Interview: Ethan Embry on THE DEVIL’S CANDY, His Time on THE WALKING DEAD, and FREAKYLINKS

I’ve enjoyed Ethan Embry’s on-screen work for a long time now, and it’s been great to see him keeping busy these days—from his work on Grace and Frankie, to his appearance on the season 6 premiere of The Walking Dead, to his fantastic performances in genre fare like Cheap Thrills, Late Phases, The Guest, and his recent role in Sean Byrne’s The Devil’s Candy, which arrives in select theaters and on VOD on Friday, March 17th from IFC Midnight.

Daily Dead recently had the opportunity to speak in depth with Embry about his work on the film, and he discussed the appeal of playing a conflicted father who will stop at nothing to keep his family safe. Embry also chatted about working with Byrne and how he hopes fans appreciate the way the filmmaker’s vision for The Devil’s Candy represents all the metal aficionados out there.

During the interview, we also had the chance to talk to Embry about what he enjoys about the horror genre, his experiences on The Walking Dead (including how he almost played both Shane and Abraham), and he even took a moment to reflect on the cult TV show FreakyLinks, which first aired on FOX back in 2000.

What was it that you saw in Jesse when you were first considering this role in The Devil’s Candy? I thought it was cool that we got a story from a dad's perspective, since that doesn’t happen too much, at least in horror.

Ethan Embry: Yeah, I agree. For me, I wanted it to be kind of this love story, this dad that could not possibly love his girls any more, and unfortunately he's failing. There were some elements in it, originally, that were taken out with the final cut, so we could just cut to the chase, but it explains why he's so emotional about these situations.

The way they ended up telling the story still works with what they were getting across, and actually, I agree with moving those elements. At first, I missed them, but after a second viewing, I understood why they went that way. But, yeah, I took a crack at the script and said, “This is a love story,” and that's what I wanted it to be before any of the horror, thriller, or Satan stuff. I wanted it to be a story about a guy that just couldn't love his daughter any more.

You do this really amazing thing hereand you did it in Cheap Thrills, where you really disappear into these characters, and I just think that's a testament to how much you put into these roles. It’s pretty rad.

Ethan Embry: That's very kind of you to say. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. It's funny, those two roles that you bring up are probably closer to the actual Ethan than anything I've done previously. Like, for instance, the stuff on Grace and Frankie and Can't Hardly Wait, that's me being a goofball. Like, I was watching too many Jerry Lewis movies when I was growing up. But these other two movies, Cheap Thrills and The Devil's Candy, I think they closer represent who I am emotionally.

Well, speaking to that, when you came on board and talked to Sean about this character, did go through and add any personal touches to him, or was that all right there in the script already?

Ethan Embry: Well, again, that all goes back to the original backstory of Jesse, which was that he was kidnapped and molested when he was a kid, and so these things are just amplified for him when it happens to his daughter now. The one thing that he wanted to do as a parent was make sure that his daughter never experiences the things that he did.

So he sees what happens to his daughter, and he’s done. Before her, Jesse was going to give up. He was a drug addict. He could not care about tomorrow, and then he has his daughter, so he decides to give it one last shot. She represents everything about innocence to him.

How was it working with Sean?

Ethan Embry: Sean is a perfectionist filmmaker that enjoys doing things over and over and over and over again until it contains what he's looking for. A lot of times, in those situations, those directors are just purely visual, but Sean is more than that. He’s got an eye for the visual, but he’s about great stories, too. He's very, very emotional when he's working, and I've never seen someone become so emotionally invested in a performance as well. It was wild.

It can be exhausting as an actor, but it's worth it. If you keep trucking along, you're going to be pretty proud of what he pulls out of you as a performer. You really feel like you're working towards something and he appreciates it, too.

One of my favorite things about The Loved Ones was how he represents the metal sub-culture, all the metalheads out there. I don't think they've really been honestly represented in a lot of movies, but he did it in that movie, and in The Devil’s Candy, too.

You work a lot in both television and in film these days, sometimes in the genre world, and sometimes not. Is there a balance that you have found, or is it just a case of a good project being a good project?

Ethan Embry: I think a project is a project, really. I have responsibilities. I'm a working-class actor, unless there are things that are immediately turnoffs, then I don't pursue it. But with projects, and it’s the same thing with characters, you look for the things that are the positives, and those roles that are amplified. If I had my preference, I would do a lot more genre, but I'm picky with the ones that I want to do.

Because of the financial return that investors can get if a genre movie is popular, where you spend a million, two million dollars on a film, and if it's popular, it's going to grab onto that audience and it's going to make its budget a hundredfold. So there are a lot of really talented filmmakers and storytellers in that genre trying to break in, and some of the most interesting stories are coming out of that, like It Follows or Ex Machina, or even Starry Eyes, and the stuff that [producer] Travis Stevens does.

When you to go to Fantastic Fest and see these independent genre films, they're all trying something new. Those are the films that I like, the ones that are trying to tell a new story and not just going for the gore, because there's a place for that, too.

Well, it does seem like horror is really the only genre that takes risks these days.

Ethan Embry: Because the risk pays off. The risk is that the audience is looking for that new way to be scared, and the reason we do this as actors is to just get a reaction out of our audience. It's hard. It's elusive, but when you get it, nothing feels better than fear. When you're able to trigger someone's fear, it’s awesome. It feels so good.

I was really excited to see, back in season 6, that Ethan Embry was going to be on the season premiere of The Walking Dead, which I thought was amazing, and then–

Ethan Embry: And then I died. Yeah, I tripped on a shrub and that was it.

I won’t lie, I was kind of pissed off [laughs]. Was that just a fun experience for you to go down and play with some zombies for a week or two in Atlanta? I'm just curious how that all came together.

Ethan Embry: Right now, I can't do more than three episodes of another TV show while I'm doing Grace and Frankie, and I've been trying to get on The Walking Dead since the very beginning. I went in and I'd read for Shane, the other cop dude, but I didn’t get it.

And then, I went back in and it was between Michael Cudlitz and I for Abraham. I didn't share that with anybody before, just because he was still alive. But now that he's [Abraham’s] dead, I feel like I can mention it now.

Anyway, I thought it was a lot of fun. Those people are amazing. Greg Nicotero is awesome. I would love to work on a film with that guy. He's just a good dude. There is an elite part of Hollywood that I don't fit in with. I am more than happy to work with them, but I don't feel comfortable at their dinner table. Greg is not like that at all. He's just one of us, you know?

Before we go, I would love to hear about your experiences working on FreakyLinks, because it was such a fun show, and it’s gone on to get this fun cult following over the years. 

Ethan Embry: Yeah, people liked it. It's funny, because it is such a good snapshot of the super early 2000s, where I look like a lead singer from Smash Mouth with the streaked hair tips and neon tank tops. When you look at the publicity stills from that show, you just want to slap me, but that was so cool back then.

I had a lot of fun making it. It was the Blair Witch guys that created that show. And when we did the pilot, it was a lot darker tone-wise. It was more about suicide and the devil and the Antichrist, but when they picked it up, a new showrunner came on and they scrapped the whole devil idea and made it a little more like popcorn fare. I think that decision was fine, but they were consistently trying to figure that show out the entire time we were working on it.

But, I had a good time doing it. I just like working, especially on projects like FreakyLinks, where you work a lot and you work really hard, but you’re doing fun, stupid shit. That's my favorite kind of work.