Interview: Mark Duplass Talks THE CREEP TAPES Season 2, Keeping the Franchise Fresh, and Teaming Up with the Transgender Film Center

With The Creep Tapes Season 2 right around the corner, the Daily Dead team thought there was no better way to celebrate than to sit down with Peachfuzz himself, Mark Duplass, to discuss what’s to come not just for the franchise, but with his partnership with the Transgender Film Center and the future of the Found Footage Feature Fund.

The beauty of spending so much time with Wolfy is that, as the franchise progresses, there’s almost nothing he can’t do. Still it can be a challenge to keep things fresh 11 years into a story, so it felt important to dig into what makes The Creep Tapes Season 2 stand out.

“We expand the scope a little bit, but I would say the core of what we are focusing on is trying to maintain the reckless spirit with which this thing has been built,” Duplass explains. “Now that we are two movies and 12 episodes in, how do you make sure that you're still using that exploratory energy? And I think the answer for us is just to take some wild swings and try a lot of different things and not get into our comfort zone.”

That reckless spirit has been essential to the success of the Creep universe, but Duplass and his creative partner Patrick Brice—who co-writes and directs the franchise—don’t extend that recklessness into producing ideas willy-nilly. In fact, after the success of Creep 2, they wanted to pump the brakes and make extra sure that Peachfuzz’s next feature lived up to the Creep name. Of course, writing a feature and an anthological episode are completely different beasts.

“I think we were very intimidated to make a Creep 3,” Duplass acknowledges. “We didn't want to disappoint our fans who stuck with us through movie one and two. But I think now we know that yes, there will be more movies, there will be more episodes, there might be an opera at some point. Who knows what's going to happen? I think we're feeling less precious and more fun and realizing that people just want to be with this character and they want to be in this world. And the more we free ourselves up to try new things, I think the better things go.”

Still, you’d think that coming up with so many different ideas can be just as hard as making a feature, but Duplass doesn’t come from that school of thought. “For me, it is actually harder to come up with the one idea that works for 80 minutes than it is to come up with a hundred ideas that work for 25 minutes.”

Speaking of hundreds of ideas, that’s exactly what Duplass, Brice, and the team at the Transgender Film Center are about to wade through, and they couldn’t be more excited to do so.

Back in September, Duplass Brothers Productions announced a partnership with the Transgender Film Center to launch the Found Footage Feature Fund. This fund will award an up-and-coming trans creator with a $25,000 grant and consultations with Duplass and the team to ensure the up-and-coming filmmaker has all the tools they need at their disposal.

No one would ever question Duplass’ love and dedication to the Creep franchise, but it was when we asked about the future of the project now that the submission deadline has passed that the actor was visibly most excited. 

“I'm just really, really excited to pick that filmmaker and then build that movie together,” Duplass says while beaming after gushing about the brilliant Sav Rodgers and his excitement to partner with both him and the Transgender Film Center. “But most importantly, the most exciting part of this initiative is that there's a little bit of a healthy trick involved in this, which is that all these applications are going to come in and unfortunately, only one person is going to be picked, but every other person will have designed a found footage movie that can be made for under $25,000.”

Earlier in our interview, Duplass mentioned that “if you want to stay alive, stay cheap so you can keep going,” so far as the ongoing success of Creep is concerned. His philosophy extends to the future filmmakers applying for the fund as well.

“That [completing the application process] actually means once you've done that, you actually don't need me. You can go on Seed & Spark, you can go on Kickstarter, you can raise these funds by having your friends, family, everybody around chip in $50 apiece and go make your movie. So we're actually not only greenlighting the one project that we fund, we're going to backdoor greenlight hundreds of projects from trans filmmakers in the process. So that to me is why this initiative is kind of in its best form.”

And that, friends and readers, is one hell of an exciting prospect. Keep your eyes on the Transgender Film Center’s website for updates on the recipient of the grant, and keep your eyes on Shudder and AMC+ for The Creep Tapes Season 2 on November 14th.