, for me, the whole thing was just a joy.

In addition to Whit Stillman, you’ve also worked with another guy who’s got a way with dialogue: Noah Baumbach.

Kicking and Screaming… That was a fucking joy to shoot. I mean, that was just an unbelievably fun shoot. And I really liked the film. That movie has a huge and very loyal fan base. Even though Will Ferrell decided to make a movie with the same name to confuse the issue.

That film – Baumbach’s, just to clarify – was one of the first that really spoke to me personally as an adult: I graduated from college in ’92, and then that film came out in ‘95 and I was, like, “This is literally what I went through.” And then it filled me with dread about the other things that I’d probably be going through soon.

Right, yeah. I mean, I got out in ‘87, so I was a little bit farther away from it. But I got it. And just the idea of curmudgeonly old men who were 22-year-olds I just thought was really funny.

Do you have a favorite project you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

Oh, my God. I should invert that question. It’d be shorter. I…don’t know. Not really, I don’t think. I mean, even going back to It’s, Like, You Know, you could feel that it wasn’t catching. But for me, I still really loved doing it, so I don’t think I ever look back on something and think, “This didn’t get a fair shake.” I honestly don’t think I do. Because, also, I think that way lies madness anyway. And that’s just a really easy way to get pissed off and cranky, when you really just can’t afford to get pissed off and cranky in this business.

My wife and I watched your directorial debut, Turn the River, and it’s amazing how it divided us. I thought it was going to go one direction in the end, whereas she saw no reason to think it was going to go that way…and she was right.

I was very happy that it went the way it did, the way your wife thought it would, but I think a strong case can be made that there should be a different ending there. But it was what it was. Famke (Janssen) and I did a movie together as actors with Ian Holm (The Treatment), which is where I met her, and we just really liked working with each other, so I wrote her Turn the River. You could never get that movie made today. Well, you could, but not in that way. We had, like, $500,000 and 20 days or something. But that was great, too. I really enjoyed doing it.

Rip Torn was in the film, too. Do you have a Rip Torn story? Because it seems like everyone who’s ever worked with him has got one.

Well, you know, the moment you tell somebody that you’ve invited Rip Torn to join, they will immediately send you the Norman Mailer / Maidstone clip on the presumption that you haven’t seen it. And I’m, like, “Trust me, guys, I’ve seen this!” [Laughs.] Look, pound for pound, Rip Torn is truly one of the most fascinating and engaging actors of his day. I have been in awe of him and just the amazing range of places he shows up. So I was a tiny bit starstruck when I was working with him.

But he’s just a cowboy, you know? I mean, he just comes in, does it, and then leaves. And then you get to the editing room, and you’re, like, “Oh, I see how he’s doing this shit!” But, no, there were no crazy Rip Torn stories. There were no hammers on that particular movie! I also think you can view that clip from Maidstone in a number of ways, but, uh, viewing it as just a display of commitment is probably the most positive way of viewing it. Like, he’s just doubling down on what he believes his character should be doing. Unfortunately, that meant hitting Norman Mailer in the head with a hammer in front of his family. [Laughs.] But, you know, if you put two brawlers together, that’s what’s going to happen!

My favorite Rip Torn story is just a quick one that Conchata Ferrell told me. They worked together on the movie Heartland, and on her first day there, as they were leaving rehearsal, he had a car and asked if she wanted to see the town. So he’s showing her this and showing her that, all these places, and she says, “Rip, how long have you been here?” And he said, “Oh, I got here two days ago.” She says, “How are you already so familiar with everything?” And he says, “I make it a point to know every way out of town of any town I’m in.”

[Laughs.] That… That rings very, very, very true. Rip has great stories. Crazy stories. But they’re Rip stories. It has to be Rip telling them. I haven’t heard from him in awhile. He used to call me a lot, because we have houses close to each other. But I think he’s still at it.

Before we start wrapping up, I just wanted to jump back to a past credit that you mentioned offhandedly a few minutes ago: Gilmore Girls. Given how devoted that show’s fanbase is, did you – and do you continue to – hear from viewers about your role?

Well, yeah. Look, I knew Amy and Dan, but I also knew Lauren [Graham], so stepping into the show was super easy for me. What I didn’t anticipate… I mean, clearly I was just a placeholder until Luke got there, because that’s sort of the engine of the show anymore. Which is great. I have no problem with that. But the level of commitment or even animus of a certain demographic of young women toward me was really interesting. I mean, I’d be walking through LAX, and they would just be unabashed about coming up and asking, “How long is your contract? How long do we have to endure you before Luke can get there?” Which… I was just, like, “That’s fantastic.” I was really struck by that. And even to this day you can see… It’s predominantly women who’ll look at me sideways and then go, “Oh, right: I hated your character on that show.” Which was great.

You also made it onto Bunheads.

Yeah, I was a boyfriend, and then I went on and directed an episode after that, which was also great. And I think Sutton [Foster] is great, and so were the other women on the show. And there were some other Gilmore Girls carryover cast on that show, too. Bunheads is another one that I think should’ve been embraced. Again, ABC. Well, ABC Family. But, you know, still ABC. I also think Amy’s new show [The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel] is just fucking great. I think it’s really, really good.

So have you thought about trying to continue the trend and scoring a role on Mrs. Maisel?

You know, we see each other a lot, and I’ve openly volunteered. [Laughs.] But who knows? They just premiered the second season, so I think they’re taking a well-deserved break.

So to bring things full circle, as far as acting vs. writing and directing, is your predominant focus on the latter pair at the moment?

I’m focused a little bit on it, I think. I sort of like sitting in my little studio writing. I do have another genre film that’s somewhere between fully and half-baked, so my producer and I are working to set that up. I like that. If it works, we’re going to try to shoot up in Toronto in the summer. But we’ll see.

My fingers are crossed for you.

Thanks, man. If it happens, I’ll be sure to reach out and grab your attention!

Will Harris (@NonStopPop) has a longstanding history of doing long-form interviews with random pop culture figures for the A.V. Club, Vulture, and a variety of other outlets, including Variety. He’s currently working on a book with David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. (And don’t call him Shirley.)

Watch Seven In Heaven on Netflix