George,
can you start us off with a visual and describe
the room where you are answering these questions?
I'm
in my office right now. There's a desk, computer,
printer, and I'm surrounded by pictures from
various movies I've been in. My favorite picture
I have hanging is of me and the Duke, John Wayne.
George, you
were cast as Michael Myers in
'Halloween 4' (and subsequently 'Halloween
6') after years of working
primarily as a stuntman. What about you convinced
the powers that be that you would make the ideal
Michael Myers?
The
producers were looking for a specific body type.
I happened to be the right height and build so I
fit the description. They knew what I could do as
a stuntman since the stunt coordinator, who
brought me in, was a good friend of mine.
And what was
the toughest bit of stuntwork you had to do as
Michael Myers in those two Halloween films or as
Michael Myers did you get your own stuntman?
I do all
my own stunts. LOL. The most dangerous stunt I
did in Halloween 4 was the ending truck sequence.
There were lots of moving parts involved. I had
to hang on the top of the truck, get thrown from
the truck, and act on top of that. It was tricky
and I had to be cautious in order to avoid an
injury. The most dangerous stunts for me are when
I have to depend on someone or something else
that's beyond my control. I don't recall any too
many tough stunts in 'Halloween 6'.
Your stunt career spans
40 some years and in the horror realm alone you
have worked on ''Poltergeist'
and 'Poltergeist II',
'Halloween 5',
'A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child',
'Blacula', 'Grizzly',
'Dr. Giggles', 'The
Silence of the Lambs', 'Firestarter',
'Reanimator', two
of 'The Planet of the Apes'
movies, and so many others. What has been the
most dangerous stunt you have done to date?
I've done
a lot of dangerous stunts during my career. The
one that comes to my head is the high fall down
the elevator shaft in the movie 'Defenseless.'
The space I was falling into was very confined. I
did the fall in 3 takes and on the last take, I
hit the camera and scrapped the side of it.
In your long
career what has been the most serious injury you
have sustained?
I was
banged on the head and got a concussion while
doing a stunt on the movie 'Lepke'.
What stunt
would you say is your best known bit of work?
I
wouldn't say that I'm known by one particular
stunt, but I'm most known for playing Michael
Myers.
I am also a
huge fan of disaster flicks and I've read that
you did stunts for 'The Poseidon
Adventure', 'The
Towering Inferno', and 'Beyond
the Poseidon Adventure'.? Did you
do some specific stunt in the original 'Poseidon
Adventure' that I'd remember?
I did the
Christmas tree sequence in the original 'Poseidon
Adventure.' I was trying to climb up onto the
next deck to get away from the flooding water.
Gene Hackman was on the platform trying to get us
off the tree, but when the tree fell backwards, I
also fell into the ballroom full of water.
How
exactly did you become a stuntman?
I guess
John Wayne is the reason why I became a stuntman.
After the Navy, I moved to Tucson, AZ to become a
wrangler at a dude ranch. They were filming the
movie 'El Dorado' nearby so I was went to the set
and got a job as an extra and stand-in for John
Wayne. Shortly afterwards, I moved to Los Angeles
to pursue a career as a stuntman.
In your
opinion does the emergence of computer generated
effects make the job of being a stuntman easier,
more dangerous, or more endangered?
Stunt
work has become more specialized now because of
computers. Those impossible stunts sometimes
aren't so impossible with the help of green
screens and computers. I think it has endangering
stunt work but that's how the business is
progressing.
Is that an
issue in the worker's union, The Stuntman's
Association??
It's not
really an issue since there's nothing stuntmen
can do about it. Within the stunt community it
may be a problem but we learn to cope with it.
Do you have anything
you are currently working on that you would like
the www.racksandrazors.com readers to know about?
I'm not
working on anything these days, just spending
time with my family. I mainly do appearances at
convention when I'm invited.
What scares
you in real life?
That's a
good question, but I can't say that anything
really scares me. I'm too old for that. LOL. |