“What makes Michael Myers so iconic is the Mask. You can project anything onto it.” James Jude Courtney would know. He’s played the fictional (and seemingly immortal) serial killer 3 times in Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills (2021) and Halloween Ends (2022). Today he’s on stage with the other Michael Myers, Nick Castle, who portrayed the slasher icon in the original 1978 movie.
“It’s a gift of a lifetime to play the character,” tells Castle.
The duo make up the first panel on the second day of For the Love of Horror, a movie convention now in its 6th year (5 conventions as 2020 didn’t go ahead). Think movie set builds, props, cosplayers, and a huge roster of horror actors all under the one roof of Bowlers Exhibition Centre in Manchester.
It transpires, during this discussion, that Courtney went to film school with original Halloween director John Carpenter, and later directed cartoon-to-cinema adaptation Dennis, starring Walter Matthau as incorrigible grump Mr Wilson!
Thankfully, the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG) strike has ended, so the cast members are now allowed to discuss their films and TV work.
Panels break for a moment to allow for a cosplay competition, which of course includes a round of arbitrary air guitar.
Next to stage is Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland, Aslaug in TV show Vikings and Ellie in Evil Dead Rise, the latter of which was recently added to Netflix.
“I sure like a villain,” she says in her authentic Brisbane twang, contrasting her American or Scandinavian TV accents. She tells of playing a murderous zombie, terrorising young Lily Sullivan, Beth in Evil Dead Rise. “I liken it to my own rage room. We had a great time being from the same town. Lee (Cronin, writer director) made us do family boot camp as part of pre production.”
The mic goes out to the audience. The first question: did you ever feel awful to the kids (that Ellie terrorises in Evil Dead Rise)?
“No. You’ve already gone through the script. To support them the best, scaring them genuinely was for the best. It’s not an easy job. If you legit get to them you felt good. I’m fully the opposite direction to Ellie. It’s liberating to be a total arsehole. I’m not a horror fan, you guys. You have to have realistic grounded performances to make the supernatural believable.”
Another question is about downtime on set.
“I listen to music to calm down. It was usually a musician I won’t name because it’s been found out he’s... not a decent human being.” (This could of course be several people. Maybe British. Maybe American. Maybe Australian. Make your own guesses.)
Filming, of course, is never without it's unpredictable challenges. “I couldn’t get through the line of ‘you titty-sucking parasite’ without the fake teeth flying out of my mouth. ‘Dead by Dawn?’ Mate, I’ll be dead by 6pm.”
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| Alyssa Sutherland |
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| William Forsyth. Sheriff John Quincy Wydell in Devil's rejects, Cockeye in Once Upon a Time in America, Franchise in Things to do in Denver when You're Dead. |
Great 5 seconds each with these people. Photo ops ran in the right order according to the programme, although the staff could have done with bullhorns to save them yelling into the crowd, or even a PA system to the whole building.Part 2 to come.
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