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Mr. Beaks Survives His First Encounter with the New Jason Voorhees, Derek Mears!!
I have one criterion for an actor playing Jason Voorhees: be big. Derek Mears is big. Really fucking big. Like shot-put-you-to-the-moon big.
He's also a big softie. From the second I sat down with him, I couldn't believe that this was the same hulking mass of hurt who, a half-hour ago, was terrorizing Sunday Comic Con attendees on the big screen in Ballroom 20. Though we only got one full shot of Mears wrecking shop as Jason, it was easily the most indelible moment in the teaser: a soon-to-be-victim backpedals in abject fear as Jason sprints toward her, winding up his machete for an emphatic coup de grace.
So who's this bald, smiling tower of goodwill bouncing my way? Well, according to his bio, he's an actor who's no stranger to working under prosthetics (having appeared as a variety of creatures in films like ZATHURA, CURSED and THE HILLS HAVE EYES II), and a stuntman who's taken his lumps on some of the biggest blockbusters of the last few years (e.g. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN and INDY 4). Hopefully, we'll get to know Mears better as FRIDAY THE 13TH gets closer to release. For now, here's a quickie five-minute interview with the new man behind the mask.
Beaks: Derek, that looked pretty fucking great. What was up with that money shot? I guess that's Amanda [Righetti] backpedaling, but she's moving so fast, it looked like she was on a rig.
Derek: I don't know how much I'm allowed to say, so... that's the character panicking and trying to get away, and I'm right on top of her.
Beaks: You're playing a more realistic version of Jason in this film - or, at least, you're not playing a supernatural version. Does that make a difference in the way you play him?
Derek: I think so. Whoever is playing the character... it's an acting choice. I don't know how he became supernatural [in the first run of films], but the way the script was written by Mark [Swift] and Damian [Shannon], they did a really good job of making it a full fleshed-out character and not just a guy in the mask. There's a level where you can understand where he's coming from, which also kind of adds to the intensity. If you can see on one level someone being incredibly emotional, hurt and vulnerable, and then flipping that when you see the incredibly intense anger... and letting out that hurt energy. It's moving. It's intense. To flip from one side all the way to the other, it's more disturbing than playing him as a... well, they just gave me more chords to play than two chords.
Beaks: So you can play pain. You can really be physically hurt.
Derek: Exactly. When I was doing the posters - and more will come out as we get closer to release - the photographer was like, "I don't know what you're doing for your character this time around, but... (group of people walks by our table and drowns out part of the answer) we'll take some pictures and go from there. So I'm doing different poses - and I'm a firm believer in the idea that whatever you're thinking or feeling, it'll come out and be captured on camera. And the guy stops and says, "Hey, man, I don't know if you're in the right area. You're kind of sad, angry and tormented. Is that...?" I gave him the thumbs up, and he was like, "Alright! Awesome!"
Beaks: So if you're playing a more human, tortured Jason, does that mean the kills will less elaborate and more functional?
Derek: What's interesting about the kills in this film is that they derive from the character. They're intelligent. He'll actually set people up, rather than... "Wow, there's a giant sandpaper machine in the middle of the woods! I wonder if I'll see that again!"
Beaks: (Laughing) And there's an electrical outlet in that tree!
Derek: Exactly! In our film, it's things that you just kind of pass by, and then you're like, "Holy shit! He put that there on purpose because... and now he's going to... Ohhhhhh!!!" As a fan, that's what I got from reading the script. It really plays on the horror fan's intelligence, rather than have a guy walking around and slash! Where's the next guy? Hiding in the closet? Slash! You actually see the method and thought process of what's going on. You set people up. I really dig that.
Beaks: In terms of playing pain as a monster of sorts, did you look at any of the classic monsters? Like Boris Karloff's Frankenstein's monster?
Derek: I'm familiar with them, but I didn't purposely go back and do research for that. I looked at Rambo in FIRST BLOOD, where he's an outsider, he just wants to be left alone, but he's pushed against the wall, so... he fights back with that savagery. Also, kind of like the Vietnam flashback, [Jason] still has the pain of seeing his mother's death. It's still happening. He was too young and fragile at the time to protect her, but now he's bigger and stronger. So it's a mixture of John Rambo, and... I would say Tarzan, to the point where he's become the alpha male in the woods; there's nothing bigger than he is, so there's no fear. And also a little bit of Lenny from OF MICE AND MEN. I hate to say that, because it makes me sound like a snotty actor.
Beaks: It also makes it sound like you know what you're doing.
And there's AICN's first, very succinct chat with the new Jason Voorhees. Here's hoping that Mears gets to thin out the dope-smokin', sex-havin' teenaged population for many years to come. For a (maybe not entirely unstoppable) killing machine, he's a damn nice guy.
Marcus Nispel's FRIDAY THE 13TH hits February 13, 2009.
Faithfully submitted,
Mr. Beaks
And there's AICN's first, very succinct chat with the new Jason Voorhees. Here's hoping that Mears gets to thin out the dope-smokin', sex-havin' teenaged population for many years to come. For a (maybe not entirely unstoppable) killing machine, he's a damn nice guy.
Marcus Nispel's FRIDAY THE 13TH hits February 13, 2009.
Faithfully submitted,
Mr. Beaks
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+ Expand All
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I know what I am doing
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I still prefer Freddie over Jason though
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But what I really want to do is direct!
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I fell off after 3-d jason...
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and declined, it's a ripoff no matter who they put in the mask, even if he is a nice guy.
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Where he goes after chick flick actresses like Joan Allen, Meryl Steep, and Diane Lane. Call it Friday the 13th: MILF hunt.
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or maybe not...
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didn't Kane Hodder not become Jason until like part 6? What's the freaking big deal about Kane Hodder? It doesn't take much acting chops to walk around with a machete and hockey mask imo.
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Interesting.
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jason is a supernatural killing machine. leave him that way. making him smarter, not so much of a good thing. making him more clever... is a good idea. more serial killing savant, less bumbling retard. think pissed off rain man (with no voice of course), who instead of counting shit really well, kills people really well. and yeah, he should be damn near unstoppable. you ever try to kill a tard? man, they just dont go down easy.
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So you're saying you've tried? Dude that's messed up.
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You know this'll be just as bad as Zombie's "Halloween," you just know it, not that it'll be this guy's fault.
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as bad as Zombie's Halloween because Zombie won't be involved.
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Because I know I'll go see this.
It better be good, goddammit. -
"What's interesting about the kills in this film is that they derive from the character. They're intelligent." Can anyone actually get through these horseshit interviews? This stuff is as bad as what you see in mainstream media, but at least their shit is spell-checked.
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Although I like to pretend "Freddy Got Fingered" is one.
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Granted, the Friday the 13th films aren't remotely high art (kind of trashy enjoyable entertainment, although Jason Goes To Hell was an abomination)... But the director is Marcus Nispel.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was okay at best, but nothing memorable (the one Marcus directed - I haven't seen the original). Pathfinder was really bad, but pretty fun in "I bet Karl says this next!" or "I bet Moon says this next!" and being right consistently. I watched it with my wife and was like "Now they'll cut to him training with his sword!" and they did. We were cracking up. We were guessing the next line throughout and each time we were right (only because it was SO formulaic).
I have a feeling it's going to be more like Zombie's take on Halloween - I really didn't like that film (although I loved The Devil's Rejects - come on, Rob).
I definitely think it's silly for Derek (and no offense to him) to even remotely suggest this will be a "thinking man's horror film" (yes, paraphrashing). It's friggin' Friday the 13th, directed by Nispel - it will be extremely unsubtle and passable entertainment at best. -
Did you even watch the first movie? Where he got knocked out for a brief period by a woman with a frying pan?
That's not very "unstoppable", is it?
Moron. -
The dude is BEYOND passionate about this movie, and seems to have come up with an awesome take on the character. Mark this post: Derek Mears will skull fuck you with his awesomeness!!
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I'm sorry, I'm just not feeling this kill. Maybe if you brought the script girl to my trailer we could explore the scene in detail.
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It's a soliloquy with interruptions.
And it's too short! -
I had a chance to talk with Kane last weekend at a local con. It was the 2nd time I'd met him in that capacity and the one thing I always come away with is that he is a genuinely nice guy as well. I asked him if he ever minded being typecast as some kind of a deranged serial killer (he just finished up playing the title character in 'BTK' based on the story of the real killer that went by those initials) and he said that he would "much rather be typecast then not cast at all." Then we joked about how it almost seem to be in his contract that no matter what movie he acts in, he gets to kill someone. I didnt ask him about what he thought of the new Friday the 13th film or somone else playing Jason, but he doesnt strike me as a guy that worries about what parts he doesn't get. He may not be a marque star, but the man works very steadily and is a lot of fun to talk to.
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Aug 01, 2008 6:35:44 PM CDT
I have one criterion for an actor playing Jason Voorhees, too:
by charles sheen
Be Kane motherfucking Hodder.
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Seems like a cool guy, but a completely overrated Jason. Doesn't hold a candle to Richard Brooker or Ted White, who weren't playing unstoppable killing machines, but rather giant awkward retarded killers. Much creepier than Kane Hodder's huffing and puffing.
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You are all fat. Give it a chance.
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At the end, the hockey mask is knocked off to reveal that the killer is none other than... Roy Burns. The paramedic.
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would get picked up and skull fucked by the new guy....and he wold ask for more
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but that was funny.
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Kane HODDER....WOULD wipe the floor with this guy. New Jason couldn't carry Hodder's jock strap.
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Aug 01, 2008 10:33:04 PM CDT
Kane Hodder's Jason Movies Generally Sucked.............
by crackerfarmboy
Do you Hodderites have any defense to that?
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Thanks. The thing is, I AM one of you. I just don't understand the blatant anti-remake attitudes of this forum. I really look forward to remakes. I like to see updated re-imaginings of things, even if they don't always completely work. I know the argument that "hollywood has run out of ideas", but I think that's nonsense. There are plenty of original ideas out there. There are also lots of remakes and now, comic and graphic novel adaptations. I think that the later are not necessarily born of a lack of creativity, but simply out of the recently honed technical ability available in the industry, allowing filmmakers to visually create what was once only mean to exist in readers imagination (or in static drawing).
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ALL the Jason movies sucked.
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I'm a fan of the series, or perhaps more appropriately, the icon that is Jason Vorhees, something about the mask, the machete, the persistance and determination, idk, I just like it, and I also like what I've heard so far about this, Nisbel did a serviceable job with TCM, the original will probably never be recaptured but as far as remakes go it was enjoyable, F13 doesnt really have anything to mess up, the series can really only go up, I'm excited for this
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agreed
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at first i was really not excited but after reading both interviews (you really deserve an award or something for all this work Beaks) I am much more ready to see this in theatres. Hell, I already saw Zombie's Halloween on opening night? It can't get any worse than that can it?
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Kane Hodder is a coked up lunatic that stormed the New Line offices when he wasn't cast in Freddy vs. Jason. Dude had to be physically removed after threatening to kill the producers. He's also like 5' tall. Sooo unless they're remaking The Leprechaun, don't hold your breath.
Mears is gonna blow you away. The footage at the Con was a fanboy's wet dream and the out of focus shit on youtube doesn't do it justice. -
the best jason so far. the blonde jason!
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Some people are acting like this is a blasphemous crime against man and nature. It's a remake of a movie that was bad and campy. It'll be ok, I promise.
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or should that be "Darth Vol" Mr. Spell Checker?
Of course he couldn't hold Kane's jockstrap, it'd be too hard to pry it outta your mouth bitch.
lol -
Lol, that was good.
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A thousand thanks Sir, and an especially strong thank you for capitalizing the V and the R on your name. Proper pronouns that they are, you wouldn't want to degrade them. ;-)
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I hated Rob Zombie's "Halloween," and Nispel's "Texas Chainsaw" remake. But there was a reason to that...remaking "Halloween" and "Chainsaw" as loud, violent and gory pieces of trash totally flew in the face of well-made, creepy and stylish horror flicks. It's not just that they were remade (although the originals still stand alone and didn't need to be touched) it's that those who were remaking/reimagining them truly didn't understand what made the originals so effective and delivered remakes that were the opposite of the original, well-made projects.
The upshot with this is that "Friday the 13th" is, in the words of one of my friends, "the worst movie I ever liked." I bought the DVD set when it was released and instantly had buyer's remorse--they are not good films. They're campy (pardon the pun) and cheesy--they're fun because they're so ludicrous, but no one could ever confuse them with being good movies. So I don't mind a remake of the "Friday the 13th" franchise because, honestly, it's not like they can make them bad (unless they remake Jason Takes Manhattan). I'd rather see original horror, but if someone wants to do a remake, I'd prefer they do it of films that were mediocre or horrible.
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