Cloverfield?s hot young cast is, for the most part, made up of actors unknown to the general public, but given the forty-one million dollars the film made at the box office this weekend, that?s likely to change in a hurry. We caught up with the six core cast members in New York this weekend, and chatted with them (in two separate groups of three) about the excitement of making a monster movie unlike any other. Here?s our conversation with funnyman T.J. Miller (of Second City and TV?s Carpoolers), who plays Hud, the guy responsible for ?shooting" the tape labeled ?Cloverfield? (and Miller tells us he actually did shoot quite a bit of the film!); actress Lizzy Caplan (of Mean Girls and TV?s Tru Calling and Freaks and Geeks, and pictured above with Cloverfield director Matt Reeves), who plays Marlena, the aloof object of Hud?s affections; and Mike Vogel (from Poseidon and the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre), the impulsive brother of Cloverfield?s hero Rob (Michael Stahl-David).

[Note: If, after reading this, you need another Clover-fix, be sure to check out all of our exclusive video coverage of the Cloverfield premiere and our interview with the the rest of Cloverfield's cast!]

What made you choose to do the movie?

Caplan: You don?t really choose. You just audition. You just throw a bunch of stuff up against the wall, and hopefully something sticks. I think we lucked out on this one... We weren?t allowed to read the script before signing on to do the movie, which is a bad idea in general. But it worked out in the end. They tried to throw us off. They gave us audition scenes with Alias pages, and we didn?t know they were from Alias. That was confusing for everybody. T.J. and I actually did our second audition together. I don?t know if they told us to, but we just were sitting in that room waiting three hours, and by the time we went in we just tried to make it funny, even though there was no reason.

Miller: I was sitting in the room, while Lizzy was sitting outside, smoking, with sunglasses on, being aloof and mysterious. Everyone was like, ?Who?s that girl? Let?s hire her!? They were actually doing chemistry tests. I got the role, and I was testing with a bunch of different girls. They were all good. They all came in and did a good job. But then Lizzy came in and just destroyed. As we walked out, I turned to her and said, ?You were really, really good.? She was like, ?Yeah, I know.? [Laughs.] She didn?t say that, but she did say, ?Oh, thank you.? I got really nerdy. I was like, ?No, I?m serious. You were way better than the other girls.? And she was like, ?Thanks, thanks.?

Caplan: The room was packed full of people, and there was no way to actually sit there, which is why I sat outside with my sunglasses on. And I actually sat down next to Mike Vogel. The whole time?we were literally there for hours?I was just texting my agent, like, ?It?s just a bunch of damn models. It?s a bunch of models. Can I please leave? I?m not gonna get this part! I?m not gonna get it!?

Miller: It was a bunch of models, wasn?t it? It was really good-looking people, and then they settled on us somehow? None of us knew what the script was. When I was told about the project, I didn?t really know who J.J. Abrams was. I asked someone in my management, ?Dude, what is this? Like, an indie film? Is it an arthouse film?? They?re like, ?No, it?s a big movie.? It seemed like it was gonna be Reality Bites, or some teen relationship film. Little did we know that it was this goliath project, that was so ambitious and so different and so highly anticipated.

How did you react to reading the script and seeing the monster?

Vogel: We didn?t actually see the monster. We didn?t see the monster. I mean, for me, the first time I saw it completed was two days ago. The monster, as we were filming, wasn?t even done being designed yet. They would run up with the computer and show you the little bit they?d designed that day, and they?d have a little more here, and then the rest of it?s a little stick figure walking.

As far as the script? We?d already shot a trailer. We had no clue, from the trailer, who we were playing, and then we all sat down weeks later to read the script finally. And you?re just watching everyone at our table find out [their] fate or what happens. It was interesting, because all those things you do as an actor??How can I work out this character??there really wasn?t a chance for much of that because we were right into filming and it was a manic pace from that point forward. I?m sure that?s why J.J. and [the others] put us through the wringer we went through?because he knew he was gonna get out of us, and out of those different character types, what he needed.

Caplan: Also, we read the script for the first time in a set of offices. And we were all just crowded around reading furiously, and then we went in for the table read immediately afterwards. And in a movie like this, so much of it is description?you?ll go, like, three pages and it?ll be ?Oh my God!? So the table would be kind of boring, and everybody was like, ?Oh God?? It was just [director] Matt Reeves reading stage directions, and you can?t actually envision any of it.

Miller: It?s weird. I?m a comedian, so if you told me a year ago that I was gonna be in this movie, I would have laughed at you. But I?d imagine what it would be like if you were in 300 or Transformers, or any of these films where you?re acting surrounded by a greenscreen. But when you?re actually there doing it you do feel silly screaming and running from nothing. Then when you see the movie, you?re like, ?Oh yeah, now I understand why you had us do that. Because it was appropriate." It was this amazing, crazy, visually horrifying protagonist in the film, and there is no overreaction to what this thing is. It?s so big, and it?s such a huge, huge film in that way, and it?s shot in such a strange way...so it was unlike anything any of us have done.

You had an interesting part because you were offscreen most of the time.

Miller: Yeah, when I was told about the film, I was told that my character would be filming for a little bit, and then Rob would be filming for half the movie. So then I got the script, when we all sat down and found out our fates as it were, and it was really weird to see within the first couple of minutes, I?m behind the camera, and then I stayed behind the camera the entire time, and that was strange, because there had never been a movie like that. I remember thinking, ?Well, this is a wash, because nobody?s going to remember my character, nobody?s going to care about him. I?m an auxiliary part to this. Then when you see the movie, you realize that I?m not only an important part of the film, but the most important part of the film. [Laughs.]?

Vogel: Okay, next caller? [Laughs.]

Did you actually do your part on set?

Miller: I did a ton of voiceover and ADR in the postproduction room, but I was on set for every single scene, and I shot about a third of the film. That?s the figure I?ve been throwing out, and it is qualitively correct. Yeah, I operated the camera. So that was an interesting thing too. I had to worry about framing shots while I was trying to be mildly amusing.

Are you going to join the ASC [American Society of Cinematographers]?

Miller: No, I am not. And that?s not something that we talk about, because that is illegal. [Laughs.]

Did Matt do anything to try to keep the intensity going on set?

Miller: He would yell a lot and throw things. [Laughs.]

Caplan: He doesn?t really drink--he drinks a lot of Diet Coke and green tea. The green tea?that?s what kept everybody going. He was shaking and screaming the whole time. He always said, ?One more time.? And he would say, ?We need to have more of a ?What the fuck?!?? That was a big note that he gave us about fifty times.

Miller: It was interesting because he didn?t know what the shot was until he saw it, so that?s why we were doing fifty takes. And there?s no coverage, so we only had one chance to get the shot. It would be so frustrating?all of the acting was perfect and I fuckin? cut someone?s head out of it.

Vogel: And that?s the thing?it put the onus on the actor. There?s a group you don?t want to let down. These shots could be so long, and there?s so much stuff happening in one shot. You screw up one thing and it?s not only you that pays, it?s everybody. Because there?s no coverage. So it kind of made everyone else step up to the plate and make sure they were on top of their stuff.

What did you think of the monster when you finally saw it?

Caplan: Well, [part of] it changed from the rougher cut?those breathing things, breathing apparati.

Miller: I think J.J. did what he wanted to do. He said, ?We want to give a monster to this generation. A monster they can be proud of.? I mean we?ve all seen Godzilla.

Do you have a favorite movie monster?

Vogel: Well, of course I?m going to side with this one.

Before this one?

Caplan: There was no other monster movie before this one. [Laughs.]

Vogel: Matt and those guys, when they told me I?d gotten the part, they asked, ?So what is this? What have you heard?? I said, ?Well, this is Star Trek. That?s what everyone around town said, because there?s an actual Klingon nation named 'Cloverfield'.?

Caplan: How?d you know that, nerd? [Laughs.]

Vogel: They said, ?No, actually this is a monster movie.? And everything inside of me went, ?Oh, shit.? Because there?s been a lot of very campy and unsuccessful attempts at something like this in the past. But there could be no safer hands than J.J. Abrams vision for this thing. I think the moment it all hit us was when the trailer came out in front of Transformers. We were only a couple days into principal filming of the movie at that time, and when we saw the insanity that it caused... We knew that we may have been onto something there.

How involved did J.J. get in the principal filming?

Miller: He acted for me. [Laughs.]

Caplan: He was only on set a few times, but he was very involved in the casting process. I think he was watching dailies everyday, and he was giving notes. So even though he wasn?t there in person all that much, his presence was definitely felt.

Miller: He was involved at every level? I was gonna say?one of my favorite monster movies is Tremors, and part of the reason I think is because the reality of how people would react to this can be really funny. That was my goal at the onset of this film?to bring a character that?s sort of awkward and a funny guy, and see how he reacts really to this film, and the way that it?s shot helps the realism of the entire film. And the reason it?s the most important film of the deacade [laughs] is because it sort of does speak to the fact that we live in an uncertain time, and things aren?t always explained like movies pretend that they are, where the president figures out what it is, and where it came from, and how to kill it. That?s not what this movie?s about. This movie?s about a completely different aspect of the monster film, that?s really not been done before. I like that about the movie and I think it?s successful in that it sets out to do that and it knocks it out of the goddamn park.

In real life, what are your biggest fears?

Miller: That Lizzy won?t like me.

Vogel: I have a sick fear of what?s underwater.

Caplan: And he was in Poseidon!

Miller: Yeah, and Lizzy?s afraid of Mean Girls and I?m afraid of Radio Shack. Bridge that! The joke could have written itself.