Feature Category: Interviews

Scottish filmmaker and head of SHINING EXAMPLE FILMS, Andy Stewart is currently crowdfunding his next short film, REDACTED, with Laurence R. Harvey and Tristan Risk starring. Having made a splash on the festival scene with his body-horror trilogy DYSMORPHIA, SPLIT and INK, anticipation for this film is high. We caught up with him to find out more…

STARBURST: What’s Redacted all about?

Andy Stewart: I made the decision to take a (brief) step away from body horror. I felt I was in danger of becoming predictable and wanted to do something a little more fun… almost. It’s the story of a man who happens upon a humanoid creature while on a hike in the woods. The creature is distressed and anxious and the man tries to help. So they strike up this brief partnership until it all goes wrong…

How did you manage to get Laurence and Tristan on board? I assume it’s because they’re such great supporters of indie film?

That, and, Tristan had been on the short film jury at the inaugural Rio Grind Film Festival in Vancouver in 2012. I had my first film Dysmorphia in the line-up and it caused a guy to faint! Tristan had got in touch to tell me about it and since then, we had talked on and off about working with one another. So, when we decided to go ahead with this project, I ran it by her and she jumped at the role! I think the character plays quite nicely into her dance and performance background and gives Tristan a chance to play the kind of character she has wanted to play for a while.

It became pretty clear, pretty quickly upon reading the script that we had to get Laurence on board to play the Man. The script seems pretty much written for him. I had a little bit of help from Tristan in getting Laurence on board. She made the introductions and whatnot. Fortunately, Laurence had caught Split and Ink at Celluloid Screams, liked the script and the rest was easy.

How do you feel about using crowdfunding? It does seem to have broken down the barrier between artist and audience…

Truthfully, I find it really difficult and stressful. There’s a lot that rests upon running a strong, successful campaign. We have used crowdfunding in the past to varying levels of success and it’s always a long, difficult month with no guarantees but this one seems to be going pretty well so far, which is amazing. I’m always gobsmacked to get so much assistance from people!

You have a fundraiser set up in Glasgow too, what can you tell us about that?

Yeah, we are running an additional fundraising/thank you night, a few days after the campaign ends. We have music, prizes, giveaways and will be pouring our own specially brewed, limited edition red IPA, Shining Examp-ale, on the night. Very exciting! We will also be screening some short films: Jill Sixx Gevargizian’s Call Girl, which also stars Tristan & Laurence, Adam Stephen Kelly’s Done In, Damon Rickard and Alex Mathieson’s The Tour, my own film Ink and two of the best short films I have seen in some time, Fredrik S Hana’s Autumn Harvest and Ben Steiner’s The Stomach. It’s only £3 to get in but anyone who contributes gets in for free. Should be a good night!

The REDACTED fundraiser takes place at Drury Street Bar & Kitchen, Glasgow on Thurs 5th March from 7pm.

You can find out more and get involved with the fundraising by heading to the Indiegogo page. Check out REDACTED on Facebook, and follow SHINING EXAMPLE FILMS on Twitter and Facebook.

Watch Andy’s first short, DYSMORPHIA below:

Last year’s Starry Eyes was a gem of a horror picture. Referencing as it did moody atmospheric pieces of the ’70s like Rosemary’s Baby, while also commenting on the age-old struggle for Hollywood success, the film’s a modern horror film that feels timeless. Co-writers and co-directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer put together a Kickstarter to fund the film last year, and thanks to some extra funding from Dark Sky Films, were able to get the film a slightly larger budget. As it is, Starry Eyes looks nothing like a small-budget independent film, making use of each and every penny.

The film’s out next month on DVD and Blu-ray, and we spoke with Widmyer and Kölsch by phone from Los Angeles about the film, its production, and their future projects.

STARBURST: The Kickstarter was what really brought the film to the attention of a lot of people. Was that $50,000 the entirety of the budget?

Dennis Widmyer: In the beginning, it was going to be. We went in the Kickstarter kind of all-or-nothing. We were planning on doing the film for that amount of money, with Kevin and I wearing a lot of hats. Obviously writing and directing, but editing, producing – we probably would’ve been shooting it ourselves. And, you know, it would’ve been a very different film, bit we were trying to capture a sort of raw energy and that film might’ve worked on its own, as well, but it would’ve been extremely difficult to do. But, we just went for it, and what happened was that we already had our producer on board: Travis Stevens. He was having a good year. He had had Cheap Thrills come out, and Jodorowsky’s Dune, the documentary, and we were always hoping in the back of our minds that he’d be able to find us more money. But, he was always of the mind of doing the Kickstarter, regardless, because the money we would’ve gotten from there would’ve helped, anyway, and would’ve given the film a lot of exposure – kind of given the film a platform. So, if we were going to attract more money, we would have something to point them to. That’s what ended up happening: we got to our goal. Actually, we went a little over. We raised $53,000 out of the $50,000 we were trying to get. Shortly after that, Dark Sky Films came in and put in a little more money themselves. The film got a smidge bigger, but it was still a very micro-budgeted film. We were able to do the film different than how we were going to. Still very small, still very micro-budgeted, but Kevin and I didn’t have to work the cameras. We were actually able to afford a crew.

Despite it being a micro-budgeted picture, it looks like every penny was used exceedingly well. To what extent did you go to make sure that every cent counted?

Kevin Kölsch: Well, if you take it to the extreme, it means that no cents went to me and Dennis . But, I mean – we put all of our money into the film. This was our passion project. We’ve made other things in the past; smaller things and DIY things. This was the film that we wanted to put everything into. Hopefully, it would get out into the world, like our earlier DIY films didn’t. That’s what we were going for: we took everything that we had and put it onto the screen. There were even times where me, Dennis, and Travis would want certain things, like the underwater shot, and we were like, “We want the underwater shots. It’s going to look so great. It’s going to be so beautiful. It’ll add production value.” But an underwater rig was not in the budget, and so me, Dennis, and Travis came in with checks of our own and we paid out-of-pocket for having an underwater shoot. That’s how we went toward making all the pennies count: we forwent any money for ourselves, and even spent some out-of-pocket money when there were scenes where we thought it would raise the production value of the film.

Another thing I think raises the film’s production value is the Jonathan Snipes’ score. I’m curious as to how you came to use him – was it through his work on Room 237?

DW: It was kind of a combination of things. I was one of the editors on the film, and it took about seven months to edit the film. It was just a really difficult film to edit. We had a lot of footage, and a lot of scenes that ended up becoming good scenes, but we had to delete them because we had too much film. Pretty much through 75% of the editing process, we were using a very orchestral temp score, and we weren’t using anything electronic or synth-based. Our mind just wasn’t going there. And then, Jay Shaw, who’s a great artist who did our South by Southwest poster, and did a lot of art design for the film: he’s the first one to suggest using Jonathan Snipes. Up to that point, we had gotten used to what the film was, and it was getting kind of stale. The film needed another level, another life boost. It needed to feel more progressive. So, we started to look at Room 237, and started to drop some of the cues from that movie in as temp tracks, and instantly, it transformed scenes. We said, “Oh, wow. Okay, we were wrong. This could absolutely work.” Then we reached out to Jonathan and met him for coffee. He loved the script, he loved the temp cut that he saw, and at that point, he had not done another feature since Room 237, so he was really itching to do a narrative feature. It ended up being a match made in heaven. He came on board and, I think in three weeks, did the entire score. He spent about two of those weeks just doing the main jingle for Sarah, the lead character, because we all felt the film score needed a real melody. It couldn’t just be soundscape-y, it had to have a theme to it. We wanted you to hear the music on its own, and be able to hear the themes of the movie, and hear the arc of the main character. So, we were really, really happy with what he came up with.

Speaking of the character of Sarah, Alexandra Essoe’s performance is kind of the lynchpin of the entrie film. But, you also have these performances from the likes of Noah Segan, who was in Deadgirl and Cabin Fever 2, along with Fabianne Therese, who was in John Dies at the End, and I’m kind of curious if you went with these actors and actresses because they had some genre experience, or if that genre work is just a symptom of being a young performer in Hollywood?

KK: You know, that’s a good point. I think a lot of it just came out of Travis Stevens coming on board, and him having a history based on some genre films. Again, talking about trying to elevate the production value, we were trying to get some actors in there that people had seen before and have been in other things. So, like, a lot of these people were just people that had worked with Travis in recent years. Fabianne Therese was in The Aggression Scale, Pat Healy was just in Cheap Thrills, as was Amanda Fuller. And just, even some of the other people, like Marc Senter, weren’t people that Travis had worked with, but that he knew. Still, we had liked Marc’s performance in Lost. We liked Noah in Brick and Looper and Deadgirl. But, like you brought up, this is just kind of like how young actors in Hollywood might be, just like Sarah herself is up for a role in The Silver Scream. You can’t make a movie about making movies without there being that slight meta bent, regardless of whether you mean for it to be there or not.

The movie itself does reference B-movies or exploitation cinema of the ’70s and ’80s. With Astraeus Pictures in there, that studio could just as easily sub in for American International Pictures as it could for Cannon, allowing the film to exist outside of time. Was trying to keep the film from being too modern or too retro a goal you had?

KK: Yeah, we were feeling a certain ’60s and ’70s vibe, whereas Jonathan Snipes’ synthesizer score – more people liken that to ’80s horror. And here you have Sarah, who aspires to be an actress, and she looks up to all the classic golden age actresses. She has that whole mural on her wall. She still has this idea that she’s going to be a star like Rita Hayworth. It was, yeah, trying to make it feel timeless with elements from many different time periods in there. It was just trying to be a story that could happen at any time in Hollywood. As Astraeus says, “We’ve had many people pass through here.” And, going way back to when MGM had people under contract, they kind of owned them, like how Astraeus is going to own that, we had to have elements from all different periods of cinema, so the film doesn’t feel grounded in any one time.

DW: Kevin and I have been writing together for about 18-20 years, so we’re thought of us as writers, but we wanted to direct, but we wrote a handful of spec scripts before we did. We come from our own pedigree of wanting to write our own stuff a lot. Ever since signing with a manager and an agent, we’ve just been writing a lot, sending things out – things we want to direct, things we don’t need to direct – and we’ve just been taking a lot of meetings on potential directing assignments for screenplays we haven’t written. Right now, it’s up in the air. There’s a lot of things we’re considering. There’s our own projects that we’re developing. We have an erotic thriller called Geminia that we would love to make, that we just turned in a draft of recently. Then we have a contained thriller called Precipice, which is sort of like The Grey meets Lord of the Flies. And, like I said, we’ve been considered for a lot of films we can’t announce yet, because we don’t know if they’re going to happen or not. One thing we can announce is that we’re going to be doing one of the segments for a new anthology by XYZ Films called Holidays, where it’s going to be 8-10 holidays, 8-10 filmmakers, and 8-10 short films. That’ll be fun. We’re really excited about that. We actually start shooting in the next couple of weeks.

Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kölsch’s film, Starry Eyes, is released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 16th.

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Arrow Films has been the United Kingdom’s premiere reissue label since its formation in 2009. In the past five years, they’ve become the go-to company for Blu-ray and DVD releases of classic exploitation and cult films. Known for their deluxe restorations, which result in films done by the company looking better than they likely did on the day of release, Arrow is the bar by which all other reissues are judged. They recently finished an Indiegogo campaign to expand their market into the United States, and it was a roaring success, with $20,000 more than their $100,000 campaign being raised.

Arrow’s first set of films for U.S. releases – Day of Anger, Mark of the Devil, and Blind Woman’s Curse – were announced as part of the Indiegogo campaign, and will be out March 17th. They also announced the next wave: Blood and Black Lace, Massacre Gun, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne will be out on April 14th. We spoke with Arrow Films’ head of production and acquisition, Francesco Simeoni, via e-mail about the company’s new market and upcoming releases.

STARBURST: What was the impetus to move into the American market?

Francesco Simeoni: In building up a large catalogue of releases, we managed to amass a large following beyond our borders and there were lots of films we wanted to restore that we couldn’t do financially as a small UK-only label. We have restored plenty of films but it’s not always so easy and we found ourselves in difficult situations, like with The Burbs where we had an HD Master from Universal, which was fine for their purposes, but didn’t meet our standards for a top quality Blu-ray presentation. We tried to work out arrangements with distributors in other territories, but we never managed it and so had to take it on ourselves, with much risk attached. After all, we need to be mindful of risks so we can keep doing what we’re doing! Now, with a larger audience to serve, we aren’t thinking twice about pushing the restoration button! We have so many restorations planned, it’s thrilling to think we’re releasing films we would have once had to turn down.

Why move into a market that’s so full already, with Blue Underground, Synapse, Code Red, and Scream Factory?

It is indeed a market with many distributors, but we felt there was a gap with the kind of content we are offering with the kind of presentation we offer. The restorations, as I mentioned, just one part, and whilst there is a lot of this good work happening already – and those labels are indeed doing excellent work – but each of them has a petty specific remit. None of them have so far done any Blaxploitation films or any yakuza films on Blu-ray, to name just two examples. It’d be a shame if the US was deprived of some of the delights we have planned. We know there’s a big audience out there, who is very excited for the stuff we have planned.

Was the Indiegogo campaign a way to gauge interest, as well as raising funds?

It was purely to gauge interest. There’s nothing like voting with your wallet rather than clicking a poll with no consequences, so it was a great way to test the water. But we were upfront with the campaign – we were always going into North America and had a handful of very strong titles planned as mentioned in the campaign. The big question was, “Do enough people want what we’re offering and can we possibly communicate our plans in a more exciting way than ‘Hey, here’s our website?’” – which would have been pretty dull.

From what I’ve been able to ascertain, all releases will be on both sides of the Atlantic at the same time. How do you plan to keep doing that?

It’s actually not been too hard, since we have established relationships with many different producers and studios. So, whilst we delayed Day of Anger a few months in order to make it a dual territory release, we had plenty in the locker to shift around with no effect on our home audience. It just meant switching around the release schedule, which we do all the time, anyway. Only the very last stages of a release’s production do we actually schedule it. As regards continuing to do this: we have lots scheduled and we’re feeling really pleased with some of the exciting titles we’re bringing US and UK audiences, so it’s all looking good for the moment!

All these initial releases are DVD/Blu-ray combos. Why do that? Is it easier than trying to do either/or, or cheaper than releasing each format separately?

We’ve found in the UK that our audience isn’t very heavily biased to DVD and is pretty tech savvy: have good quality kit, nice big TVs and want the best on disc. We wouldn’t want to drop the DVDs entirely. There’s still a DVD audience out there, but they one day may want to upgrade to Blu-ray and they’d be pretty annoyed at having to upgrade their back catalogue to Blu-ray when it could have been avoided, or putting off a purchase because of an imminent upgrade. Once you make the switch to Blu-ray and put on an old DVD, if you love that film, you’re going to want to upgrade it at some point. So, a combo pack is great for DVD buyers to be future proofed. Additionally a combo release means great flexibility – if you want to watch the film on your Blu-ray through your big TV, but the extras later on your computer, you can. Very few of these films will ever make it to 4K so the Blu-rays will be relevant for a very long time yet. A further consideration is our releases often feature very high quality packaging, whether it’s a Steelbook or a deluxe box with lots of printed parts, so we can do a lot more of that for just one format in one size. Making two sizes increases costs, reduces budgets and affects the buyer in the sell price. By having one size across two countries, we can offer really cool packaging without a prohibitively expensive price.

The first six American releases span the genres from giallo to supernatural gangster picture to spaghetti western to witches. What’s going to be the plans for the company’s releases going forward? Will there be past UK releases getting an American version? Will some films be exclusive to one country or the other?

Some UK releases will see a North American version in the future, but it’ll be rare and infrequent as time passes. There will come a point when it just won’t happen anymore as much of our back catalogue is with another distributor and we’re only really focusing on special releases to reissue.

More information about Arrow Films can be found at their website – www.arrowfilms.co.uk/

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Ray Wise is an American actor best known for his darker roles. His work includes Jeepers Creepers 2, Star Trek Voyager, 24 and Twin Peaks. We caught up with him to talk about his latest role as Wenton Davis in the horror movie Dead Still.

STARBURST: Tell us about Dead Still.

Ray Wise: It’s an intriguing horror story. The young man in the story, Brandon Davis played by Ben Browder, is a wedding photographer and he inherits an antique camera from his great grandfather, and he uses the camera to photograph some subjects and they start dying horrible and bizarre deaths. It turns out that this antique camera is a soul destroying gateway to the netherworld. The character that I play, Wenton Davis, is a Victorian photographer of the dead. It was his camera originally. We see him in flashbacks during the movie taking pictures of his dead subjects, and it’s all done very stylishly. The Booth Brothers have great production values, the production design is great. I actually thought that I was in the Victorian world. We shot it in a very old house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and it was very spooky and it felt as if it was really haunted. They filled the set with all sorts of antiques from the turn of last century, furniture and other little props I could use. They had this great old camera. So I felt I was in this world.

You are wonderfully creepy and odd throughout it. How do you prepare for such a strange role?

The first thing I did was looking up the custom of photographing the dead, which apparently they did during the Victorian Era. It was fairly common in the United States. They would dress them up and sit them up in chairs as if they were alive.  I looked through all the material I could find on photographing the dead. I grew a little Van Dyke moustache and grew my hair long. When we got to the location, I walked around the set in the costume and learned how to operate that camera and I was actually able to take a couple of pictures with it. All that preparation goes into playing a role like Wenton Davis. It’s not hard in your imagination to recreate that world.

What other projects are you currently involved with?

Out at the moment is Suburban Gothic, a ghost story directed by Richard Bates Jr. You should also go see Digging up the Marrow. It is a monster movie by Adam Green. I was drawn to both of them because they were just very funny scripts with two directors that I knew very well.

You are well known for your role in Twin Peaks. What can you tell us about the new series?

I really can’t say if I’ll be involved or not. No one is allowed to talk about that project who is involved in it. We’re still a couple of months away from starting the pre-production and shooting the next nine episodes of the third season of Twin Peaks. What I can say is that I would certainly love to be a part of it and I would love for the character of Leland Palmer to be a part of it and if it does it’ll be a great thing.

Victorian spookiness and Welcome to Night Vale/Twin Peaks-style weirdness seems to be back in vogue. Why have we fallen in love again with the surreal and horrible?

It gives us chills in the safety of our own living room, that little shiver up the spine. It gives us that little titillation of fear. For a few moments, at least, we can become lost in another world that makes us feel like we’re in another world. Something like Twin Peaks, with its strange characters and well written storyline full of twists and turns, is just a lot of fun. It’s that little shiver up the spine.

You played Alec Holland, the Swamp Thing, back in the ‘80s. Given that superhero movies are back, would you want to do that again?

Of course, I loved Swamp Thing. I love the character of Alec Holland. It’s a great, wonderful monster. A good monster, as well. We have certain areas of the United States, like the Louisiana Bayou, that are ghost-ridden; it’s last few hundred years history are filled with voodoo and santeria and slavery. I think all of that is fused into this country and it lends itself to ghost stories.

What would your dream project be?

Oh my. Dracula. As Bram Stoker wrote it. As faithful to the novel as possible. I’m a Dracula-phile and have been since I have been I was eight years old. I grew up on the Hammer Horror movies. I’m half-Romanian and have made movies in Romania. Dracula, definitely.

What advice would you give to a young person looking to get into acting?

Wherever you’re from, get to the local community theatre and enlist. Take roles and do whatever you can do. Try and get all the experience that you can possibly be. There are thousands and thousands of actors out there, so you have to be prepared. Be totally focussed and determined. If you don’t have that focus and drive, you won’t succeed. Just go anywhere and try and force your way in.

Simpsons or Futurama?

The Simpsons. I think they did a cartoon of me one time as Leland Palmer.

Ghosts or vampires?

I think I would tend toward ghosts. There are too many vampires, and zombies have become vampires, there’s too many vampires, so I’ll go with ghosts, unless it’s Dracula.

Truth of beauty?

Always truth.

Dead Still is available on VOD in UK. Keep up with Ray’s projects by following him @therealraywise.

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Not content with writing one of the best novels of recent times, The Beach author Alex Garland then moved on to penning some of the most interesting horror and science fiction films of the 21st century. His collaborations with director Danny Boyle gave us the very first, very fast-running zombies with the Infected of 28 Days Later and then he bent minds by breaking into science fiction with Sunshine. After writing a Dredd reboot that made everyone forget all about Stallone’s misjudged Dredd, Garland has taken the next step in his evolution as one of the finest genre storytellers of a generation. His directorial debut, Ex Machina, is out on Friday, January 23rd, with previews beginning on January 21st, featuring two future stars of Star Wars: Episode VII, Oscar Isaac and Domhnall Gleeson, as well as phenomenal talent Alicia Vikander. We were lucky enough to have a quick chat with this extremely intelligent writer/director to discuss the making of Ex Machina and the magic of cinema.

STARBURST: You have had a long and healthy relationship with Andrew MacDonald and DNA Films over the years. How easy was it to get this film into production with the budget you needed?

Alex Garland: It was surprisingly easy. I mean it was helped by the fact we’d been working together a long time and we know how to kind of work the angles, it would be fair to say. When I first presented them with the script, it was conceived as being a £3 million Film 4 movie and that we would not be able to do the kind of VFX that we knew that we would want, but we would find some kind of clever way around it. And the reason for doing that is because, basically, for this kind of subject matter, with a story told in this kind of way, which is quite adult sometimes in terms of content, and thoughtful or however you want to describe it, you’re never going to get a big budget. You’ll only be able to make this film if you do it cheaply, and then what we found to our surprise was that with the help of some real heavy hitters, people like Scott Rudin, who is a big producer who was involved right from the start, that we were able to aim at a higher budget than we thought we’d initially be able to do and effectively made a Film 4 movie with a huge VFX budget that pushed it up to $15 million.

It sounds like the opposite of what you usually hear from directors. It sounds like the studio, or the ‘suits’ or executives or whatever you want to call them, have helped you to make a bigger budget film but still make the film that you actually wanted without having to compromise in order to get a wider audience.

That’s literally exactly what happened. They looked at what we were proposing and they decided, “Yes, we want to do this.” There was another thing that made it, in a way, even more complicated. Again, because of the kind of film it is, it puts an enormous pressure on the actors because they have huge, huge scenes of dialogue one after another. You can’t cast a star that can’t act. You won’t get away with that charisma. Some stars have got a lot of charisma but they don’t have terrific acting ability, and that would kill a film like this. What you need more than anything is serious actors. Not only were they financing a rather sort of strange, difficult sci-fi movie, but also one that didn’t have any sort of obvious megastar, incandescent appeal. It’s an actor-led film more than anything. And they went for it and I honestly don’t think that we could have asked for a better cast for this film.

You cast Oscar and Domhnall before any of their recent successes and long before they were announced as part of Star Wars: Episode VII. Why those two?

Well this is the third time I’ve worked with Domhnall so I know him very well. I knew he’d be perfect for this. I knew he’d just do a terrific job. The thing about Oscar and also Alicia, they weren’t ‘stars’ as in they hadn’t blown up in the way that you’re talking about but everybody knew they were really, really good… I mean everybody. It’s not like a secret. When someone’s a really good actor, you know within a minute or two of them being on screen. You know if you looked at Philip Seymour Hoffman in an early role, you would instantly know how good he is. You don’t need to be some fancy film director to figure that out; it’s bloody obvious. In the case of those guys, it wasn’t a case of any great prescience on our part, we were not the only people who were trying to cast these actors. There were other films also pursuing them. The challenge was not recognising how good they were, but getting them to do it. That was the dicey bit.

How did you feel when you heard Oscar and Domhnall had been cast in Star Wars and when did you find out?

It was way down the line. I mean towards the end of post. What I thought is that with this group of people and all the other people involved, we’d made a film I feel very good about. I like it more than anything I’ve ever worked on in the past, but it’s not going to be a very easy sell and this will help.

Did you always want to direct this film and had you ever wanted to direct any of your previous screenplays?

I think I’d never quite framed it in the terms that you describe it. I don’t deify the directing role at all. Broadly speaking it is deified. And I never ever saw it that way. My approach to film is that it is a group of people working together; one of them is a director, one of them is a DOP, one’s a writer, one’s an actor, and so it goes on. All these people, essentially what they are is filmmakers. I feel that I’ve been in the business of filmmaking for 15 years or so and this is just another one of those movies. I’ve got a particular affection for it but that’s nothing to do with directing it; it’s to do with the fact that I feel it achieved its intentions and I haven’t always felt that in the past.

You mention that filmmaking is a very collaborative process. The production design on Ex Machina was incredible. The set had elements of a prison, a research facility, a futuristic eco-hotel. How much of that comes from the script and how important is Mark Rigby’s input?

It’s very hard to quantify in terms of percentages, I guess. What I’d say is that the script exists as a blueprint and then gradually a team is built up and enlarged. What those people do is they don’t just simply execute what they read, they say “How about this for an idea?” and it’s a rolling conversation between a large group of people. With Mark, I think I’ve made six films with DNA, it might be seven, I honestly can’t remember, and Mark’s worked on all of them. So I know Mark very, very, very well and, as with a lot of people on that crew, I’ve worked with them several times before so there’s a lot of shorthand and you get to know each other and someone suggests something and you know where they’re coming from is good so you immediately go “Yeah, that sounds great” and run with it.

What made you turn to Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow for the soundtrack?

I’d worked with Geoff and Ben for a time on the film I worked on previously, which was Dredd. So Geoff and Ben and I got to know each other during that period of work on Dredd. When this film came up, I just immediately contacted them. I think that they’re brilliant and they’re really interesting and fantastic composers, but they’ve got something about them which is very special; that they’re not deeply entrenched and saturated with film grammar because they haven’t spent years and years scoring movies and getting bad habits or good habits or any sort of habits. So they approach it in a way that is very fresh, and Geoff is a real fiercely creative guy and he keeps you on your toes and I like that about him. They have a bunch of qualities that they bring with them that are above and beyond just the composing.

You filmed on location in Norway in the most stunning places. Were the exteriors an actual house in the middle of nowhere?

Yes, we did 4 weeks on sound stages in Pinewood and then 2 weeks in Norway, and it was really just to get a kind of wild, big, strange landscape to work as a juxtaposition to this really claustrophobic interior. The house in the film is a combination; some of it is a house and some of it is a rather strange eco-hotel. The eco-hotel and the house were both designed by the same architect so they have commonality of aesthetic, which means you could move from one space to another and it would feel fluid. In fact, they’re like 10 miles from each other. That’s the magic of cinema.

Ex Machina is released in UK cinemas on January 23rd, with preview showings starting January 21st.

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James Ward Byrkit’s sci-fi thriller Coherence gets its much-anticipated UK release next month. We were lucky enough to get some time with the writer/director to get the lowdown on the film, his influences, and what’s up next for the talented Byrkit.

STARBURST: What made you pick a comet as the cause of the mysterious events in the film?

James Ward Byrkit: A comet seemed right because they are the perfect blend in our minds of ancient legend and modern science. They’ve always been a harbinger of some kind, a sign, something that is clearly special and cosmic but beyond our understanding. And even now, when science is able to study them, they still have this connection to the birth of the solar system and secrets of the universe.

Was it because they have been seen in the past as the carriers of change and destruction?

The comet also signals to the audience that this is more of a fantasy concept than hard science fiction. It’s more Twilight Zone than Primer.

Did you consider alternative things that might mysteriously interact with your characters?

No, the comet was the instant winner. They are just rare enough to be exciting and have an aura of myth and superstition to them that is perfect.

The comet cuts off the Internet and mobile phone communications. Isn’t this the modern-day equivalent of casting your characters on a desert island?

To have the classic “people in a mystery house” set-up ala Ten Little Indians and Clue, there should be a sense of isolation, but not so much that the characters don’t have basic comforts. The desert island concept is a little different, where the focus is on immediate survival and the elements. The tropes associated with the house mystery allow the characters to remain civilized in appearance, with nice food and working toilets, while beneath the surface they are falling apart.

Did you deliberately decide to mix facts with fiction? For example, Em mentions the 1908 Tunguska ‘comet’ that exploded over Siberia, which is true but also talks about the fictional 1923 comet over Finland that makes a woman think her husband is a doppelganger?

Yes, mixing fact and fiction that way is the fundamental starting point of the concept, blurring science and speculation. It’s part of the incoherence that the film is weaving from the beginning.

Did you set out to create a Sliding Doors-type alternative timeline story?

No, but that seemed like an honest reference. The character of Laurie mentions Sliding Doors at one point, lobbing it out there, but no one took the bait.

Do you think we all have a view of reality that can be easily shattered when it is challenged? Do we create our view of reality to keep ourselves sane?

That’s basically the starting point. I loved The Twilight Zone as a kid for exploring this theme over and over. I think most people sense the truth that the reality we have all agreed on is not exactly right, or is really limited. This, I think, was one reason The Matrix resonated so much with audiences. The truth behind the metaphor of the Matrix is even cooler and more exhilarating than the visuals of that movie.

Do you have any favourite films of this type?

After Hours actually has a dose of this, and The President’s Analyst with James Coburn. The Matrix, as I mentioned, is a favourite. Jacob’s Ladder and both versions of Open Your Eyes, aka Vanilla Sky.

What was the most difficult scene to shoot?

We had planned a night to shoot outside my house, in the sleepy dark neighborhood, to show how desolate it was. And of course, that was the one night a giant commercial crew decided to come light up the entire street for a Snickers commercial. There were horses, little people in Halloween costumes, camera cranes, and a million crew people and trucks. So we had to improvise and shoot it as if there was nothing at all on the street.

Which is your favourite scene?

I love when Em and Kevin hug in the dark and then look at each other, silently realizing that they are not who they think they are.

Do you enjoy working with a small cast and a limited budget?

That was great, and exactly what I wanted. I do love big crews, just to be clear. Working on Pirates of the Caribbean was so fun because everyone on the crew is amazing at their job. But I really wanted something tiny, so small that there was no waiting around for lights and make-up and cables being moved.

How open-ended was your script? Did the actors know the full outline of the story or did you just give them enough to work on for each scene? How much did the actors and setting contribute to the story?

I always knew the structure of each narrative beat, but the cast had almost no idea what was going to happen each night. They knew their character’s past, and they knew their motivations for the night. I told the actors they could go anywhere they wanted, follow any instincts they had, as long as they were true to the character. So they would constantly show me new things, unexpected reactions that I would incorporate into the story. I had to improvise as much as they were, and that was the thrill of it. Now the idea of actually knowing what the actors are going to say in a scene seems like such a luxury, like you’re cheating.

With a bigger budget what would you like to have included?

A masseuse. My back was killing me every day after holding the camera for five hours in incredibly awkward positions. Aside from that, I think more money would have spoiled the reality of what we were doing. The best thing creatively, sometimes, is to not have money.

What future film projects do you have?

There’s a really cool project called OXYGEN about a girl and a robot and their dark relationship that has sort of a Hitchcock vibe, if Hitchcock were a sci-fi geek. I’m finishing a comic book version of that and a screenplay should follow soon.

Would you like to make more science fiction or horror genre films?

Definitely. I can sense a giant appetite for thoughtful, brain-twisting science fiction among audiences right now. Horror isn’t my strength, although I keep thinking of weird story ideas that often involve some pretty freaky sequences that scare me just imagining them. I think that genre films are crucial to a healthy creative brain, in that they let us explore the hinterlands of possibility, and keep the imagination fertile.

Coherence is released on DVD on February 16th. Find our review here.

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Long-time horror fan Derek Mears is likely best known to most genre fans for his turn as Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th reboot. Away from the hockey mask, Mears has appeared in a plethora of genre efforts over the years, such as The Hills Have Eyes, Predators, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Hatchet III, Sleepy Hollow, as Bullseye in the widely-acclaimed Truth in Journalism, and more recently on television screens in Sleepy Hollow. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. A prolific talent, this hulking horror nerd can be next seen in Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead, released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on Monday. We were lucky enough to grab over an hour with this genuine, humble, funny, knowledgeable and engaging fanboy-done-good to discuss Dead Snow 2, go way in-depth on all things Jason and Friday the 13th, chat about action figures, meeting horror icons, and a whole host more.

STARBURST: Dead Snow proved to be a big hit with horror fans when it debuted back in 2009. Had you seen the first film and, if so, were you a fan?

Derek Mears: For sure. It’s a crazy story how I got involved. I’m a huge horror nerd myself, in the most loving way. I was watching something else when I saw that there was a film called Dead Snow, so I thought I’d check it out. And after watching it, I loved it. They understood the balance between horror and comedy, and it didn’t become so violent that it became slapsticky. These guys really had it going on – they get it! Not 3 months later I get approached for a film called Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, and it turns out to be the same director as Dead Snow, Tommy Wirkola. I went, “Are you kidding me? I’m a huge fan of his work.” Then a few months later, I’m there shooting Hansel & Gretel. And while I was there, a lot of the guys from the Dead Snow film, the actors had small parts in Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, and the producers from that film were also there. They were like, “He actually wrote you a part for a sequel to Dead Snow, if you ever wanted to be a part of that?” Being a fanboy, I totally lost my mind and was like, “Are you kidding me?” So I’m very, very proud to be a part of it.

And what can you tell us about your role in Dead Snow 2?

In Dead Snow 2 I play a character called Stavarin, who is the leader of the Russian zombies. He’s kind of the opposite of Herzog, who is the leader of the German zombies. And we go head-to-head in a little bit of zombie war. It’s pretty cool. I’m a huge horror fan and it’s so much fun to work with a director who understands the balance between violence and comedy; the marriage point between the two of those things. And also being a huge fan of horror in general, I was just so happy to work on the film.

Very few films get the balance right between horror and comedy, but the original Dead Snow was pretty much pitch-perfect on that front. The story of Dead Snow 2 is a direct continuation from the first film, but is the tone the same as well?

It picks up right where the first one left off, giving a little bit of a recap. The tone is the same but Tommy has really established his own style where, as the director, he knows how a scene plays, he knows that if it’s serious then we’re playing it dead serious. To me, that’s part of the style that I like, of a wacky situation taken dead serious. The flip side is a serious situation taken in a wacky sense. But I really like what we’re doing with this. I’m super, super proud to be a part of it.

And how much fun was it to be involved with the shoot? There was the heavy prosthetics work, and was this film shot on location in Norway again?

We actually shot in Iceland this time around because the summer time in Iceland was still so super cold. I’m from a desert community in the US, in California, and I’m like, “Wait, how much cold is this? I don’t know what survives this! I’m bald, right, so this is gonna be rough.” But it was great, it was really a passion project; a bunch of people coming together to make the best film possible. Mike Elizalde, who runs Spectral Motion, did the make-up effects for my character, for Stavarin, because he worked together with Tommy on Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and Tommy is such a talented, down-to-earth guy that most of the people he meets are like, “What can I do for you, because you were so humble and great?” So Mike said he’d come out and do my make-up. It was so amazing of him to do it, to travel halfway across the world and to not worry about the studio politics, to just make a good story.

There was some impressive splatter on display for gore-hounds in the first Dead Snow, but how much violence and gore can we expect in the sequel and for your character in particular?

Oh man, it’s just over the top. I would compare it with Dead Alive. There’s some over-the-top gore that is also politically incorrect in spots. I thought it was very noble of Tommy, because Tommy did Dead Snow then did Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, the big studio project, and then he kind of had his choice to do what he wanted to do because Hansel & Gretel was a successful film. To have him go, “You know what, I wanna go back and do Dead Snow 2 with my friends before I go on and do another big studio project,” I admire that. But the over-the-top violence and gore, there is a scene where I’m just shaking my head and saying, “This is so wrong. Tommy, are you doing this because the studio controlled you a little bit on the violence and gore for Hansel & Gretel?” He goes, “Maybe…” There’s a scene with zombie intestines which is just brilliant. And it’s such a difficult thing in the horror genre to add new bits and new ways to kill or a new look on zombies, and I think he, in my opinion, not because I’m part of the film but because I’m a fan, he executes it perfectly.

When it was first announced that there would be a Dead Snow sequel, with Tommy at that time doing Hansel & Gretel, there was the question of whether he would be back to direct the second movie. With you having met some of the Dead Snow cast and crew on Hansel & Gretel, were you just generally welcomed into the fold for Dead Snow 2?

When we were doing Hansel & Gretel, we were hanging out in a pub. Tommy being the loyal, good guy that he is, he brought in a lot of the guys from Dead Snow in for parts in Hansel & Gretel. And we’re all hanging out and I thought, “If I lived in Norway, you’d be the guys I’d be hanging out with all the time because you’re talented, funny, super down to earth, into heavy metal.” There’s no pretentiousness to them whatsoever; they just want to create. I love telling stories, getting all the bullshit out the way and just create. So when they asked me if I wanted to be a part of it, I was like a high school cheerleader. I got so excited! I was like, “Are you kidding me? I would love to do that! Let me clear my schedule.”

That’s one big burly high school cheerleader…

Yeah, right! I go against my tough guy persona by saying that, but I really loved being part of the film. I’m gonna end every question with that… that I was very proud to be a part of the picture and that I had a super fun time .

From having seen previous interviews with yourself and some of the Friday the 13th documentaries and the like, you come across as a huge horror fan and as one of those guys who just loves everything about horror. We take it you’re a long-time fan of the genre?

Oh completely true! Growing up down here in California, I was the different kid. I have a disorder called alopecia so my hair would fall out. At the time in the early ‘80s, it wasn’t cool to be bald and white. If you were bald and white, either you had cancer or they thought you were a skinhead. I loved comic books and sci-fi, and a lot of fans now presume I was captain of the football team because I’m a big dude and do martial arts. I’m like, “No, no, no, no. I couldn’t do a pull-up in high school.” I got into acting because I loved Dungeons and Dragons. I was like, “How do I do this for the rest of my life, play with my friends and tell stories?” I realised, wait, if I worked out then I could be the big bad guy in TV and film, and I started doing improv comedy also at the age of 17 professionally. So I moved to L.A. to do acting and comedy, then it just started taking off because I looked like a murderer. Literally, if everything ended today, career-wise, it’s been an amazing run. The different people I get to meet, different artists, different mediums, hearing stories – as a horror fan, travelling around the world and meeting people that I’m a fan of, that I grew up loving their work, and having them… like Lance Henriksen at an autograph signing saying, “Hey Derek, you wanna go to dinner and I can tell you stories about what happened on Aliens?” That Robert Englund’s a friend of mine, if you’d have told an 8-year-old Derek that I’d be in a limousine with Robert Englund and we’d be talking about relationships, I would’ve lost my mind!

From having spoken to Robert a few times, he’s one of the guys who the inner-child in you can’t believe you’re talking to…

Dude, that’s the whole thing. A lot of times, like myself you’re playing that geek card, you’re trying to keep your cards close to your chest. Just thinking to yourself, “Am I freaking out too much? Do they know that I’m freaking out?” But yeah, it’s an amazing thing. I feel like it’s the cliché of living the dream but I am living my dream.

You’ve mentioned Lance Henriksen and Robert Englund already, but what were the things that grabbed your attention as a kid? Was it the stuff like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Aliens that you found yourself gravitating towards?

On the horror side of things, it sounds a little cliché because I got to play the role, but before I got hired or did anything in the film, I loved the whole Friday the 13th series and I loved the Jason character. He was my favourite horror character, that was my favourite horror series. When I was a child, two things gave me nightmares: one was the big foot from The Six Million Dollar Man TV series, the other was the Jason Voorhees character. It’s very surreal, now as an adult, I have an opportunity, the character that gave me nightmares as a child, to take the character and to give a whole new generation nightmares. It’s come full circle for me. For films and whatnot, my ultimate film of all-time is The Empire Strikes Back. That was a huge influence on me as a child. On the horror side, there’s so many films I love – I love The Thing, I love Aliens. At one point, it doesn’t have to be an Alien movie, but I would love to be a space marine. I told a story to a friend recently where I was watching TV. At the time I was married. CSI: Miami came on, my wife said, “Oh, you should do something like that.” I said, “Actually, I have. I’m guest-starring on it.” So I said, “You know what I’d really like to do? I’m more like a ‘hulking werewolf in space’ kinda guy.” She started laughing, then that really excited me and got me thinking, “Is that what I wanna do? Have I just defined my career in what I wanna do? Werewolves in space?”

On the Jason front, so many people grew up with horror franchises like Friday the 13th, Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Personally, my favourite was always Michael Myers and the Halloween series. Do you think that somebody can equally appreciate Jason, Michael and Freddy, or do you feel that everybody has to have their own favourite standout villain?

I think instinctively we can love horror in general. Deep within us as human beings, we love stories in general where there’s a part of us that relates to it or it strikes us to our core or what we’re going to in our lives. With our own lives, outside of TV and film, when we watch a film we really, really enjoy or connect to, it’s because it somehow parallels our own personal life. So yeah, I think it’s totally okay for someone to love one more than anything else. I think it’s funny, because Tyler Mane, who played the new Michael Myers in Halloween, is one of my best friends. We were friends before the whole Jason and Michael thing. He lived a block away from my house. Fans will see us together and be like, “Oh my God! What are Jason and Michael doing together?” We’re like, “We’re just friends.” Either that or, because we look like bikers, people get really afraid when we go for sandwiches or whatever.

With you clearly such a fan of Jason and Friday the 13th, when the Jason role came along for the 2009 remake, was there any part of you that was worried about taking the part due to the stigma that is often attached to remakes?

No, actually there wasn’t. It was a strange thing when I knew they were going to do the relaunch. I’d never tried to pursue a role before but it was a very metaphysical experience where I’m, like, I don’t know why but I feel like I have this role. And I had no ties to it, I didn’t know anything about it. I started physically training ahead of time, like 6 months out, for the part because I didn’t feel like it was right. It was very strange that when I actually got tapped, then it kinda of of all came to fruition, that inner gut feeling. There were hundreds of dudes auditioning for it, tons and tons of people, and the reason I was brought in for the role was that Brad Fuller and Andrew Form from Platinum Dunes would ask around to people if there was a professional who they thought would be right for this part. They wanted a professional actor, not just a big guy in a mask. My name kept popping up in different circles and I ended up meeting with them. I thought there’d be hundreds of people there for the meeting but they only brought two of us in to meet for the role. When I met with them, they’re like, “There’s no dialogue for the character and we want a professional actor. Why do we think you should do this?” I started talking about theories and having a background in theatre, of being a fan of the series, and I explained to them that the role is language without language, that language is only 7% of communication, that we should approach the script the same exact way whether you have a mask on or not. As long as you connect sincerely to the emotion of what’s happening in that particular scene, you have to trust that the energy that comes from the mask can be captured on camera. I’m not gonna act with my body or act with my eyeballs in a scene. If you can see it then you can understand what’s going on. They were like, “Err, okay…” A couple of hours later they called me and said, “You’re the guy we need, man.” I remember sitting at the top of my stairs and just shaking with goosebumps all over my arms, thinking, “This is insane! I get to play Jason?” You talk about the circle of remakes and whatnot. My opinion of remakes is that we always have the original but as an artist you’re always willing to take a risk with something new. When you do a remake, in my opinion, you have to be respectful of the past but take a risk with stuff to add for a new generation. There are chances that it could be good or it might not work out. I felt, not a lot of pressure to do good, but there was a loyalty as a horror fan where I really wanted this to be the best thing possible. Much like you have an iconic character like Frankenstein and Dracula, or more modern you have Freddy and Jason and Michael, the character’s still going strong and is going to be around forever. But you wanna be the one who keeps the character going for the next generation, so that you can see more episodes. You never wanna be the guy, like the James Bond who comes in and does the bad job, then you hear, “Remember that guy? He was the worst!” You want to keep going so more sequels come around and more stories for the character are told.

So from a fan’s point of view on the remake/redo/reboot/relaunch/reimagining or whatever it’s officially classified as, how happy were you with the final product of your Friday the 13th and how happy were you with your performance?

I’m always discrediting myself, I’m never happy with myself, which is I think a good thing as it makes you strive to get better at most things. I was happy how the film turns out. There were a couple of changes that had to be made, things that you loved in the original script but didn’t make it to the final cut that you see on film. But you also have to understand that there’s so much going on behind the scenes when a film gets made, so many ups and down. You never know until the final cut. I was impressed with Platinum Dunes because, as a horror fan, they would actually go on to different fan pages, like IMDb, and read people’s comments about what they wanted or expected from the film. They would take in what people’s requests were. They may not always respond to people, but they would take on their opinion. I was really happy that they were doing that, seeing that they actually listened to what the fans want. For myself, there were four of us who were completely in love with the whole series of Friday the 13th, and there’d be certain times or scenes that were going against character and we’d stand our ground and go, “Hey, I know it’s your film, I know we’re trying to make it together, but in the mythology of the character this just wouldn’t happen.” And they would listen to everyone then make a decision. I was very happy that they would do that.

Taking your Friday the 13th out of the equation, what’s your favourite film in the series?

My favourite of the series is Part IV, with Ted White, with Corey Feldman. Also, we talked about that mythology parallel with our own personal life, I think what really tied me into Part IV is the part where Corey Feldman comes downstairs and his head’s shaved. He’s got little tufts of hair sticking out to look like a younger version of Jason. At the time, that’s what my hair looked like. Because I have alopecia, I had little tufts here and there but I was majority bald. And pale. So when I watched, I went, “Oh, so that looks like me. I guess I’m just a little version of Jason.” It’s so strange as an adult, the whole full circle and playing the character. That’s why I really like Part IV more than the other ones. Don’t get me wrong, I like them all.

We enjoy them all in various ways, but there are certainly some that are worse than others. Jason Goes to Hell, for instance, where there’s basically no Jason in it. You can see why that killed the franchise for a while…

I got so mad watching that as a kid. I got so excited at the whole beginning, like, “Oh, what a great idea, bringing Special Forces in, it’s all a set-up… What? Where’s Jason? Oh, come on! Really?!” I remember trying to sit there as a kid and go, “Okay, I’ll be on board.” Then by the end, all the references, the Necronomicon, the box from Creepshow … I felt betrayed.

In fairness, though, Jason X is a massive guilty pleasure of many at STARBURST and there’s even one of our favourite kills of the series in that film, when Uber Jason starts smashing imaginary campers against an imaginary tree…

Oh man, that’s a great kill. Such a good kill. It’s so funny, the writer, Todd Farmer, is a friend of mine. There’s the three of us, there’s me, Todd Farmer and Tyler Mane. We all hang out and whatnot. It’s always funny hearing what went down on Jason X. Todd will tell a story about the film – he’s a good dude. I love hearing the stories of all behind the scenes stuff, things that went wrong. That’s really also where being a fan, going to horror conventions, hanging out with people who are in horror films, it’s like getting that personal audio commentary, like, “Here’s something I can’t say publicly, but here’s really what went down.” And I’m like, “Are you kidding me?”

And as a fan, how cool was it to get your own Jason Voorhees action figure?

Oh, it’s incredible! Career-wise, I have four – I’m not bragging, just expressing – but I have four or five different action figures of myself as different characters. It’s the coolest thing in the world. I did an interview before the first season of The Walking Dead happened for the AMC television network. They did an Inside the Actor’s Studio thing with the movers and shakers of horror, with a few directors and two or three of us who were actors. They were all acting really serious, asking deeply articulate questions about acting and horror and whatnot. One of the questions was, “So Derek, when a script comes across your desk, what do you look for in a character? What excites you and motivates you to say yes to that project?” I’m like, “Well, I really love Joseph Campbell and the journey of the hero, then what causes the character to have not only an outward journey but an inward journey.” Then I go, “What I really like the most is the possibility of an action figure. If there’s an action figure, I’m sold.” They were really quiet and then they went, “Yeah, yeah that’s deep. I understand the… Wait! Oh, ok, ok…” I’m just like, ”Yeah, I’m a giant nerd. An action figure? That’s success, the best thing in the world!”

There’s a new Friday the 13th on the horizon, with various stories saying it’ll be a found-footage movie or that it’ll be a completely different story to what we’ve seen before. Have you had any talks for this mystery Friday the 13th movie at all?

I have personal thoughts that I can’t express publicly because I don’t wanna say anything that could influence it. Also, I’m not on the inside, I’m not in the loop. I don’t know what’s actually going on with the film. As to my involvement with the new Friday, I don’t know if I’ll be a part of it. I know that Platinum Dunes like me very much, but the script hasn’t been finalised and they haven’t gone into production yet so they can’t offer any roles. Before Paramount had all the rights to the new Friday, they were saying that if they did another one then they’d want me to be their guy. But things in Hollywood change. I called them and went, “Look, I’ve been told I’m the guy so many times on different projects and then it changed at the last second. It’s not a negative thing, I’m not upset by it, it’s just how things work. Even if I’m not the guy, I’m a fan of the series. I just wanna see a good story with Jason in it. I just wanna see the mythology continue for the character, whether it’s me or not.” And I honestly do. I just hope they make a good story that all of us are going to enjoy.

So the deal that you signed back for the 2009 movie, was that just a one-shot deal or was there an option in place for you to be brought back if the studio wanted it?

The option was for sequels, but there was a timeframe on that because I had other projects and other parts. It was funny. At one point, people were like, “You probably don’t wanna do it because you have to wear a mask. As an actor, it’s all make-up and masks.” And I’m like, “Are you kidding me? Yes, if I’m free I would love to do the character because it was such an influential character for me growing up.”

You come across as very respectful to what’s come before you in the genre, so are you and the other actors to play Jason all pals at this stage? And who was your personal favourite Jason?

Well we’re all friends now. We met before, then me and Kane did Hatchet III together. Performance-wise, because I love Part IV so much, I still go for Ted White. I speak to fans from time to time and they’ll say one of us is the best, but I just say to them, “Like who you like.” If you and I were to play an iconic character, like Peter Pan or something, we’re both going to bring something different to the character because of our experiences. So I say whatever you like, you like.

As well as Jason Voorhees, another icon of the genre that you got to play was the Predator. How cool was that to do and how did that gig come up?

Greg Nicotero is the nicest man in the world, from the KNB Efx Group. I’d heard that Robert Rodriguez was going to do Predators, then there was a little joke thing going down, as Greg and I were friends. He called me and I answered my cell phone, then before he even said anything I said, “I know what you’re calling about. I saw that it was announced. Yeah, fine Greg, I’ll be the Predator.” He sort of laughed and said, “Yeah, right. You wish. I’m calling about something else.” So we started talking about a different project. Then a couple of months later he called up. I’d forgotten about it all, so he goes, “Alright, you wanna be the classic Predator in the new Predator movie?” I was like, “What? Yeah! Yeah!” So they asked me to a meeting and that’s kind of how it went down. Then I said, “Thank you very much for another action figure, Greg Nicotero.”

And what’s your favourite action figure?

My favourite action figure? Oh my God. I have like a bunch of different ones. I used to collect action figures, but now it’s tough because working with different make-up artists and sculptors and seeing what they make compared to action figures, it’s like why am I looking at action figures when they can make me into an action figure and create art on me? My favourite action, that’s a real tough question. That’s like saying what is your favourite type of air! I don’t know. I have the new Luke Skywalker, the high-end one that just came out, him in the Bespin gear. There’s so many, man.

So what’s your favourite action figure of yourself?

I have a really cool one – there’s two different ones from Pirates of the Caribbean 4 which look like me only with a Mohawk, though. Then there was a build-a-figure, where you get five of the figures in the series and you get a part of me in each one of them. So I built myself from that. I liked that a lot. So yeah, probably that one.

In terms of the horror genre, you’re making quite the name for yourself and becoming quite the modern-day icon. How does it feel to have fans come up to you and approach you in the same way that you viewed so many previous icons of the genre in years gone by?

Weirrrrrd. Flattering and weird. It’s very weird. Did I say weird yet?

Any interesting, crazy or rewarding fan experiences that come to mind?

I had a fan recently recognise me at a urinal in a hotel restroom. He asked for a picture. I asked if he could wait until my pants were up.

You had a small part in Adi Shankar’s brilliant Truth in Journalism short, where you play Marvel’s Bullseye. Growing up, were you a big comic book fan?

Oh completely. I learned to read with comic books. I’ve been collecting since I was 4 years old, I believe. I learned using pictures of Batman and Spider-Man, recognising certain words, recognising what was going on. It’s weird now that high school girls know who The Avengers are and the smaller off-shoot things, and they know vampires are cool. At the time, nobody knew who The Avengers were. People would make fun of you for liking that stuff. Now it’s all mainstream.

After your appearance as Bullseye, what have you made of the fan reaction to that short and to your brief appearance as one of Marvel’s most beloved rogues?

I’m thrilled that people enjoyed the short. Joe Lynch, the director, did a killer job on it. When Joe asked if I would like to do a tiny cameo in it, I don’t think he got the entire sentence out of his mouth before I said yes. All I heard was, “Do you, blah, blah, blah Bullseye?” – “YES!!!”

Would you like to be involved in one of the big superhero movies at some point if possible then?

Yeah, man. That would be cool. Certainly there’s a superhero thing going on. I’ve had meetings for some things I can’t talk about, parts that are so cool, and you’re just trying to keep it together and be professional. I’ve gotten second place a lot on a couple of these different heroes and villains. We’ll see in the future, though. I’ll cross my fingers for the chance to be a part of a superhero franchise.

You’re currently on screens in Sleepy Hollow, which has been well received by audiences. Genre TV is in a brilliant place right now, with networks actually investing serious budgets in shows. For you, how does it compare to be involved in such an SFX-heavy show in comparison to a movie role? And how rewarding is to play a recurring character rather than standalone movie appearances?

Honestly, film and TV roles are the same to me. The only difference is that when you’re doing a film you know the full story arc of your character, and having a recurring role on a TV show you only know what happens on that particular episode and are chomping at the bit to see what happens in the next episode’s script. It’s both fun & maddening.

What’s up next for you, and have you thought at all about moving towards directing?

What I’m working on right now – I’ve been doing improv comedy since I was 17 – is The Resistance. We’re actually putting pictures together for a TV show. There’s interest in that. That show is just so rewarding to me. We improvise an action movies on stage, live, for an hour. We have to improvise everything, the sound effects, with some stuffed bags and some giant padded LEGO blocks. Then we build scenes out of nothing. You’re doing full improvised fights, full improvised explosions, the lighting. You’re telling a full story. All of us just wanna entertain, we wanna keep the humility. We just wanna make people happy and laugh, to forget about the stress in their lives, to be a kid and come play with us. We interact with the audience, and it’s the most rewarding thing in the world. It’s like Who’s Line Is It Anyway? but with a story made point-blank right in front of you. We’ve done all horror, then a bunch of horror fans turned up. Some people were going, “Do you ever write that down? Because you could sell that as a script.” I guess so, it’s a good point.

And anything else on the horizon?

I think I have a couple more episodes of Sleepy Hollow to do. The beginning of the year, I’ve got a couple of possibilities. I’m just seeing what goes through and how that works out. In the meantime, I’m just creating and writing.

If you did happen to come back as Mr. Voorhees for one time only in the future at some point, what would your ideal Jason story be? The final movie of the whole series EVER, what would you want to see?

A good story.

Dead Snow 2 is released on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday, January 12th. To keep up with Derek’s projects, be sure to follow him on Twitter @DerekMears, check out his Facebook page, and also keep up to date with the brilliant Resistance action-heavy improv group. Speaking of which, here’s a sample of The Resistance at work:

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