The movie is about a 12-year-old boy who suddenly finds himself at the center of a battle between two warring groups of werewolves. One group of werewolves is sworn to protect him, the other group is trying to kill him -- and the young boy's mother has to find out why her son is at the center of the conflict before time runs out.
So to help promote the movie, I got to participate in some roundtable interviews with some of the stars of the film, and posted below is the interview with Jason Behr.
If his name sounds familiar or you recognize his face, it could be for his work on the show â
During the interview Jason explained why he was attracted to the role, what it was like to work with Stan Winston, what he has coming up and a lot more. If youâre a fan of Jasonâs youâll dig the interview.
And while I wonât transcribing the interviews that were done with Stan Winston, Shawn Roberts and Natassia Malthe, if you click on their names you can download the MP3 of the interview.
âSkinwalkersâ opens this Friday at theaters everywhere.
Question: How are you?
Jason Behr: Iâm doing good. Iâm a little hot.
Q: I heard it was really hot on this movie.
JASON BEHR: Thatâs the rumor.
Q: Itâs the summer and youâre in leather.
Thatâs the rumor, but donât tell anybody. [Laughs]
Q: You usually play the hero, did you really go after a role that wasnât or do you consider yourself a hero?
[Laughs] That was one of the biggest draws for me was that Iâm playing the bad guy. Itâs such a departure for me. It was something Iâve never done before. Iâm doing all these sorts of things that Iâve always wanted to do I think as a kid and then as an actor. I got a chance to shoot guns and ride motorcycles and do all this insane wire work and stunts and just be a big, badass wolf.
Q: Can you describe your character in your own words?
Varek is the very alpha leader of this group of naturalists or purists. The movie is about two very different tribes of Skinwalkers. One, Varekâs group, is the purists. They have embraced that power and embraced that freedom and blood lust and theyâre almost addicted to it. They believe that power to be a gift. The others, the wimpy wolves, they believe it to be a curse and they have suppressed that primeval instinct for centuries. So I get to play the big, badass alpha werewolf which was just cool for me.
Q: I heard you went to the zoo and really studiedâ¦
I did.
Q: How does that work? Does that really help you to develop your movement?
I just wanted to be as truthful as I possibly could to the material and to Stan Winston and everything that heâs done for the project. We started off with watching this documentary about the
Q: How was the werewolf sex?
[Laughs] The werewolf sex?
Q: Yeah.
It was fantastic. You should try it sometime. What a question! To be able to actually answer that would be pretty amazing. We had our teeth in, we had our eyes in, weâre out in the middle of nowhere, and literally naked.
Q: Youâre following in a lot of great werewolf sex scenes. Other people have done it before so itâs okay.
Yeah. Well it was interesting. Iâll say that. I mean you had to be careful with the teeth because you could really take some flesh off with them.
Q: To what extent did Stan Winstonâs make-up help you get into character? Was that a long, arduous process?
It was a pretty long process, but it did help sort of get into that mode. Stan is a legend. Heâs been doing this for a long time. I figured if youâre going to do a werewolf movie, you might as well do it with Stan because heâs the best at what he does. Pure genius. Heâs been wanting to do a werewolf movie since he was a teenager. He has a story about how he would go out on Halloween dressed up as a werewolf because he loved werewolves. Itâs the reason why he got into this business in the first place and heâs never done a werewolf movie before. I felt like I was in extraordinary hands with him. His creation, his wolf suit, allowed us the freedom and gave us permission to play full out. When you put on the claws and you put in the teeth and you put in the eyes and you stand up, you feel like youâve become something else. It gave you complete freedom.
Q: When youâre in that full make-up, do you feel a little immobilized? Weâve heard how sometimes if you put in the contacts, you canât see anything anymore.
I will say that the vision was a little bit tough to get used to. Youâre talking about contacts that fill in the entire eyeball pretty much. You donât have a huge peripheral vision. Itâs pretty small, but you get used to it. You sort of have to. But the suits themselves did allow for a lot of physical freedom and movement because Stan knew that we had to do all these stunts. I did as much as I possibly could with the stunts. We had a guy named Steve Lucescu who is one of the worldâs best stuntmen. He would show me something to do and Iâd come back the next day and say, âGive me more. Give me more.â I felt like a big, giant kid playing every day.
Q: They allowed you to do it then?
Yeah. They did. Absolutely.
Q: No stunt double?
No. I think there were some things that they had doubles for only because of time issues, but for the most part itâs all me, itâs all wolf, itâs all fun.
Q: Did you do any fight training beforehand to get ready?
Iâve done some stage combat stuff before so Iâm familiar with that. As far as the training, they really didnât give us a whole lot of time to really fully prepare for it. They gave us a real sort of condensed gun training. We needed to be safe but as far as getting familiar with the gun -- and if youâve seen the movie, I had some pretty heavy guns -- they didnât give us a whole lot of time to adjust to that. It was fast, it was curious, and we were left to instinct which I guess is what itâs all about.
Q: You were in â
Itâs usually based on a project by project basis. Iâve tried to balance it out with a lot of independent, character-driven pieces as well which Iâve been lucky enough and fortunate enough to do. To me, itâs always been first and foremost the character and the character within the piece and the story. If anything, Iâm drawn to good storytelling.
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Q: Can you talk a little bit about upcoming projects you have?
I did a movie, âD-War,â thatâs coming out in September. Then, after that, I have âThe Tattooistâ that I did in
Q: Youâre really busy.
Yeah. Thank goodness, thank goodness. I love it.
Q: This story seems almost a coming of age story with the boy at the center of it. Can you talk a little bit about that and also there seems to be a heavy drug abuse metaphor in this?
I think Matthew Knight who plays Timothy is really a talented kid and thatâs a lot of pressure on somebody to really carry that discovery and that moral compass of the piece. It is a coming of age story about him finding within himself the ability to really embrace his own power and to really believe in himself. As far as the drug metaphor, yes, itâs absolutely this addicted quality to that blood lust. That was something we all talked about and discussed before we started to shoot.
Q: You do have a lot of upcoming projects and youâve done things in the past. What is it about scripts that jump out on the page?
Itâs never one specific thing. Like I said, the biggest thing is the characters and what that characterâs journey is. Sometimes youâll find a really interesting, very captivating character within a mediocre story but you donât really want to be a part of a mediocre story so you wonder if there is any way you can possibly make that better. Thereâs no one specific thing. I love challenges and I love to mix it up a bit and have the variety. Iâm constantly trying to challenge myself as an actor and also allow myself to explore things that Iâve never explored before.
Q: Have you considered going back to TV?
Yeah. I think there are great stories that are told on TV right now. I think that the lines between television and film have become very blurry. Itâs on a project by project basis.
Q: Was there anything you had to learn to do this? Had you done wire work before?
Never. Iâd never done wire work before. Steve Lucescu, our stunt guy, our stunt guru, really wanted to make this exciting and new and do things that had never been done in the stunt world. I really wanted to and I took it upon myself to do as much as I possibly could to allow that to happen. But I had never done wire work before, never shot those kinds of guns before, and I certainly, sure as shit, didnât put on a werewolf outfit before [laughs] so it was just a lot of fun. I just had the time of my life.
Q: How hard is wire work to learn? Is it something that is just natural, that you know when you start doing it?
I was the only person who really did it. Kim Coates, who plays Zo and is like my right hand man in the piece, did a few things here and there, but I think they saved most of the wire work for Varek because heâs supposed to be, of course, the biggest badass in the world.