*Spoilers* Now that Chucky Season 3 finale has aired, I'm excited to share my chat with Brad and Fiona Dourif, who talk about sharing scenes as Charles Lee Ray, the evolution of Chucky in Season 3, and more!
It was so great to see the two of you on screen together as Charles Lee Ray. What was the experience like on set for the both of you?
Brad Dourif: I got to scold my kid. I got to tell her what to do and how she should be doing things... [Laughs] When Fiona started out, we both did auditions together. So part of it was like, "I'm back in my living room." It was very freeing and fun.
Fiona Dourif: I was nervous about it and then when we were actually shooting, it was just pure joy. I remember after we finished, I thanked Don [Mancini] from the bottom of my heart, "Thank you for giving this to the Dourif family!" It just feels like such a gift.
This season continued to expand the mythology of Chucky, introducing the afterlife and Chucky's creator. Has it been exciting for you to see Chucky to continue to evolve in new ways?
Brad Dourif: There wasn't that much Brando Chucky, so that was good. Good Chucky is fun, so I was looking forward to that. I had to voice Damballa and I didn't know what I was going to do, and that was a little scary. We finally got to something that really worked, and when I did it live, with my own voice, I was acting against myself. I thought that would be a problem, and it wasn't at all. I felt like somebody else did it, that it was just another person, oddly enough.
Fiona Dourif: When I had first my first scene with Chucky, 13 years ago, with a practical puppet and my dad's voice playing, I also thought it was going to be a problem. I had originally asked Don Mancini to have somebody else voice it, like it was going to throw me, and exactly the opposite happened. It was helpful. It felt unnerving to have a voice that felt like somebody else, but felt familiar also, in some kind of way. It was frightening.
I think each season gets better, and it's fun to see somebody as smart and creative as Don get to play with different genres. He got to make a haunted White House movie.
Brad Dourif: What could be more fun? Don makes the dialogue good. He keeps expanding the mythology in a way that's linear. He's not lazy about it. Keep it coming, forever. We love making it too.
I loved to see Jake, Zachary Arthur's character, get possessed by Charles Lee Ray. He got to do his own Charles Lee Ray impression and his Chucky voice. I feel like he really did a great job. What did you two think?
Brad Dourif: Yeah he really did. I worked with Zachary, and the thing is that when Charles Lee Ray embodies somebody who is actually physically there, they can have a part of themselves there too. So, basically, what I would tell him is there are certain things that are innately Charles Lee Ray. He loves his job. He's deadly serious about murder. And to be loose, and free.
I thought he was great. Also, Chucky pretending to be him... that extra layer was just great.
After spending more than 10 years as a consultant in the tech and entertainment industry, Jonathan James launched Daily Dead in 2010 to share his interest in horror and sci-fi. Since then, it has grown into an online magazine with a staff of writers that provide daily news, reviews, interviews, and special features.
As the Editor-in-Chief of Daily Dead, Jonathan is responsible for bringing the latest horror news to millions of readers from around the world. He is also consulted with as an expert on zombies in entertainment and pop culture, providing analyses of the zombie sub-genre to newspapers, radio stations, and convention attendees.
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