(Photo Credit to Brandon McChesney )
Written by Colleen Bement, Editor
Doug Bradley shares stories from the set of “The Exorcists” and memories from Hellraiser films, a “Star Wars” video game, and more.
Born in Liverpool, this iconic horror actor has been in over 75 film and TV projects over his amazing career. A Movie Monster Hall of Famer, Bradley has portrayed Pinhead in eight of the “Hellraiser” movies and fans know him well. Close friends with Clive Barker since their early school days, they founded the progressive theater group Dog Company. Recently fans saw Bradley in “Gotham Knights” and his latest film “The Exorcists” is out for streaming and has a limited run in selected theaters. “The Exorcists” also features horror star Michelle Bauer and they had to take on a child possessed by an unrelenting evil that needed three expert exorcists to handle. Sounds like a Halloween win! Check out the trailer.
Colleen Bement: Congratulations on your new film “The Exorcists”. Just in time to prep for Halloween. What can tell us about the movie? Any stories from the set?
Doug Bradley: It was quick. It was very focused and very quick. Six days, which is quick. I didn’t have the most ideal pre because I had pre-arranged trips to the UK for a convention, and then I was taking a couple of days in London to see my kids. They’re all grown up and adults now. My daughter turned 30 which was crazy. When my wife and I were coming back we got delayed out of Heathrow, and then when we landed in Pittsburgh we were told that our bags had not made the flight. We had checked in an additional bag and the car keys were in that bag and we had to get a $100 taxi ride home from the airport. I was due to go out to LA the following morning to shoot the movie. I went through the Rolodex and the checklist in my head if what I needed was missing. I was scrambling around, and restocking things, and four hours of sleep, and back to the airport, and off to LA and straight to work the following day with a lot of words–a lot of words.
It was a case of jumping in the deep end, I say it was quick and focused…and it was, and I was relieved to find that I was surrounded by a very good cast who have all done a superb job. I know they’ve stuck my name over the title, which was very nice, but it’s very much an ensemble piece and should be considered such. And, kudos to Jose (Prendes), the director and writer. It doesn’t look rushed. It looks like he’s taken time and care, and I’m very pleased with the results. Having said that, I was in a weird situation as an atheist is pretty damn cool when you’re there in your priestly garb and you’re throwing your crucifixion and holy water around. It’s powerful stuff, and I had a ball doing it. Everyone else who worked on it has done a really, really good job and it looks like a lot of time and care and attention had been taken, and visually it’s quite a treat. It’s a clever story. It’s streaming online at the moment, and it’s getting some limited theatrical release. I paid to watch it on Vudu. It’s worth it!
CB: The original “Exorcist” film absolutely scared the crap out of me as a teen. What memories do you have of seeing it for the first time?
DB: I have very clear memories of seeing the original Exorcist because it was banned from the cinemas in the UK. A bunch of evangelical idiots got after the movie. It was the gateway to the devil and bla, bla, bla, and I think an awful lot of the stories of people having hysterics and throwing themselves in the streets, and cinemas having ambulances on standby. I think an awful lot of that was probably hype to boost publicity. I am not a believer. I don’t believe in the Devil, and I don’t believe in demons, and I don’t believe that demonic possession is actually a thing. Which is not to say that it’s not a lot of fun in movies. It is. So, that was kind of my approach to “The Exorcist.” There were times when I was thinking oh God, do we really have to that room again. That was more a response to the atmosphere, just to the fact that what was going on in that room was downright unpleasant. Which it was, and I was rather entertained by projectile vomiting pea soup and heads spinning around 360 degrees. I felt that was rather jolly. No, it didn’t scare me and it didn’t give me nightmares or anything like that. I actually prefer “The Omen” to “The Exorcist.”
I say that I don’t believe in the Devil, I don’t believe the Devil is an entity, a person, a thing that exists, but I think it is a mythological thing. It is in our psyches. I think it is particularly for Catholics who are raised having the fear of hellfire and damnation and Satan and the Devil drilled into your head from a very young age by these rather imposing figures dressed in flowing black robes. I think it fucks with people’s heads, and I think you can’t quite get away from it. And there’s that final line of the real exorcists, it’s actually the Pope’s Exorcist the movie is based on that Satan’s ultimate triumph is convincing people that he doesn’t exist. I think that’s very clever.
CB: Can we switch gears to “Hellraiser?” Pinhead is such a remarkable character and you’ve played him 8 times! How did you end up with the role of Hellraiser?
DB: I think back to that moment in Liverpool, 1969, when I was cast in the school play, and was told to report for rehearsals, which I duly did, and I call that the day that changed my life. I went into rehearsals and met my fellow cast members which included a guy by the name of Clive Barker. So that’s how long I’ve known Clive. An extraordinary character back then, I loved him and I loved being in his company. He was already doing his own drama stuff at school, and I got pulled into that orbit. Later in the 70s initially in Liverpool, later in London, we formed our own theater company called The Dog Company. It wound up, quite naturally around 1982, and I went off and was working in professional repertory theater.
CB: How long did it take to be transformed into Pinhead?
DB: Early on, I would say the makeup was about five or six hours with everyone feeling their way through it. It sped up. It had its own natural pace, generally, I’d say about three or four hours. And then in the first two movies, it was not a quick process to get into the costume, which was magnificent–absolutely wonderful. Brilliantly designed and made by Jane Wildgoose who also worked in the theater company with Clive and me. Clive asked her specifically to do the cenobite costume. She had her own department. That was it. Absolutely brilliant but not easy to wear or move around freely. In later movies, there was a tradeoff. They got made much more cheaply, and particularly the jacket, I could get on and off very quickly, so I could take it off between setups–between shots, which made a difference to me, but it never looked as good. If I had to make the choice, I would always go back to the costume in the first two movies in spite of privations placed upon me as an actor. It just never looked that good again. So that was its own little dance, getting into that. It wasn’t a quick process, but I’ve always called it The Commute. You may not love it, but if you want to go to work you don’t have a choice.
It became part of the kind of the process and the journey into the character–those hours of sitting. The first few times on set I had kind of drifted off into a strange emotional territory, which was actually a pretty good place to be for playing a character like him. It became a separate part of the process into the makeup. Later on, when I was much more used to it, it was much more oh god, this again; but initially, it served its purpose. I kind of zoned out and dislocated from reality. It was genuinely weird the first time you go through that process, and at the end of it all, when we screen-tested the makeup I sat in the makeup chair just staring into the mirror. I knew those were my ears, my teeth, and my eyes, but that was it. Everything else was gone and being completely taken over by this thing. It was very strange, remarkable, and magical when it happened for the first time. I knew what the character was, but sitting in that makeup chair staring back into the mirror was really where I found my character and where I was going to be heading with the performance.
CB: So, that chair was where you transformed literally and emotionally.
CB: I’m visualizing it right now and that must have been amazing.
DB: Yes, and I’ve had lots of conversations with Clive and of course, we couldn’t do any research into cenobites for the simple reason that they don’t exist. So it was purely an imaginative journey.
CB: Due to the Actor’s strike, I’m not sure if you can answer this, but, are you allowed to tell us anything about your upcoming projects?
DB: I have another indie movie that’s just come out. It had its premiere at FrighFest in London and it’s called “Thorns” written and directed by Doug Schultze. It’s a movie about the apocalypse. It’s interesting because Douglas made it deliberately as an homage to those transformational movies of the 1980s. I’m being chased by my men of the cloth and I play an archbishop who may or may not be quite what you’d expect as an archbishop. It will be screening in Spain and will be at the New York Horror Festival. Because of the actor’s strike, I really can’t talk about others. I won’t talk about playing Joe Chill in “Gotham Knights” on The CW.
CB: You voiced the Sith Emperor for the role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic. What’s it like to be part of the “Star Wars” universe?
DB: It’s kind of cool, you know? I was very much a fan of “Star Wars” back from the get-go. I went to see “Star Wars” when it came out in, I would say, ‘77. One of my favorite cinema memories because we were not used to Dolby Sound and I remember sitting in the cinema as the ship comes over you from the back. That moment when it comes into view and travels over your head and the sound began from the back of the theater. It rumbled and it grew and I kind of ducked a bit because it felt so realistic. We’re all used to that with Dolby Sound now, but we weren’t then. I did kind of go, “What the hell?” I loved the movie, and “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi.” I fell out of love with “Star Wars” with the next one–that Jar Jar Binks movie. I felt my intelligence was being insulted and I let “Star Wars” pass me by since then. But it was very cool to be asked to be part of the video game.
It was slightly weird because I was never allowed to see a script. You know Lucasfilms’ reputation. I kept saying to my agent, are they going to send me a script? I saw nothing until the day I went into the studio, and even then, I only had my own lines which was really weird. I’m making reference to all these other characters, and I have no idea who they are. Do I like this guy? Is it a guy? What does he do? What do I know about him? What’s he done to me? So that was kind of weird.
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