Interview with Brian Bremer!
Just the other morning I was lucky enough to have a wonderful chat with the very talented Brian Bremer! Brian is best known for appearing in several cult classic films such as Pumpkinhead, Society, Spontaneous Combustion, and of course Silent Night Deadly Night 5 The Toy Maker. Brian is seriously one of the funniest, and hard working actors out there. Not only has he dabbled in acting, he's ventured into music, he's also opened theater groups, performs sketch comedy, is a teacher, and a very talented voiceover actor. In honor of the holidays, I talked with Brian over his career, craft, and best of all his thoughts on The Toy Maker where he played Pino the deranged robot teenager!
Brian -
I was born in Hickory North Carolina, and I didn't even know where I was going to go to college. I started acting when I was fifteen. Well actually younger than that. Theater groups in high school, and then in my last year of high school I went and auditoned to this South Eastern Theater conference in Tampa, and I got a bunch of scholarships for schools. I got a full offer from Pepperdine University in Los Angeles. My father was like "Well that's where your going!" because it was a full scholarship, so I went for acting and play writing. I went and it's a great theater program and theater department and the first show I did there was Camelot and I played Mordred and there was an agent...actually it was the receptionist of the agency, and she came up to me and said "I wanna see if I can get you in to see my bosses!" and I was like "Okay?!" I didn't know anything. It was one of the biggest agencies in L.A. I didn't know at the time because I was a nervous mess at eighteen. I went and auditioned, and they signed me. God, two months later I guess the audition for Stan Winston's Pumpkinhead came in. It was for a Southern character. I don't really speak with an accent. We had to learn very early on to neutralize any accent. I just really connected to the character! That's the thing with me in film. There are times when the role is just there, and you are the person. I think that's how it is for all film actors really. Unless your a star and people are beating down your door to have you do every little part but, I connected with the role, had my first audition with Stan. Didn't know who he was at the time. Had the audition, got the callback, and felt pretty good about the callback. That night I came home and the Oscars were on and here comes Stan getting his Oscar for Aliens...
Me -
Oh my God!
Brian -
I know! That's what I said! Sitting with my ten roommates in Calabasas at the time, still in college I went "Oh my God! That's the guy! That's the guy I just saw yesterday!" I got the part, and it was a great experience and Stan was the most lovely and wonderful director. He made a really beautiful and cool movie. It was so much fun and that's how I got my start. God, after that I think I did Society and that was Brian Yuzna. Who was a strange but wonderful man too. Society was the weirdest movie ever, and it didn't get released in the U.S. I guess it was too much. They banned it. *Laughs* But they released it in England, London. It became the number one science fiction film in London!
Me -
I never knew that!
Brian -
Yeah! Yeah! I tried to revisit that one not too long ago because everything is on Amazon now. Pumpkinhead was a feature film in October, and boom! Society pops up! I started watching it and it's a very disturbing creepy movie like all of Brian Yuzna movies are. He was so good to me. Really fan, and it was afterwards he had my audition for Silent Night 5. He was executive producer on that and Martin Kitrosser was writer. I think they sorta wrote it together. So that kinda started my chain of horror movies. Got me into the genre. I always loved horror movies as a kid. Always sat around watching them with my friends and drinking beer when the parents were away. But it was really fascinating to be on the other side of it. It's funny now because it takes a lot to scare me since I've seen how everything is done. I had a string of horror movie and years later Stacy, you have to remember it when these came out nobody took them seriously. Most casting directors would look at a resume in los Angeles and go "Oh..." I mean I was young too and I was really inexperienced. I really didn't understand the importance of preparation. This stuff just sorta happened to me and I wasn't really prepared. I went to some casting directors for some really big problems but I just bombed out because I didn't take the time to prepare. I was too secure. Nobody taught me that really until later in life. Now I know it's different know. It's funny, not to jump ahead but there's bit a resurgence in my on camera career. I stopped doing on camera for a while. I moved back to Atlanta Georgia from Los Angeles in 1992 with a rock & roll group.
*Laughs*.
Me -
I heard about that!
Brian -
Oh yeah? We were doing great. We were doing great in L.A and for some reason my partner Robert and I decided "We don't need L.A anymore! We're going to be musicians!" We were there for a long time but we moved to Atlanta because there was a great music scene and we played out and got a following. Got really popular but it was seriously such a huge group. We had two female signers, I sang wrote the lyrics. Robert played guitar, a saxophone and harmonica player. Base, another drummer. We had groupies! That moved with us, you know followed us so we had this huge family. Finally it just started to fall apart because of all the inner group relationships and dynamics. We just couldn't keep it together but it kept me in Atlanta because my family was still South East, and I had been away from them for a long time and I stayed in Atlanta. The rest of them all kinda scattered to the winds, and I thought about going back to Los Angeles, but I started finding work in casting and producing and as a talent agent. So I said "Okay, I'm kinda gonna be done with on camera for a while. That was great but I'm going in a different direction now." So I started doing creatively, I opened a theater company in Atlanta called Sketch Works and it ran for fifteen years before we sold it. It was the longest running original sketch comedy theater in Atlanta. It's still around and they are doing very well. Around that time I started to presume a voice over career. I never really knew about voice over but someone said I should so I took a class and my very first major job was a national campaign for Time Warner Cable. For about nine years I guess I was the national voice for Time Warner Cable. So all their radio, all their TV...everything, and that was a game changer for me because that launched a voice over career and still that's my focus. This year I was the voice of Crown Plaza, voice of Coca-Cola for the summer of Cola campaign. Lots of one-offs. National Tourism, voice of Verizon Wireless for a while. I still do a lot of their in-store stuff. So, I fell into that world of voice over and fell in love with it! I love the creative process of it. I love using my voice! I can sit there in my underwear and do my job! It's fantastic! Doesn't matter how I look of my hair it's a different form of acting than on-camera acting. You know you really have to learn it, but I just fell in love with it. Now I teach it and I coach it and I think God everyday because I never know where my next paycheck is coming from. But I've had a successful career and I continue to have opportunities in that area, but then once in awhile because I've worked in casting and I worked in the talent agency side I've got to know a lot of the casting directors and some of them turns out were fans of those early horror movies, so they would always say "You need to audition for this! Or you need to audition for this!" but at the time when I was working for the talent agency, which was great because it really have me the sense of all sides of the business. I always tell actors now get into everything because on-camera acting is a photographic medium. You are either right or wrong for the part. No matter how good of an actor you are. I speak from the point of view of a working actor. I'm not a celebrity, I am a hustler working every day gig to gig but I've maintained a career. When I worked for the talent agency side the union said you can work on-camera, but you can't put yourself in competition with the other actors you are representing, which makes sense. You know if I was doing the break-down for a film and go "Ooo! I could be good for that part!" and slide myself in, it's just unethical you know? So I maintained my voice over career and I was allowed to audition for a movie if the casting director came with me. So many years into this one of the casting directors, a dear good friend of mine called me up and said that she was working on a TV show called Rectify on the Sundance Channel. Ray McKinnon is the director and there is a role and I hear your voice. You need to audition for me. She pretty much strong-armed me because I hesitated because I kept going "Eh, I don't know...I shouldn't...there's other actors who want to audition." and she went "No, no, this is your part Brian, I know it's your part." So I read the script and I ended up going "Yeah, it is. It's me." and I got the job and left the talent agency. At that point it was supposed to become a series regular roll, or a reoccurring role at least. So I knew I couldn't be sitting at this desk. It would be too odd for the actors, and too odd for me. I had been at the agency for seven years at ready so I knew it was time to move on and do this. So I was Chet on Rectify on the Sundance Channel and it was a fantastic role...and it never came back. *Laughs.*
Me -
*Laughs* Isn't that how it always works out?
Brain -
*Still laughing.* I know! Lesson learned. You need to have a thick skin in this business! Because on set I'm still good friends with Melissa Bernstein the producer and she would and as the seasons went on she kept saying "We're talking about Chet! We're talking about Chet!" and they were in talks for bringing me back for season 2, and the night I was supposed to go back in she called me up and said "I am so sorry, Ray can not get to a happy enough place to see Chet yet." I guess he wasn't happy with that the writers had written for him, he didn't think the character would fit into the story, whatever it was all of these things are completely out of your control. So I was like "Okay..." but it's not personal. I learned. Truly Chet was the bright spot in the character Daniel's life and there were so many family characters they needed to pay attention to there were several factors. But then I did a movie called Miracles From Heaven with Queen Latifah and Jennifer Garner. Just a feature role, but it turned out to be a great role. Same kind of situation but I could freely audition. I still don't at the moment presume the on camera stuff, but it's a part of the world that I live in. So when an opportunity comes up, I look into it. In fact this past year I did a movie called Permanent.
Me -
Yes! I wanted to talk to you about that! What's that project about?
Brian -
It's out now, it's actually in theaters right now, limited release it's a little independent film. But it's also on every on Demand format. Please go check it out. It's a wonderful coming of age film. It's hashtag #Permanet film on their Twitter Account, as well as on Facebook. So we did this movie last year, it's out now. It's set in the 1980's in West Virginia and it is about this little girl based loosely on the director Colette Burson is a phenomenal writer and director. She wrote Hung for HBO and a bunch of other stuff. This is a very special project for her. It's got Rain Wilson as the dad, Patricia Arquette as the mom and young lady Kira McLean she's fantastic and up and coming. So it's this dirt poor family and the little girl, all she wants is to look like Farrah Fawcett. She's got this thin stringy straight hair and all she wants is to get a Farrah Fawcett haircut. She's going to start high school the next day, and since her family is so poor they can't afford to take her to a salon they take her to a beauty school and do it for really cheap. She ends up going, and gets the worst haircut of her life to start high school.
Me -
*Laughing* Oh no!
Brian -
Right, so she gets this really bad perm. My character Barry own the beauty school, where she goes to get the haircut. Of course we're all like *Southern accent.* "Oh wow, that looks good!" It's a really funny, really heart-felt beauty movie and they ended up having me improvise most of what I did. Now I have the sketch comedy background, and the character is almost a sketch level character and it almost could have been over the top but Colette was so good with her direction and keeping it real that they ended up using almost all of the stuff. It's really funny, I saw Rainn shooting some of his stuff with the daughter and he is amazing. It's so sweet and so tender. Great movie for people with kids or anybody that's been kinda that misfit or just awkward. Colette did this in such a funny way and made this whole world that's got it's own colors, and you feel like you're back in time in the 1980's. So they ended up using a fifteen second clip of one of my scenes as a promo for the movie, which is great. As of this movie, I mean they just released it not that long ago but, last night it had like fifty-six thousand hits...
Me -
Oh wow!
Brian -
This morning it had seventy-five thousand hits!
Me -
That's amazing!
Brian -
Yeah! So it's On Demand, I-Tunes, it's on all the streaming formats. You have to search for it, but on Amazon is on the "Still in theaters." page. But it's a really beautiful sweet movie. So I guess we'll see where it goes from here. This morning before you called I had some auditions for some voice over work so I was standing in the closet with my microphone trying to hammer that all out. I honestly don't know where it's all going to go from here. I really did enjoy it. I really did enjoy the performance and I'm no longer the nervous eighteen year old actor I once was. If I prepare myself and really do my work, I'm going to go in, job my job and do something and i'm either the right person or the wrong person for the job. We'll see! I have a love hate relationship with my on camera work, and I'm really proud and blessed and thankful for the projects that I've been able to do. With my horror movies there are truly no fans like you guys. You guys are unbelievable! If I go to different conventions people are so excited and loyal to the movies. They become iconic for genre fans. It's really a very interesting genre. I'm waiting for some director from the SyFy channel to go "Oh! It's the guy from Pumpkinhead! Let's put him in a series!"
Me -
That would be fabulous!
Brian -
I really don't try hard in putting myself out there but I'm very approachable, and the way I look at it life is short. Why not? Let's talk about the project and see what happens.
Me -
Absolutely! Would you ever be interested in doing conventions?
Brian -
I want to do that actually! You know in Atlanta they shoot the Walking Dead...Oh! I gotta tell you, hold that thought on the convention thing! About two years ago I landed a regular roll as a regular on The Walking Dead video game, season 2. I played Nick.
Me -
Oh yeah!
Brian -
Yeah! The was such a cool experience! I got so many Twitter followers after that, and shortly I learned the were all twelve years old. Super sweet people, and a fantastic job. My bread and butter in the voice over world is commercials. You know the stuff that's really out there like animation and video games. It's fascinating job. I had to cry, since my character felt guilty about leaving a door open and a zombie came in and ate his mother or something. So it's a real scene so there's was a lot more like a film scene. You're animating a character who's interacting with other people and so much more. So they are very serious scene. The Walking Dead is a fantastic property all around. Because they deal with, it's not all about chasing zombies. It's about the relationships and drama and nature of humanity. That's some deep shit. *Laughs.*
Me -
*Laughs*
Brian -
It's a lot deeper than "This vote from Warner Cable gives you unlimited calling!" See what I mean? So that was really great. For the TV show I've come really close to getting a few roles. I don't know how much longer it's going to go on for. Do you?
Me -
I heard the man that wrote the graphic novels wanted fifteens seasons. If that's actually going to happen is still up in the air...
Brian -
Yeah I don't know either. I think they are coming back for one more season at least after this one. But I do have many friends who have been involved in it, and have had major roles on it. My friend Steve Coulter was my acting teacher when I first moved to Atlanta when I first started taking classes, and he's become a very good friend and mentor. He's the architect in Alexandria who gets killed at the end of that season. He's in The Conjuring one and two. He's huge, he's in everything, he does the convention circuit and he told me "Look, between Pumpkinhead and The Waling Dead video game, you could do well at one of these." You know I am interested in doing it someday. He has a management company that represents him for those things. He's threatened to hook me up with them, but I'm mostly interested in doing it because I really like meeting the fans of the properties, and I have hotels so if they put me up in a nice one I would be really happy. *Laughs*
Me -
*Laughs* Oh yeah that's a win win.
Brian -
Completely win win. Yeah I travel a lot for my work so I stay in a lot of hotels so sure! In fact years back I did two things based off for Pumpkinhead. One was a screening of it at the Plaza, it was great and overwhelming because people really do love that film. The other thing was Halloween night at the Star-Light drive-in they were doing a double feature of John Carpenter's Halloween and Pumpkinhead. So they had me come to the thing and meet people, and pardon me but a woman asked me to sign her breast with a sharpie.
Me -
*Dies laughing*
Brian -
*Laughing* She was a skater girl, a roller girl, a bunch of them were there. It was the craziest thing, it's such a wild world. I'm like "Okay..." and the funny thing I was set up at the table because I had to get there several hours before, and before the movie screened they did a speech and I sat at this table and nobody came up to me!
Me -
What?!
Brian -
Yeah! I was like "I'm Bunt! Hey ya'll it's Bunt from Pumpkinhead, hey ya'll!" So this woman comes up in full roller gear and a low cut blouse and she comes up and goes "Will you sign my boob?" *Laughs* I was like "Thank you, thank you for having me sign 'something'. I don't know of people were shy or didn't recognize me. I didn't have much stuff printed out. I know that's what you have to do when you do these conventions, you need to print big posters and photos from the projects you've done.
Me -
Yeah the 8X10's and stuff.
Brian -
Yeah, and have stuff to sell. It was the first thing I really went to. You have to remember Stacy all this stuff...Pumpkinhead was made in 88, came out in theaters, was there for two weeks, totally flopped, boom it's gone! Gone! Gone! Gone! Went back to the shelf, the studio went bankrupted shortly after so it just sat on the shelf, MGM bought it and then in like 92 or 93 they started showing it on HBO. After it ran on HBO they started showing it on the SyFy channel. It started really getting some wind by then. Syfy showed it over and over and that's when it really started to gear into the genre, just like Silent Night 5. So we're looking at what twenty-five years later?! People still recognize me for it! People don't realize that you made a movie like that and people go "Oh..." People need to find it. Man we went down to Key West last summer and were at a restaurant with friends of ours and the waiter came up to us and was talking about how he's a fan of horror movies and stuff and my friend Wayne goes "Oh you're a horror movie fan, come here!" He makes the waiter bend down and he starts whispering and pointing at me and I'm going "Oh God..." So this guy's eyes get huge. I'm telling this just to show how it floors me that twenty something years later this happened. So the guy's huge, and he's like a twenty year old kid and he looks at me and he goes back to the kitchen, and I see him in the doorway on his phone, looking at me, and looking at his phone and he suddenly hurries over and goes "Oh my God, you're Bunt from Pumpkinhead aren't you?" And I said "Why yes I am!" They were amazing, they gave us our dinner, and we became good friends with all of them. The restaurant is called the Flaming Buoy in Key West. It's a fantastic little place and the guys who own it and the waiter Brian, they are huge sci-fi and Star Wars fans. So flash-forward to a few months later and we go back to this restaurant and Brain comes up to us and I'm not sure if he remembers me since they see so many people come through that place, so I go "Hey Brian, it's me Bunt from Pumpkinhead." and he goes "AH!" and runs back into the kitchen and the owners come out and they go "Oh! sit here!" and one runs home and apparently they brought back a McFarland Pumpkinhead figure they pulled out of a backpack and gave to me. They were great, they got our dinner, were so gracious and went out and did karaoke all night. I mean that kind of connection floored me. They asked me if this happens all the time to me? and I answered honestly and said "No." I mean it happens kinda few and far between. I mean if you saw me now you wouldn't connect me with that character. It's just humbling, it's fun. It's fun to talk about the movie. For me that would be the fun part of doing conventions, meeting the fans. I would really love to start doing them just to see what it's like. I heard you can burn out on the circuit if that's the only thing you do, but that couldn't be the only thing I do. I'm too manic and all over manic and I'm too all over the place. I got my hands in too many pies and I think that's how you have to be. I had a student ask me how do you have a long career? I told them you just don't stop. You just need to keep going. You have to find a way to make it work even when you can't find the film jobs. Or God forbid you're having a slow year creative or voice-over job wise. So I think fear holds a lot of people back because it can be scary. I'm doing well now, owning my own company and I can pay my salary for the next six months, but you have to always be filling in the coppers. Because you are freelance. You can't stop. So you know it's much easier to do the corporate job with the benefits. I always say I'm a working actor! It's funny, I don't think my parents really understand what I do. The other night we were watching something since I'm visiting for the holidays and there was an interview with Lady Gaga, and my dad went "Well, she's famous...I guess that's the end goal to be that famous." I'm like yeah, that's a nice side affect, but it isn't always a positive as a creative person. Oh yeah they keep me humble. I was telling my mother about how many hits that video I'm in got and she rolled her eyes and said *In a Southern accent* "We don't need to hear about that no more!" *Laughs*
Me -
*Laughs* That's a mother for you!
Brian -
*Laughs* Oh yeah, they keep me grounded and humbled for sure. As a child that would have bothered me, now I just laugh and shrug it off. It's so crazy though at how many hits that video really has all ready gotten. Seventy-Five plus thousand people have seen me in this fifteen second clip of me in this movie and I know there's people who get millions of hits daily, but I've never done anything that's gotten that many eyes on it that quickly. So it's really fun and funny. I always say if you want to endear someone to you make them laugh. When people make you laugh you're instantly at ease with them, and harmless. So that's why I fell into sketch comedy. I remember at my school we did a comedy...well I've been all over the place with my acting. I mean in Silent Night 5 I play a psychotic robot that kills children. *Laughs* I mean that's pretty heavy when you think about it. I found comedy when I did this play Noises Off at my school and Stacy there was nothing like hearing the roar of laughter hit you like a wave. It was just a joyful uplifting unbelievable thing. That's probably when I knew that comedy is what I wanted to do. When we opened Sketch Works, I wrote, directed, and performed it to a bunch of people. Some of my characters became very iconic, but in a very limited place. Like nobody from Saturday Night Live came to see it, but we became very popular in Atlanta. It was because of the laughter. In comedy you have the freedom to say whatever you want to say. So that's what I love about Permanent because it really is funny.
Me -
I wanted to bring up a project that you've done. It's actually how I first discovered you when I rented it as a child. Spontaneous Combustion. This past year we lost Tobe Hooper, but I wanted to pick your brain about that project. You played Brian Bell.
Brian -
*Laughs* Oh yeah that's right. That was a really fun project. I knew who Tobe was when I worked on that project. Because of course I knew of his movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Tobe was a great guy. I'm featured in the movie in a small but pivotal way. I'm peppered in. That was a really fun movie to shoot because of all the period stuff. You know the 1950's stuff. The most fun was all the stuff with Stacy Edwards, we played husband and wife. I can't believe I remembered that...
Me -
*Laughs*
Brain -
Was doing the government footage, the news reel footage of us in our new home they gave us...because they dropped a bomb on us. *Laughs* and the new car, and the pipe I smoked, and the costumes, and the haircut. That was really fun. We had a good time shooting all that stuff. Tobe was a very quiet director, he didn't talk much, and I learned that doesn't necessarily mean they don't like what you're doing. In fact he and I were on the path of becoming good friends. I believe if I had stayed in Los Angeles we would have become even better friends. But I do know at one point he invited me after we shot the movie over to his house. Me and my friend Stan, who's a big horror fan who worked on doing still photography on set with a man named Erin Lasher. The three of us went to Tobe's house in Bel-air to watch a screening, it was so weird. We went in and he pressed a button and the screen came out of the ceiling! I'm like "Where am I?" and it was a movie he did with Robert England playing the Marquis de Sade. Do you know about this movie?"
Me -
I think I've heard of it.
Brain -
Yeah! I don't even know if it came out in the United States but we watched it and he wanted our input on it. Such a great guy...oh! In his kitchen he had a scale model of The Mangler in his kitchen! I think it was used for some shots in the movie. It was his scale model he built so they could acutely build the real machine. You know I think back on being there and I was like "Hey, what's going on..." You know I was so 'cool' back then...so nonchalant about everything. But Tobe was such a sweet guy. I really wish I had gotten to know him. I was very sad to hear about his passing. I know they did a memorial for him at a theater in Los Angeles, I couldn't go, but Stan was there. Still, the movie was really fun. It's so cheesy and campy and the baby is born and I'm sitting there with tears building up in my eyes and it's so funny because I don't know I was maybe twenty-one, twenty-two...I was very young. I didn't have children. I also didn't have the the emotional depth to play a father. I had no idea, and I was also a very undisciplined actor. I don't even know how I got there. One minute I'm looking at her with tears in my eyes and the next minute a prosthetic arm is on fire in front of my face!
Me -
*Dies laughing*
Brian -
*Dying laughing* I mean come on! The fun thing about that was all of these movies, all of them was way before CGI. So Pumpkinhead is a practical monster. Tom Woodruff in the suit. There are several mechanical heads to look like Lance Heriksen. It was all real and made, and you could touch it. I could go to the trailer and look at the heads and they could make noises. Well in Spontaneous Combustion there's an effect of fire over the credits. Flames are just sorta rolling over the credits. I was there the day they filmed it! They had a barbecue, a rolling spitting barbecue. They lined it with black tin-foil, lit it on fire and started hand cranking the fire as they had the camera aimed at the flames. They blew it out and that's the credits for the movie.
Me -
Oh my God that's amazing!
Brain-
I thought so too. I remember thinking this is pioneer filmmaking at it's very very best. Tobe's son Tony was on set making the prosthetics. I mean...you can tell it's a prosthetic hand when you look at it. The plastic drips off the fingers, but the effect looks fantastic! As an actor learning how to sell that stuff! It was so fun and Tobe was so great at directing that stuff. Working with Melinda Dillon was awesome. Just the fact that she was there was incredible. I always mix her up with Dee Wallace Stone which is terrible because I just recently met Dee Wallace and I was just close to going "Oh my God I haven't see you since Spontaneous Combustion and she's not in it." But come on at the time you had Melinda in Close Encounters and you had Dee Wallace in E.T. There was this string of blond mom in Spielberg movies! Anyways, Melinda was so sweet, and kind, and humble. I found when I worked with people in L.A who have come a long way in their careers, or they were really established or had a big hit...they were the most humble people in the world. The people who had the typical showbiz attitude clearly had something they needed to prove. Like Stan Winston nicest guy in the world, Tobe Hooper, nicest guy in the world, Brain Yuzna...weirdst guy in the world but very nice. *Laughs* and so there was something that I feel can be learned by that in the humility and the piece and keeping the eye on what you are doing. You're job is to contribute to a project and to play your very small part in a movie. But yeah Spontaneous Combustion was great, amazing effects, tons of fun.
Me -
Speaking of effects, obviously Society is a very effect dosed movie thanks to Screaming Mad George. Now he did Society with you and then Silent Night Deadly Night 5. So what was the "shuntting" scene in Society like and of course that robot suit in Silent Night 5 like?
Brain -
That was really awesome. The Society scene was so bizarre. It's all practical stuff. So he built all that stuff out of foam, rubber, and latex. So it's all in the room. You man, I gotta tell you something! Talk about the convention thing. So there's the scene in Society where the man, the father's face comes out of his butt. Well, Screaming George built that thing and the man had to shove his face through it. Well they wanted to do a convention first and promote the movie in Los Angeles. So they couldn't get the actor who played the father to do it...so they asked me to do it. Girl...they put me in the butt face thing. I had to put my face in it, took like five hours to do it. I was sitting at this booth, kneeling down since the thing's knees are on the table. So I'm at table level the whole time with my face coming through this thing with all the makeup. First of all the taunting that I got from people were unbearable.
Me -
*Laughing* oh God..."
Brain -
*Laughing* They were trying to put stuff in my mouth. They had a handler there, but the worst thing about it was in the booth right next to us was Clive Barker. I wanted to meet him so badly. I thought "If he knows I was in Pumpkinhead, then maybe I can be in a Clive Barker movie!" This is how my twenty year old mind was thinking. So Brain goes "Hey I'll introduce you!" So I go over, knees on my shoulders, my face coming out of a butthole and I go over and I'm introduced to Clive Barker and he's like "Oh...hi...yeah okay." and he rolls his eyes and I'm like "Oh...my...God.." so not only am I completely unrecognizable...but I'm a butt face.
*We both crack up for a solid minute.*
Me -
That's terrible!
Brain -
It was awful. But man those effects were so weird and crazy. The movie really is interesting. The reason why it was such a big hit in London was the whole the upperclass eats the lower class thing. But it's a lot. It's one movie my mother hasn't seen. I think it's just a little too much for some people. But the cool thing with Screaming Mad George was he was a really awesome guy. Long hair, rocker, but in a very Japanese kind of way. He always looked like an anime character and he created the robot suit. Basically the concept is...it's a living a living Ken doll with no genitalia. I had to go to his studio, and get the full body cast. I had to get every part of me covered, including my face since my face pops off at the end like in Wesworld. The hair, the doll hair, it took...not that long to get into it. Maybe a couple of hours. You could barley walk or move in it. The joints were like ball joints. The first were the ball joints around my knees, then the lower leg pieces, then the thigh pieces, then like the cod piece kind of thing. At the joint at of where your hips and legs join there's another ball joint. So those went on. So if you saw me without the suit on I would have ball joints around my knees, ball joints around my groin and stomach area. So they began layering on the armor. It was like a suit of armor. They would put on the chest plate, the upper arms, lower arms, I think my hands were free...but made up to match the same flesh colored plastic, I loved it! I couldn't sit down either. They had this thing they I could kinda lean back on and put my arms up and lean back on since I couldn't sit. Yeah thanks for bringing that all back to me Stacy.
Me -
*Laughs*
Brain -
Always great to remember all of that! Ugh, the worst thing about Society was the slime. Oh ma! it was sticky and cold. They used this thing called methycell. You probably know what it is, but it was gooey slime that is freezing. It had to be kept at a very low temperature. First of all I'm standing there in just boxer shorts and a T-shirt since everyone is stripping down to have this orgy. Then they just pour this bucket of methycell on you. The girls were freezing, I was freezing...everyone was freezing to death. It was really fun! I had a great time! God I remember I was driving home from set one time in full makeup, I can't remember what project it was but I had to stop for something and my face was all bloody. Oh well, that happens in Los Angeles a lot! *laughs* People don't think twice when you're covered in blood, slime...or in a butthead."
Me -
What was it like working with Mickey Rooney, he played your father in Silent Night?
Brian -
Yeah yeah, pretty amazing. Just the idea. Of course I knew who he was. It's funny since so much of the new generation doesn't know who he was. Which I find is amazing. He did something like 177 movies! He's Andy Hardy. He was a character. He never learned his lines. He always said "I never learn my lines, I look at the script right before we shoot and do it, so it's spontaneous." Which I get, plus he had a photographic memory. He could look at the page and do the scene. There's a whole school of thought with that way of acting since you want to capture the spontaneous act of what's there. To just let it happen and see the true reaction between the actors in the scene. That was his school of thought. I was taught learn, learn learn. But I'm not about to question somebody who's done 177 films! He was a major movie star. He had just written a book called 'Life is too short' which he signed for my grandmother which thrilled her to no end when I gave it to her. He invited me into his trailer on set to watch his appearance on Letterman promoting the book to critique it. So he's in this huge R.V. I had this very small closet with a tiny stool to sit on. *Laughs* He had this huge R.V and made this huge amount of money for working four days on the movie, but of course he's Mickey Rooney. So I go in and there's his manager, and maybe his eldest son and we watch his appearance on Lettermen. He kept going "I don't like when I did that!" or "I can't believe he asked me that question! What about that? What did you think about that?!" Then we had all of our scenes in the toy store. I push him into the basement, or he pushes me into the basement and I pop out and hit him over the head with a bottle or something...it's very violent, this big fight. It was hilarious! But he chases me down into the basement and acutely the basement was at floor level with the studio. So they had those stairs going up to a catwalk, so we could open a door on the stairs and it would look like we're going down into the basement when really we're just going to floor level with the basement where all the cameras are set up, it's an illusion. So while we're waiting for action we're standing on this tiny catwalk...it was shaking and moving, preparing for action to have this fight and fly down the stairs. So we're standing there and he looks at me and goes "Hey...watch this." and twenty feet up in the air, since it needs to look like we're going down a whole story to reach the basement and it's just us up on this catwalk and I'm wearing this cool leather jacket and curly hair and we're having a great time! We're just chatting and he goes "Hey kid watch this!" and he starts tap dancing on the catwalk, and it starts swaying back and forth as he's tap-dancing and all of these lawyers and PAs and insurance guys come running up "Mister Rooney! Mister Rooney if you could please stop doing that!" And he got the biggest kick out of it! He just turns to me smiling and says "I try to do something like that on every film. They get scared to death because of insurance.!" So I worked several weeks on the film, he only worked four since that's all they could afford him for. But we would be at lunch and suddenly he would go "I remember Judy Garland...oh Ava Gardner!" Because he was with all these iconic stars. He grew up in that era of Hollywood. He was good friends with Judy Garland. They moved around as kids as the Judy and Andy Hardly show, promoting them. They would have the movies playing in New York and both would appear before the movie with dancing and singing to promote the film. So they were really good friends, I think he had an affair or was married to Ava Gardner. He was married like something like eighteen times! *Laughs* Okay maybe not that many times, but a lot. But it was fascinating. It was at that point I was very naive when I came to Hollywood, but I remember going "Oh my God...this is Mickey Rooney sitting here." Here he is talking about all these stars, and just such a delight. Oh here's a funny story! When I first moved to Hollywood, one of my very first jobs was between semesters over the summer at school at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles as an usher. That was a fun job! We had cool uniforms, and the Pantages Theater is this awesome historical place where the Oscars were held. This fantastic old theater in Hollywood, and way before I did Silent Night 5...Mickey Rooney comes in sitting in a wheelchair since he had surgery or something and I was the usher who brought him to his seat!
Me -
Oh wow!
Brian -
I had to wheel the wheelchair up, and come and get him afterwards. The movie was Zorbra The Greek. Man oh man, and flash-forward to years later with Silent Night 5 and man...I'm getting to the point I can't remember what's real *Laughs* but I think I told him "Hey I sat you at the Pantages Theater." and his reaction was like "Oh yeah..." *Laughs* So weird.
Me -
Are you surprised by the cult following these movies have? I mean the blu-ray releases and they have T-shirts based off them. Are you surprised a bunch of your films are huge cult classics?
Brain -
I am. I'm surprised and very humbled. This is going to sound really strange since I've always had an awareness of it. But only in the last couple of years that there has been a bit of an resurgence in it and I'm more aware of it. Maybe because I'm paying more attention or that I've gotten back more into film. Working on different projects like the stuff I've done for Tyler Perry's studio and stuff...and some TV work, but it's so funny. I am very surprised on one level. On another, I understand why in the genre these movies are so appealing. Like Pumpkinhead. I sometimes say this movie is the worst movie ever made, and the best movie ever made. There are some parts that I roll my eyes, but there are some of the most incredible beautiful scenes. It's like a thirteenth century morality tale. It speaks to people. Then there's just the fun of the monster, and the fun of the genre. I'm not so surprised with a film like Pumpkinhead, but I'm more surprised with films like Society, Silent Night 5...Spontaneous Combustion always surprises me since it has a really huge fan base. Yeah I would say I am, and I'm pleasantly surprised by it. I understand why. It's very, very, very humbling and I gotta tell you honestly when you called saying you wanted to do a blog interview I was like "Really?!" So it really does take you by surprise. I'm just so grateful to the fans of these movies. I am not a rich and famous actor by any stretch of the imagination. I am a working actor and I'm doing just fine. I have my daily struggles like everyone else, but like I said I'm hustling and looking to make the money, find the jobs, and you do have to understand you do this because you love to do it. I'm just so grateful that they continue to find audiences. It always stuns me when these movies find the younger people. Teenagers! People in their twenties. Like that waiter Brian I told you about. He's like twenty-something. I'm like "You're a fan of Pumpkinhead? Were you even born when we made it?!" I don't think he was! I love it when I meet people, we become friends, and bang I find out they are like thirty-two and I'm like "Yeah...I could be your father."
Me -
Well...Brian, Pumpkinhead was made the year I was born...
*We both die laughing.*
Brian -
Oh man! See?! It really does surprise, and humble when when I learn that these movies still have life.
Cavity Colors Society collection on sale now!
Me -
To round things up. What is 'the' movie you need to watch around the holidays every year?
Brian -
Pumpkinhead.
*We both die laughing again.*
Brian -
Followed by Silent Night Deadly Night 5, and if you have time in your evening fit in Spontaneous Combustion, then Society...it's the perfect popcorn movie, in fact you can string the popcorn around your tree while watching Society! *Laughs* Oh man, our favorite movie to watch in Christmas in Connecticut. That's the tradition. We love Barnara Stanwyck and the beautiful house she pretends is her own and the Christmas tree is the ideal Christmas tree. That would have to be the movie...then of course Pumpkinhead. *Laughs*
- A huge thank-you to Brian for this amazing interview. I seriously haven't laughed that hard in forever. Please go check out Permanent (2017) On Demand, as well as Brian's other classics. I for one am celebrating this Christmas Eve by watching Silent Night Deadly Night 5!
