From the Thin Man in Batman Returns, Abe Sapien in Hellboy, to the Amphibian Man in The Shape of Water, legendary creature actor and performer DOUG JONES has seamlessly shaped and re-defined horror iconography in cinema and TV throughout his career. We caught up with Doug to reflect on his incredible career, working with Guillermo del Toro, as well as his other roles such as Silver Surfer, Saru, and The Baron…

STARBURST: How did you get involved with Batman Returns, and what was it like to work with Tim Burton?

Doug Jones: I actually watched it again last night on HBO here in the states! I was flipping channels, and I was like “Oh!” and it was just starting. So, I was reminded so much about Batman Returns while watching it. It came out 33 years ago, so it’s been a while. That might have been the first big studio movie credit I had in my career, before that I was doing a lot of TV commercials, some guesting on TV shows, some indie movies, and some smaller horror movies. But that was my first big, “OK, this a studio movie, it’s going to get released!” Meeting a director of note, like Tim Burton, was so wonderful. I was referred to the stunt department by a stuntman friend of mine, named Bob Yerkes, god rest his soul. He was a legendary stuntman in Hollywood, and was a friend of mine. He knew that I could put my legs behind my head. He was working with the stunt co-ordinator of Batman Returns to cast all of the people that were going to be the sidekicks for Penguin in the Red Triangle Circus Gang, because Bob had all of these circus people, jugglers, high-wire walkers, stilt walkers, sword swallowers, and flame throwers. All of it. He said “I know a contortionist,” he told the stunt department, and they called me out of the blue, asking if I’d be able to meet with them. I went down, went to the office and met with the stunt co-ordinator. He said, “Show me what you can do!” I did my bit, my legs over my head. “Huh,” he said, “hang on here, I want you to do that again for somebody, I’m going to get them real quick…” He leaves the office, comes back in with Tim fricking Burton… He said, “This is our director Tim, show him what you just showed me” Tim was like “Oh, wow, so we’re going to go into the next room and talk about you for just a minute, hang on” So they leave the room, leave me sitting there by myself, going, “I don’t know what just happened.” They come back in, two minutes later, and Tim says, “Congratulations, you got the part” I’m like, “The part? I haven’t seen a script! I thought I was just here for a side gag!” It turns out it was a seven week contract, to be one of Penguin’s sidekick henchmen, the Thin Clown. Because it was such a supporting role, I didn’t have a whole lot of one-on-one time with Tim. He was trying to look after that many supporting characters, a humongous cast, choreograph and block out scenes that were huge, with mayhem going on in Gotham City, or placing us in Oswald Cobblepot’s mayor headquarters when he’s running for mayor. There were a lot of people, he would always put me somewhere that was vocal. He liked me, and he kept me around. He killed off my partner somewhere in the middle of the movie, and then kept me around. My seven week contract turned into fourteen weeks. As a young actor looking for work, Batman Returns was a godsend for me that put a credit on my resume that was big enough that I could get into most doors after that. Shortly after I did Batman Returns, I auditioned for Hocus Pocus, and that became a signature piece for me thanks to Batman Returns being there.

With the recent release of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, it seems like a good time to ask you about your time as Silver Surfer. Can you tell us about how you got involved with Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer?  

They reached out to me, I didn’t have to audition for this. By that time, apparently I was known as the guy who wears rubber bits pretty well! The creature effects shop, Spectral Motion had been hired to design and create the Silver Surfer, “What was he going to look like?” The creature effects teams over the years have been my champions. They were the ones who then suggested, “You know who should play this, Doug Jones!” They liked my tall skinny frame, they liked being able to build on me, and they could build the Silver Surfer’s beautiful muscular body with his perfect proportions on a really skinny guy to start with, because I had nothing to get in the way of that perfect design, as they built on, without getting too bulky. One of the producers on Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was Ralph Winter, who was the producer on Hocus Pocus, so we already knew each other, and he was like “Oh Doug! Of course, let’s get him!”

What kind of research did you do for the Silver Surfer?

I had watched The Fantastic Four cartoons on TV when I was a kid. I remember seeing The Fantastic Four comic books, The Silver Surfer was like, “I remember him being introduced…” but it was a more of a, tap the head, and try and remember, who exactly was the Silver Surfer. So I went to a comic book store, I went back to the source. God bless those geeky kids who work behind the counter, because without them we wouldn’t have comics, or the genre at all. I asked the kid behind the desk, “Listen, I’ve just been cast as the Silver Surfer in this new movie, do you have anything on him?” He was like, “Dude!” He goes running around the store, and I got about three different anthology books of The Fantastic Four where he was introduced, and then Silver Surfer’s standalone comics, these big thick compilations. So I had study material. I wanted to go back to the source material for that, because I knew that an audience was going to come looking for a portrayal on film that matched their memories of the comic books. Jack Kirby’s artwork and Stan Lee’s writing, need I say anything else? Those glorious poses that the artwork portrayed of the Surfer, he was so balletic and the poetry he spoke that Stan Lee had written for him – just gorgeous dialogue. I got what I needed really from that, about this outsider who’s visited from another planet, and he’s in a position where he’s a herald to this big planet devouring beast called Galactus, but against his will. It’s like he’s doing this as a sacrifice to save his own planet. He made a deal with Galactus to save his own planet, and the woman that he loved, back home. So now, he’s coming to earth, doing his daily duty, and realises that there’s something here worth saving. That’s a hero. A hero isn’t someone who wakes up and says “I’m going to do heroic things today”. True heroes seem to come from the reluctant part, like, “I don’t know if I’m worth it, but I guess if there’s a problem, and someone needs to fix it, I have the skills. I’m going to try this.” Surfer did what he could. As the relationship built on film with The Fantastic Four, I had such a blast working on that movie. I realised the gravity of it, too; that I was working on probably one of the biggest characters that I’ll probably ever play, as far as notable and recognisable. Getting to play opposite Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, and Ioan Gruffudd was… I was thrust into the middle of a really famous room. And then, of course, Julian McMahon who played Doctor Doom, God rest his soul, we lost him recently to cancer. Everyone was so delightful, and so wonderful to work with. That’s a character that will live with me for the rest of my life, even through this reboot that you mentioned, with the new Fantastic Four movie. Marvel was very kind to invite me to the premiere. I thought that was a very nice gesture, for them to bring me to that, so that they can have the old and the new, showing up on the red carpet.

There have been some really great Star Trek shows over the last couple of years, and Discovery is certainly one of them. How did you initially get involved with the show?

As an actor who has been under lots of rubber bits for almost four decades, I was asked constantly, throughout my entire career “Have you ever done anything in the Star Trek universe?” I hadn’t. I was born in 1960, so I was watching Kirk and Spock on my TV in the first run, back in the sixties, and then when The Next Generation came along in the ‘80s/’90s, and then Voyager and Deep Space Nine, and Enterprise. It’s like, “There’s another opportunity”, and by then, I had grown up, I was in Los Angeles, I was an actor. It’s like “Maybe this…” and then nothing happened. So I was like, “Wow, with the number of aliens that are on these shows, you’d think somebody would have thought of me!” So finally, after Enterprise, there were no Star Trek TV series for I think about 15 years, if I’m not mistaken. Then, I get this random phone call, “Hey! They’re creating a new Star Trek series called Discovery, and they’re asking for you, for this one role, as part of a new alien species called Kelpien” By that time, I was 56 years old, so I said, “It’s about time!” So I went in and met with the showrunners and the writing staff. It was different, it wasn’t an audition for me, it was actually an audition for them. That’s how they were treating it. It’s like “Here’s everything with the show, here’s our sketches of props, here’s our designs for costumes, and here’s what you’ll look like, here’s a sculpture of what you’ll look like. Here’s some props and guns and things”. It was an unusual experience for an actor; to walk in, and have them trying to sell the show to me. I was like “I’m already sold, it’s Star Trek for crying out loud!” It was delightful, and wonderful. The opportunity to help create a new alien species for a beloved, long running franchise like this, was again, the gravity of that was not lost on me. I was relieved that I didn’t have to follow in the footsteps of another actor who had already done it really well. If I was going to be a Vulcan, a Romulan, or a Klingon – there had been many in the past that had done those kind of characters beautifully – I didn’t want to be compared. I didn’t have to be. I was going to be the first Kelpien ever on film that was a great honour. The challenge that came with it was “How do I make a Kelpien different, and memorable so that it can become a part of Star Trek lore”. That was my challenge, “How do I make this character stand out, so that other Kelpiens can come after me and be welcomed”.

Could you tell us about the background to the character?

With Saru, I loved the backstory that the writers gave me for him, that he comes from a planet where he was a prey species, and there was a predator species, so they were kept down, under the thumb of another species – that’s all he knew. Always looking over his shoulder, always in fear, always at the brink of extinction. Sensing death was a big deal, my threat ganglia came out of my neck, and the back of my head when I could sense a threat in the room or nearby. The thing about Saru is that I understood this innate fear, because I, Doug Jones, have lived with anxiety and fear all of my life. I’ve lived with an unreasonable fear of tomorrow. If I can’t see around the corner, I’m terrified of it. If I can’t see what’s coming, or anytime I open the mailbox and there’s something I have to respond to, “Oh gosh, I’m going to fail somebody, somehow.” So I understood that. What I loved about Saru was that I went on this journey with him as a person. Over the five seasons that I got to play Saru, I went on a journey of finding his confidence, finding his courage. In season one, and part of season two, he is still living under this innate fear that is built into his ecosystem, and he overcomes it daily, in order to do his task for the day. To complete whatever is in front of him. I admire that about him. Then, in Season Two, I went through the vahar’ai, where the threat ganglia get inflamed and fall out. We were told originally, that’s when you die, because our predator species, would do mercy killings when we got to that point, and now I’m on a ship by myself, there’s no one around to do a mercy killing, so I’m getting sickly, and going through this change, my threat ganglia would fall out, then, all of a sudden, I don’t have any fear any more. I’ve got courage, and strength, and confidence like I’ve never had before. He realises that the Ba’ul were lying to my species, all this time, and we were actually a stronger species than them, they figured it out, many decades ago, many generations ago. They erased our history, so we didn’t know. That was a huge discovery. So I thought, maybe I can live without fear in my own, personal life. Because the circumstances around Saru didn’t change. His attitude, his reaction to those circumstances, that’s what changed. So instead of looking at threat, looking at tomorrow, looking at the unknown as “We’re all going to die,” maybe I look at it with, “We’ll get through it” because I’ve lived this long, and we seem to get through it somehow. So it changes your perspective and I learned a lot from playing Saru. I’m really grateful.

What We Do in the Shadows recently got nominated for an Emmy; can you tell us a bit about what the Baron Afanas was like to play, and what that unique style of comedy was like to work within as an actor?

I loved the Baron so incredibly much. With this style of humour, that reality, mockumentary style, I was a big fan of The Office, so when you get to play a show that’s like The Office but has vampires, which takes it to the next step; one step further into absurdity. With the best writers in the world, writing the funniest material, and the funniest actors around me. As a recurring character getting asked back again and again, that’s a call I always welcomed like “Yes! Of course I’m coming back.” Because it had a reality feel to it, they encouraged improv and off-the-script playtime. So after we filmed a couple of takes, as scripted, which were brilliant – again, the writers were the best comedy writers I’ve ever worked with they gave us a couple of takes to, what they call, “The fun runs! “Here’s the fun run! Do whatever you want” and we could go as far off script as we wanted. Whether it was visually, action, dialogue or whatever. So much golden material was captured in those takes. All the cast, we all knew that opportunity was coming, so everybody would prepare. Look at the script, and be like “Oh yeah, I can work this bit in there, or I can say this here!” We all came to the set with pre-conceived ideas: “I think I’m going to try something when it gets to the fun run”. It was always brilliant. Everybody was so incredibly hilarious and funny in their own unique ways.

You’re appearing at For The Love of Horror, how excited are you that, and what can attending fans expect?

Yeah, I’ve not been in the UK for a convention in a long, long time. So it’s about time I come back, and I’ve never been to Northern England. It’ll be my first time ever in Manchester. I’m looking forward to seeing that part of England, meeting the demographic and the people there. The thing about horror fans, is that there’s a common thread through all of them. We know each other, we spot each other. We’re family, right from the get go. So I can’t wait to meet the British part of my horror family.

FOR THE LOVE OF HORROR takes place at BEC Arena, Manchester on October 18th and 19th. Find out more here.
You can follow Doug Jones on Instagram.