With message boards crashing with theories and advance reviews starting to pop up, Stahl-David is making the PR rounds and was kind enough to take the time to speak to us about the incredible experience that he's already been through with the knowledge that things are only going to get more insane.

THE DEADBOLT: What's this week like for you? Are you nervous? Excited? Too busy to be either?

MICHAEL STAHL-DAVID: It's exciting. I saw the film for the first time on Saturday. First of all, I'm an actor, I'm watching myself and looking at all the little things that I wish I would have done better. But, outside of that, I was really excited by the movie. It's unconventional. It's different. I think people are going to look at this and say "This was the turning point in the genre - where we really started getting into this handheld point of view more." I think it is a contemporary vernacular and this movie uses that very successfully. The combination of that and special effects. When you see special effects from afar, they're like fireworks. When you see it coming at your head, it's like you're there. Luckily, I really love the movie, so this week is exciting for me. If I hadn't and I had to go around, it would be really hard. (Laughs.)

THE DEADBOLT: Did you get to see it with a crowd?

MICHAEL: It was like 25 people. They had won a screening off Facebook. The theater seats like 200, so it was not enough people to have a big audible reaction but there was some. The producers have been filming audiences and they say that it's not a lot of screaming, but that you're literally watching people sit on the edge of their seats. It has a really strong pace to it. It's not too long. There's not too much story packed in to it. And it's over quick.

THE DEADBOLT: Reviews have started to come in and they've been ecstatic. Did you expect this kind of response when you signed on or did you ever think that it might be a smaller movie like a lot of genre pics even with Abrams attached? Did you know that it would be this big a phenomenon?

MICHAEL: When I was first auditioning for it, I had NO idea what the hell it was going to be and I didn't know if it would be that movie where I would be like, (dejectedly) "Yeah, I did that movie." You never know with a genre movie. I'd been on a TV series but I hadn't really made any big movies, so for me to be in a slasher movie would be kind of the next step. Any actors who do that, I totally relate to them and I say "I know, you got to take the job. You got to work." But I got really lucky with this. The director was really cool. From the beginning, I could see that he, Matt Reeves, had a good sense of character and he was interested in telling this story from this really intimate point of view. It wasn't a big spectacle. He really got people. So, that gave me some confidence. But, when I saw the trailer and I saw the way it worked and then I saw the reaction to that, then I thought, "Okay, this could be crazy."

THE DEADBOLT: Do you read all the website buzz and message board theories about the movie? I've seen a dozen drawings of what the monster supposedly looks like in the last week.

MICHAEL: I read enough of it. I think it's funny. Masi Oka (from Heroes) - when Black Donnellys was coming out that was coming out - and I met him and my friend asked him, "If there's one thing you could tell yourself six months ago, before this became such a big deal, what would it be?" And he said, "Don't look yourself up online." I've looked at some of the spoofs of the trailer on YouTube and they're great.

THE DEADBOLT: Are you worried at all about TOO much anticipation? We've seen previews for half a year now and a big build-up requires a bigger pay-off.

MICHAEL: Honestly, it doesn't because the movie is different. It really is. It's not something that you say, after all that, "Eh." I mean, some people are going to hate this movie. I think that's good. Two weeks from now, there will be a lot of people where that will be the topic of conversation. People will be arguing about this movie. I think a lot of people are going to really love it. A lot do already. But it's not something that's easily dismissible.

THE DEADBOLT: How did you first get attached to the project?

MICHAEL: It was this weird, secretive thing. The scene that I read really highlighted the aspects of the character that are his awkwardness and that he's in love with this girl who he thinks he's probably better then. Things have changed between them now. The movie spends very little time explaining that. Very, very little. That worked out well with me though. So, then it was like, "Okay, they want you to come out to California but you have to pay for it yourself." All right. Jump on a plane. Then, the next time, they flew me out. So, it was a long process.

THE DEADBOLT: What was the audition process like? I heard you did a scene from Alias?

MICHAEL: Yeah. They needed a scene that would kind of show what you could do in a crazy situation. They had this really confusing scene that was like where I started out passed out and then I was stabbed with a needle and then you wake up and you're spies! And you're in France! And you gotta RUN! We tried and we were doing it and we went for it but it was like they realized that the hardest thing to throw an actor is terror. It was really hard. So, JJ Abrams said, "Hold on." He walked out of the office to his computer and he wrote a monologue and handed it to me and said, "Whenever you're ready." It was like a page and a half. I was like, "Okay." I went in there and just went for it.

Finding Cloverfield with Michael Stahl-David Page 2