Doug Jones
Appearances
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
I know. That's amazing. Because that's the number one question I get from people is like, I would go crazy if I just sit still for that long. And it's like, nope, that's the easy part of my day. The makeup artists are doing all the work during that time. And I get to just kind of sit there and go over my dialogue if I need to or we listen to music or we tell jokes or whatever, right?
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
It's a great time of day. But now that it's on and you have extra heat, weight, stickiness to your person and you have to perform in it all day and keep your energy up while wearing extra layers of stuff and trying to not stick to your chair when you're taking a break or whatever it is, right? Yeah. That's the long part of the day for me. I can imagine. Yeah, yeah.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
I know. Help me! I delineate between suits and makeups. A monster suit would be something that you slip in to zip up the back, right? It might involve a head that slips over your head, snaps down to the neck, and then there's mechanics that are puppeteered in the face, right? That's a suit.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
makeup would be either glued or painted onto my real person so when you're in a suit there's nothing quite like that feeling of now it goes on much faster you're maybe 30 minutes into the whole thing and you're and you're ready to perform but once it's on it is they're usually very heavy and very hot and you feel that trickle of sweat going down the back of your neck and you can't get to it oh
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Or you feel that trickle of sweat coming down the side of your face. Is it going to hit my eye? I don't know. Is it going to go, ah, it's on the cheekbone now. It's in my mouth now. Yeah, because salty sweat in the eye, you don't want to do that while you're on camera.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
People who just wear wigs on camera, it's an itchy mess and they want them off. I totally get it. Oh, yeah.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Yeah, yeah. Thank you for setting that up so beautifully, by the way. Because it's a very confusing time for the title Nosferatu, because there is another one right on our tail coming out Christmas, directed by the wonderful Robert Eggers and starring the brilliant Bill Skarsgård in the same role I'm playing.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Now, he might be younger, hotter, and more famous than me, but I think we can have both, can't we? Absolutely. We all want both.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
We do. And I'm going to watch theirs with every bit of glee as I'm watching on my own. Ours, though, what makes ours a little bit different is it seemed foreseen the same movie as the silent film that made it a classic in the first place. So I got to get into not only Max Schreck's role, but I also was in his environment, digitally reproduced from the original film. That's so cool.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
David Lee Fisher, our director, is a technical wizard who made this all magic happen. So it might be something as much as when I was, let's say, when Nosferatu was outside walking around with his coffin under one arm. That would be a complete 100% green screen set with marks on the floor to match exactly where I needed to turn, stop, walk up steps, whatever, right?
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
That we would match then with the laid in frame from the old movie. Then the least amount of green screen used might be Ellen's bedroom when I finally get into her and I'm finally reaching the pinnacle, the object of my desire. She's the dessert of all the meals I've had over. Over my vampire years.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Her bedroom scene was walls built, furniture in the room, and the window, though, was green behind it so that they could put in the original movie window behind that.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
So there was a green screen element to every scene of the movie. Yeah. And so that does bring old and new together with a very ethereal kind of dreamlike. Yes. Right. But also ours. That's why we filmed ours in black and white so that we could match the old movie, but more seamlessly. And and also with dialogue and sound that fleshes out that silent film story.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
It is seen for seeing the same story. But now with dialogue, you get to hear more of it.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Yes, yes, yes. He had been my bucket list character for many years. And I think I always had a love and fascination with vampires anyway. And of course, I loved Bela Lugosi as Dracula. And of course, all the other Draculas over the years that have been played by various wonderful actors. But there's a certain sexiness about Dracula that I thought, I don't know that Doug Jones can pull that off.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
I think You totally could. Bless you. Bless you. But then there's also the teenager sparkly ones from that other franchise that I'm like, I'm never going to fit that demographic.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Oh, thank you. And I can't live up to that introduction. I think we're done here. You already have.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Right. But the buck-toothed, pointy-eared, scraggly one, yes. Him, I get. Ding, ding, ding. Yeah, yeah. So that's why Nostradamus. But what I also love about his hideous look is that he's probably not aware that he looks that bad now. He's a count, right? So he's of nobility. In his younger day when he was a human, he probably was quite fetching, you know? Absolutely. Right?
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And he probably was respected by the community. And who knows what story got him, what decisions he made, what position he put himself in to become a vampire.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Thank you. So, like we just said, your resume is mighty. Like, one of the mightiest.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
decades you know millennia you know centuries later who knows how old he is uh he's living with his choice right yeah and is he is he ever satisfied did is this a satisfying lifestyle for him so that's why what i loved about him was his was his yearning for ellen uh the the character that uh that i'm after in the movie by the way ellen was played by sarah carter
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Sarah Carter and I starred together as series regulars on Falling Skies about 10 years ago.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And it's because of that relationship that I said, hey, Sarah, would you be a dear? Oh, I love that. And she's like, oh, my gosh, I love this. So that's how we got her into the movie.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And she's like, is she not a movie star? Oh, my God.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Yeah, ridiculous. Yeah, incredible. I know, I know, I know.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And so her husband in the movie, Young Thomas, was played by Emrys Cooper. He's a series regular on Coronation Street now. It's very British. He's from Great Britain, so his accent was legit. Oh, I love that. So he's sent on this journey by his real estate boss, who goes crazy. By the way, his real estate boss was the character Knock, played by an actor named Edgar Allan Poe. Do you believe that?
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
I don't know what from. So Nock sends young Thomas on this journey to fetch me in Transylvania because I'm interested in buying a piece of property.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
in their hometown right across the street from them because something about me i i you know ellen has been calling to me from afar and i haven't really you know known who she is yet or what she is but i know that i need her he comes to me to sign paperwork for this real estate deal and while he's with me he's getting creeped out by all that i am what i look like
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And I love those scenes when we're at the dinner table and he's eating food and I'm not. And I'm just kind of staring at him or, you know. I love that so much.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Right? There was so much dialogue happening in those quiet, silent moments where he's very uncomfortable and I'm very comfortable.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And one of my favorite moments, too, was I'm about to sign the paperwork and I pause for a minute and say, do you have the time? And he hands me his pocket watch in which was a photograph of Ellen, his wife. And that was like, dun, dun, dun. That was the moment that Count Orlok realizes that's the object of my desire. That's who I've been dreaming of. That's who I've been wanting all this time.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
So he rushes and signs the paperwork, and now it's a done deal. So what I love, too, about this story is that once he gets to the town and takes residency across the street from Ellen and Thomas, he doesn't go right for her right away. He peers at her through the window like a creep.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And other people in town are dying all around them. They think there's an epidemic. There's some kind of a virus wiping out the city. So he saves her for dessert, right? And by the time he gets to her, this is the ultimate. His whole life as a vampire has been leading to this disaster. Moment.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Right. And I love that David Lee Fisher left the camera on me for a long time while I am on her neck. Yes. It's very sensual and very disgusting all at the same time.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Beautifully horrific. Great way to say it. So then when he comes to and realizes that the sun is up and it's coming through the window, he's like, he kind of overdid it. He overindulged in his addiction. I think that's when he had his come to light moment. I wanted to add some humanity into him because...
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Oh, well, thank you for thinking of me in that manner. I don't deserve it. I love you for that. You do. You know, it's funny. My resume is long, not because I'm really that good. It's just because I'm that old. I've been around a while, you know? So...
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Watching the silent film, of course, it's very dramatic, and Max Schreck struck that pose when he got in front of the window with a hand on the heart and a hand toward the window, like, no, not the sun, right?
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
So I wanted to strike that iconic pose, as I tried to strike a lot of his iconic poses throughout the film, but give some backstory meaning and some heart and soul of why he got into that pose.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
So this moment in the bedroom, I'm thinking, wow, I had my dessert. I've reached the pinnacle of my desires. Where do I go from here? Is there anything left? And did it really truly satisfy me or am I just a pathetic being? And do I have any reason to live beyond this? So when the sun is coming in the window, he knows he's going to burn.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Do I take my chances and try to get out of the room and pass the window? Sure. And if I die? You know what? Maybe I deserve it by now. I think that's kind of the backstory I gave him that maybe Max Shrek, I'm not sure, did or not. It translates, definitely.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
No, thank you. Thank you so much. That's very, very sweet. Beautiful and wonderful. Intimidating to play this role, too, because there's no way to not compare me to Max Shrek and also to all the other Nosferatu's, including Willem Dafoe's brilliant Shadow of the Vampire version.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
uh i i've been i my career has happened because of the graciousness and kindness of the creature effects makeup people honestly uh if it wasn't for their referrals early on uh that propelled me to the next project and the next one and the next one i never would have met the you know the wonderful rolodex of directors i have now worked with including the ever great uh guillermo del toro it's because of of those early days
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Oh, thank you so, so much. Yeah, I was so I was so happy that our director, too, was on board with like making sure we hit all those all those those iconic notes. Like when he's in the bowels of the ship in transit and the captain comes down and sees him like standing up from his coffin. Yes. Stiff as a board, right? So good. Right. That took some engineering, by the way.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And then also that famous shadow going up the stairs on his way to Ellen's bedroom. So spooky. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, of course, like I said, the grabbing of the heart and the hand out to the sun when it's time.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Yeah, good question. This was, as far as prosthetics go, again, I've played creatures that are rubberized from head to toe. This was not that. This was head and hands, thank heaven. Nice. With a very specific wardrobe to match the original wardrobe. And there was a bit of a hump built into the back because he was hunched over in the original film.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
I think I probably stand a little straighter than Max Schreck did, but they still did have some extra built into that hump area of the back.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
With this long double-breasted coat. That was gorgeous. And the prosthetics, though, I wore more prosthetics than the other Nosferatus have. Really? Max Shrek was very smooth. It was basically his face with a bald cap and some ears and some funny swaths of hair placed just so. I was more wrinkled and elderly-looking, which was a design choice. And here's the fun backstory of that look.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Mike Elizalde, a very talented artist who owns the creature shop Spectral Motion, that did the Hellboy movies with me and the Silver Surfer movie with me. And he, as a garage project at home, started sculpting a Nosferatu decades ago on a life cast of me, my bust.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
He added clay to me and started sculpting what he thought Nosferatu might look like in his dreams. And he came up with that. Once it was done, they had prosthetic pieces made of it. And just as a test, fun makeup test one day, he called up and said, would you ever want to put this on just for a Saturday afternoon fun photo shoot? I said, yes. It's like manifesting.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Right. So we went and did that. And this is, again, a good 10 years before this movie came up.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Yeah. So when David Lee Fisher, who I'd worked with before on a movie much like this, we did a reimagining, a remix of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, that 1919 silent film that we made into the same thing, old movie, new movie, put together with dialogue, sound, musical score. So David Lee Fisher calls me up one day and says, hey, if you don't want to do this, I won't do it, but I have this idea.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Would you want to ever do Nosferatu like we did Caligari? And I was like... You have been reading my dreams.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Right? And I said in that same phone call, oh, my gosh, I know exactly what makeup I want to wear doing this, too. Wow. So we went back to Mike Elizalde, and his design is what Moe Meinhardt and Ben Plowman did.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
put on me on the day it took about four hours a day and those four hours also included appliances on the back of my hands to make them more bony and veiny right and also to add those those long delicious talons fingernails yes the acrylics right right talk about lee press on nails those are yeah
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Isn't that wackadoodle? I know. I love it. Just love it.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
You know, when you come to Hollywood, Landon, you're a tall, skinny, goofy actor boy, 6'3", 135 pounds. And you have a background as a mime. And you can also put your legs behind your head. So your resume says contortionist on it. There you go. So that was like my first commercial agent's dream. It's like, okay, we can do so much with this. Yeah. Yeah.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
The great unconscious. That was great. Thank you for that.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
You're okay. He licked his paws and left the room, right?
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
So they submitted me for all kinds of things that were physical tomfoolery and clowning and miming, of course. And a lot of those roles that came with that kind of breakdown also came with a look that needed to be glued on to me. So those early commercials that I did, the very first commercial I ever did was for Southwest Airlines as a dancing mummy. I love it. Right.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Wow. Great. That was his own personal workout. Yeah. Exactly.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
To the devil, yeah. And now has come back. She had some issues to work out in therapy, didn't she?
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
How that worked into an airline, I'll never remember. But but And I think the fares had dropped low enough that I could finally come out of my sarcophagus and go on vacation. I think that's how it worked. And then shortly after that, I booked a commercial for Worlds of Wonder Toys for a doll commercial. And I was an alien landing in a kid's backyard.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Well. What a crazy tale, right? That was quite a tale. So I have to ask. So are these true accounts? Is this fictitious? Where does this story come from? Polish folklore, at least, right?
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And I thought I was making first contact because the doll was left out. And it was a talking doll. But, you know, you push it on the belly. It's like, that tickles, whatever. Yeah. So it was like a funny little, oh, we're first contact. But it was, yeah.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Oh, really? Okay. So you gave us the abridged version. This is the abridged version.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Okay, it's a deal. I'm surprised it hasn't been made yet. I know. This comes from 1500 something.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
No, I don't want to. Intimidating. Right. You know, milking cows and turning them to blood. Yeah.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Thank you for that. That was that was a story I'd never heard before.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
That creature effects makeup designer that made those alien outfits for that commercial then also was doing the moon head for the Mac Tonight campaign for McDonald's.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Okay. Okay. Oh, not Billy. I don't think he has any powers to last very long. No.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Between – Baron Affines and Nosferatu. I'm going to say it's probably going to be the Baron. The Baron will have lasted longer for the Hunger Games because he tends to show, like, supernatural powers more often. Right? He flies. He zaps things with his hands. He could take them. He could take them all.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Oh, poor Billy. I'm going to have to leave him out of this one again. I know.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Okay. Okay. So why don't we – I'm going to say – Probably, let's go with Nosferatu on this one because I think that Count Orlok, his subtleties and his sneaking around the back door kind of personality might be what gets him to take over things with no one knowing about it. Whereas the Baron is very out there and very presentational. And you're right. Yeah, he does it with a flourish.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And so you see it coming and he would be stopped before. But the Count would be more shifty about it.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Right? Well, it's set to the theme song taken from Mac the Knife, but rebranded for McDonald's as Mac Tonight. I love it. It's Mac Tonight. Hey. Yeah. Yeah. So I ended up booking that job as the Crescent Moonhead guy under this huge, heavy mask, also created by Steve Neal. So I was already getting a taste of, ah, the creature effects world is tight and almost incestuous.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Well, the Baron would love to be the most famous of all of them because he's such a narcissist. But... I think Billy would win because a scene that you never saw or a moment you never saw from Hocus Pocus 1 that we did film but was cut from the film was – do you remember the costume dance party?
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Where Bette Miller gets – the witches get up on stage and sing I Put a Spell on You?
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Right. So I'm roaming about the crowd looking for the kids and trying to, you know, do my deed. And once Bette Midler sings, you know, I put a spell on you and then the whole crowd gets in a trance and starts dance, dance, dancing until the spell is broken. Right. Um, uh, I, I'm not under the spell, but I thought it was, it was kind of fun for me.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
So there was a scene where you come, the action continues outside the dance party, uh, but they, they come back to the dance party to show everybody still dancing a couple of times. Oh, I love one of those. One of those coming back to the parties was going to be Billy hopping up onto stage and dancing once he had an audience. Oh my God.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And I tell you something, I threw my legs about in such tomfoolery. I bounced up and down on the floor.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Oh, my God. That was a raging TikTok video before TikTok existed.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
I think Billy would have the dance videos that could end all dance videos if he had a TikTok.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Thank you for that. That was such a good one. Don't talk about that very often. So you might have gotten an exclusive there.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Well, let's go down the list we talked about. Of course, we have Nosferatu, a symphony of horror coming to Apple TV Friday, the 18th of October and on Amazon Prime as well. I'm also told it's on Fandango and Roku. And so look for it on whatever your device is. Um, also, uh, uh, October 21st starts the new season, the final season of what we do in the shadows.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Baron Afanasto has returned for a few episodes. You'll see me on the first night. I think that they think they told me they're going to show three episodes on the first night. So you can have a lot of shadows to, to start the season up.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Um, Also, Billy Butcherson, as we've talked about, is in Hocus Pocus 1 and 2 all month long on the Freeform channel, playing as a double feature on various nights and days. And other than that, I have more movies coming. I've been doing a lot of indies and shorts over the last year and a half, playing a lot of humans.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Yeah, I'm loving this phase. And one of them is a funny movie called Operation Taco Gary's. Obsessed already. It's a zany comedy, right? Two brothers are on a road trip across the country, and when they get to their destination, they find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy with an Earth takeover by aliens. Amazing.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And I might happen to be the alien trying to pass as a human who's the leader of all this.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
So Operation Taco Gary's is going to be playing at the Austin Film Festival October 25th.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
I know. It's quite a month. It is. Yeah. And then next week I'm actually going to North Carolina to film an episode of Blue Ridge, which is a – this is a turning of the page for me. I'm going to play a guy who lives in the mountains. And what happens with me is yet to be discovered.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
But that's a show that's led by Jonathan Sheck, if you remember him from – he was the lead singer of The Wonders in That Thing You Do.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And he was also the young hottie in a movie with Winona Ryder called American Quilt. Oh, my God. That was kind of his breakout back in the day.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
He also played Houdini in a TV movie of Houdini, and he was brilliant as that character. And he also played Jonah Hex in DC's – oh, gosh, which DC show was that? Oh, God. I'm so bad at these. Yeah, I know. I know. Right. Right. So anyway, so I, all my scenes are with him and I can't wait to, to play that out. That's this coming week. I'm going to be filming that.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And, you know, they're very loyal. So if they like working with you. So the reputation got around town that I'm tall, skinny, move well, and don't complain when there's a lot of stuff on me.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
So that'll come out on the inspiration channel and the cowboy way. I think when it's, when, when their season two finally airs.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Yeah. We're doing it. We're doing it this way this month. All good stuff.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Oh, bless you all. Thank you so much for having me. I adore you too. Don't ever change.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
So I guess that's the reputation that got around the creature effects. So the referrals happened and snowballed from there. And here we are 38 years later. And it's with a resume that I never foresaw. I never sought like, I want to be monsters. I really wanted to be a sitcom star when I started. I wanted to be like a goofy next door neighbor that comes, you know, like on the Dick Van Dyke show.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Oh, I love that. Or being Kramer on Seinfeld. The guy who comes in and does something funny and leaves. I had very low aspirations for myself.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Oh, thank you. So getting swept up by the Creature Effects world was a surprise to me, but a happy one. It has turned into a career that has been very, very good to me. And, you know, when you mentioned the likes of Guillermo del Toro, when you are standing on the stage at the Academy Awards... Because a movie you were in called The Shape of Water just won Best Picture.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And you're there with the entire team accepting the award for Best Picture. And it's an Academy Best Picture with a monster on the cover. This doesn't happen.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And you happen to be the guy who played that monster. It's surreal moment. You can imagine.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
what you're looking at you're looking out a sea of the most famous faces you've ever seen in your life and they're all looking back at you with adoration in their eyes it's like this this moment doesn't happen to just anybody no it doesn't you know that's a pinch me moment for sure totally totally i believe the aliens should abduct me now this is insane That's a good time to die happy.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Isn't that nuts? What are the chances? Isn't that weird? Yeah, it's awesome. Yes.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
If you can get a message back to him that I love him dearly to this day. Oh, of course.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
They say don't meet your heroes, but he is one you would absolutely love to meet because he will live up to all of your dreams and expectations of who he is.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
You can imagine how often I get asked, what's it like to work with Cameron Latour? You've got to tell me that. Because you're not alone in that love for him. I hear such love for him everywhere I go. And when you work with him, you're doing two things. You are under the tutelage of one of the most visionary, brilliant artists in the world ever.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
You're also hanging out with like a funny friend who is self-effacing, hilarious, and sassy as can be. So he's – right?
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Oh, no. He's got the best sense of humor. And in fact – He's a director that understands his actors better than any director normally does. He directs all of us on the same project in different ways depending on our personality and what we'll respond to because he's already sussed all that out. Wow. He's brilliant with the human spirit and psychology and all of it.
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
So with the set of buttons on us that he now knows what to push to get what reaction out of us on the day, he'll direct like – so from the Hellboy movies, Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, and Doug Jones, very different –
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Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
personalities so we all got different types of direction from him oh that's like brilliant now with me it's very simple he knows if he can make me laugh i'll do whatever whatever he says so one of my favorite examples was from hellboy to the golden army there was one long tracking shot that he wasn't going to cut away to anything he had no coverage to cut away to so i had to i had to do a lot of physical business uh while this one camera circled me
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And I had to be done with the business by the time the camera stopped. Well, I wasn't. The first take of this, it's like I was going slow and methodical and like milking these moments visually. And by the time the camera stopped, it just stayed there for a while. And I wasn't done yet. Finally, Guillermo del Toro, finally he yells, cut, doggie, you're boring me to tears.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And that's all he had to say. I was like, got it, got it.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
I heard you. So take two words. Yeah, yeah. I just love him dearly. We do have a shorthand like that.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Yes. By the way, the Baron loves you very much too, my darling. Don't worry about it. Amazing. Playing Baron Afanas has been the joy of my life. You know, after this 38-year career of mine, you know, that I have behind me with more coming ahead, of course, but looking back, it's like I...
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
I've looked forward to going to work a very handful of times over all of the jobs that I've done because I know that a lot of them are very physically taxing and I know what's ahead of me and I'm going to have to go through the process and the thing and the thing, right? Or I have a ton of science fiction dialogue that I have to blurt out in a monologue with technical talk in it.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
I love them but dread them at the same time, if that makes any sense.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
What we do in the shadows? Oh my gosh. I look forward to it with like... I can't wait to get there. I love that. Because when you're doing something that's all for the funny and you are taking vampire tropes and sending them up and like, you know, just like mocking all of it. The best. You know, in this age of comedy that we're in now, everyone's being so careful to not offend.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Well, our show does nothing but offend. everybody you know and that's what makes it great and it's got an old school vibe to it because of that right we love an equal opportunity to offender absolutely let's just make fun of everybody and we're all across the board yeah so then nobody's left out and everybody can be offended together exactly right
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
And what the Baron has also afforded me was, you know, when I've always had a love of vampires, they've always intrigued me. And I've wanted to play, you know, a classic vampire. So years ago, if you had asked me what's my dream role, it would have been what we're going to talk about next would be Nosferatu, right? Of course. You know, the dark mystery of him and the horrific look of him.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Well, when I was offered the role as Baron Afanass in What We Do in the Shadows, he kind of was a parody of Nosferatu in a way. Yeah. He's the vampire that comes from the old world. He sent all of his minions out to North America to conquer the new world, and they never made it out of Stanton Island, so he kind of stays there with them now. Like, whatever, right?
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
No, I just, I love the, now that I've done the Nosferatu, a symphony of horror movie, and what we do in the shadows, I've had both the light and the dark of this type of vampire character.
Morbid
Episode 615: Vampire Talk with Doug Jones
Well, here's the weird thing about me is that I don't need to do anything specific. Unlike most people, I don't get antsy. I don't get stir crazy. I can sit still and stare at a wall for hours and be completely entertained. Wow.