I saw Janet Leigh interviewed on TV many years ago.
She starred in “Psycho” and went through the production of it without any touble at all.
But after seeing the final product, she could no longer take a shower (at least up until the time of the interview). Had to be a bath, and no doubt the door had to be locked.
So I wonder if anyone has heard about other actors being spooked by their roles - or even that of a co-actor’s role.
And what about child actors?
How are their psyches protected in films that deal with extreme violence, eerieness, and so on?
I don’t know how much it scared them, but there were a lot of strange coincidences that cropped up after Poltergeist, including the deaths of two of the young stars. Sort of things that E! True Hollywood Story thrives on, you know.
Back in the early 40’s, The Pride of the Yankees came out, and I was only 8 or 9, but I watched it, profoundly embarrassed for Gary Cooper.
It was so obvious that Cooper was no athlete. What’s worse, here he was portraying Lou Gehrig, the Yankees’ Hall of Fame Iron Man, but this actor threw like a girl, swung a bat like a quadraplegic and spoke his lines like a wooden Indian.
I wonder if he ever learned how to use his voice properly. It’s been a long, long time since I saw it, but I’d bet the farm his delivery in High Noon was just as bad.
Carrie Henn, the little girl who played Newt in the 2[sup]nd[/sup] film Aliens, said that making that movie was not the least bit scary. The aliens were just guys in suits that she’d be talking to and playing around with right before each shot.
She said she was amazed at how scary the actual movie turned out to be (and I don’t think they let her see it until she was older).
Slightly offtopic. I read that Stephen King isn’t afraid of his monsters, probably because his behind the stories. But the dead-lady-in-bathtub in The Shining creeped him out.
Sir Anthony Hopkins was in Atlanta filming Freejack with Mick Jagger and Emilio Estevez when ‘Silence of the Lambs’ came out.
According to the local rag, he surreptitiously popped into a local mall theater (Lenox) to see the final version.
Everything was fine until the movie ended and the house lights came up. The three women seated in front of him got up leave and turned around to see Hannibal Lecter sitting behind them. Much screeching and fainting ensued.
I think I would have fainted or pissed myself, given the circumstances.
Not an actor but DIrector. Stanley Kubrick withdrew “A Clockwork Orange” from cinemas in the UK after it had initially been released due to death threats he had received after it had been reported by the press where young thugs were alledgedly influenced by the film.
Until a couple of years ago the only way we could see it in the UK was on pirate video or go over to France.
Stockton: A very similar story is told about Vincent Price. Supposedly, he was in London, filming something, and happened to see “House Of Wax” showing at a neighborhood theatre, and he hadn’t seen the theatrical cut yet, so he stopped and bought a ticket.
He had a fine time watching the movie, but was greatly amused by two teenage girls sitting in the row in front of him, who were also having a good time, laughing at the funny parts, ooohing and aaahing at the appropriate points, and shrieking at the scary parts.
After the movie, the lights came up, and Price leaned forward, between the two girls. “So,” he remarked, “did you LIKE it…?”
I seem to remember reading this story in a magazine article, in which Price himself told the story. Couldn’t cite it, now, though…
I heard that What’s-her-face in Silence of the Lambs (I completely forgot her name) was so frightened by it that she refused to do the sequel. Dunno if it’s true or not.
There’s also a story shortly after Hannibal was released where Hopkins was in an elevator and a little boy and his mother entered. Needless to say, he scared the little boy half to death. Of course you needn’t see Hannibal or Silence of the Lambs to know who Hannibal Lecter was, though.
Stephen King jumped out of his seat at the ending of Carrie. I believe he’s said that the movie was far scarier than the book.
Psycho the movie was infinitely scarier than the book.
It’s been many, any years, but I think if you read it (in less than an hour and a half), you’ll find the shower scene almost a total zero. Rips open curtain, lops off head. End of scene.
Hitchcock must have looked at the page and lamented the writer’s lack of talent for terror.
Not. At least, not the part about being too scared to do a sequel.
I completely agree with her take on it… I don’t know if she was scared by the first one, though.
Stephen King isn’t afraid of most of his monsters, as I understand it, but I’ve read interviews in which he states he never wants to re-read Pet Sematary because it’s too scary for him. No cite on that that I can find, but I remember hearing/reading it from him more than once…
I remember reading somewhere that Samantha Eggar had nightmares during the filming of The Brood. I thought I read it on the film’s IMDB trivia page, but when I tried to look it up to confirm it just now, I found that The Brood doesn’t have an IMDB trivia page. Oh, well.
The DVD commentary says the cast didn’t know exactly what was going to happen during the chest-bursting scene in Alien. So the scream from Veronica Cartwright is genuine fear, disgust, etc.
I heard that Haley Joel Osment wasn’t allowed to watch certain parts of The Sixth Sense that were too gory for him at that age.
Like the people that were dead and covered in blood. Which is ironic because his character was supposed to be the only one who could see them. (On second thought, perhaps that didn’t really require a spoiler box…)
I don’t know how old he was when he did see those parts, or if they scared him .
