Marvel Studios’ Werewolf by Night took us all by surprise by showing what a true horror story would look like in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we can’t wait to have more of its amazing characters. Besides diving deep into the B-horror tradition for Werewolf by Night, director Michael Giacchino also brought a group of very talented stars to elevate his monster movie. One of these stars is no one less than Kirk Thatcher, a Hollywood legend involved with major franchises such as The Muppets and Star Trek. So, when Collider’s own Steve Weintraub sat down to talk with Thatcher about his legendary career, we used the opportunity to ask about what happened behind the scenes of Marvel Studios’ first Halloween special.
Werewolf By Night follows a group of monster hunters who are in charge of killing a dangerous creature to prove they are worthy of using the power of the Bloodstone, a mythical artifact capable of repelling monsters. One of these hunters is Jovan (Thatcher), a Scottish brute with a thirst for blood that quickly becomes the movie’s true monster. While there are many iconic characters in Werewolf by Night, such as Jack Russell (Gael García Bernal) and Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly), Jovan became a fan-favorite thanks to Thatcher's incredible performance. However, the star reveals he didn’t know what he was getting into when Giacchino asked him to participate in the project. In fact, Thatcher didn’t even know he was doing more than a cameo. As the star tells us:
“When Michael was asking if I wanted to be in the movie and I said, ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘Well, work on your Scottish accent and grow your hair and beard out.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ So then as the script was developing, I said, ‘Do I have any good scenes?’ He goes, ‘You have a really good death.’ I didn't know what that meant. He said, ‘You're going to have a really great death scene.’ I said, ‘Well, okay, if I'm going to be killed as long as it's good.’ He goes, ‘No, no, it's really good." I'm like, ‘All right.’”
For a long while, all Thatcher knew about his character was that he was Scottish. Thatcher says, “I just knew enough to not ask because I didn't want to know things that I could accidentally spill.” Marvel Studios is careful about their secrets, and being a Hollywood veteran helped Thatcher to accept he would only learn about detail when he was on set. However, little by little, Thatcher began to learn more about his character, though. As he explains to us:
“So about a year ago I went in for wardrobe fittings and I didn't know anything about my character, so I show up, and then here's a black kilt and a black leather jacket covered in belts. There were earrings and nose rings, and rings and gloves. (...) So there I was, and that's all I knew. I was holding an ax. So I said, ‘Okay, I'm some sort of Scottish Viking kind of letter-bound bad guy.’ But I didn't know anything until two days before I got on the plane to fly to Atlanta, and that's when he sent me the script.”
Even two days before shooting, Thatcher was left in the dark about some of the movie’s major secrets because his copy of the script didn’t reveal the full picture. Thatcher was so oblivious about what was going on in Werewolf by Night that he didn’t even know he would be part of some sort of competition. The first scene he shot was at Ulysses Bloodstone's funeral, and Thatcher thought the vibe of the moment was supposed to be joyous. As he explains it:
“We knew we were there to honor the death of Ulysses, but I thought that was it. I didn't know there was a monster hunt, and I didn't know we'd be killing each other. (...) I thought it was basically a funeral and a wake. We're all going to drink and have a good time, so I'm kind of more jovial. Then, when we're sitting there, they’re like, ‘Oh no, you're all fair game, and you're going to go hunt this monster, and whoever gets the Bloodstone…’ So suddenly, I'm like, ‘Oh, okay.’ Then I turn into the bad guy.”
Since Thatcher was kept in the dark until the last possible second, he didn’t know he was supposed to play a bad guy until he was on set. That might explain why Jovan is charismatic and why people like him so much. Nevertheless, Thatcher’s magnetic personality caused a few production hiccups, as the crew “did a day of re-shoots, which was mainly my character being more of a monster than he was.” Thatcher reasons about that choice by saying, “I think what they realized is I'm kind of more cuddly than monstrous, so they had to have me smash Elsa's head against the stone wall three times, so you're like, ‘Oh okay, we want this guy to die.’”
Ignoring the script also led to much extra work behind cameras, as Thatcher tried to learn the stunts he needed to perform during his fight with the other hunters. For Thatcher, “a lot of my time, when I wasn't on set, was stunt rehearsals, learning how to swing the ax, so it looks good on camera, and how to shove someone's head into a wall without actually shoving their head into a stone wall.” Even though it was a chaotic experience for starters, Thatcher says “it was fun” to work on Werewolf by Night and that he’s really proud of the movie he helped build.
When Did Thatcher Become a Fan of Werewolf By Night?
After all his hard work playing Jovan, Thatcher was excited to see Werewolf by Night for the first time. As the star tells us, his first screening of the movie “didn't even have the ending yet, the ending that it has now, the last shot or the last little scene.” A lot of post-production also wasn’t ready, including some of Giacchino’s incredible original tracks. The first time Thatcher watched Werewolf by Night “it didn't have that beautiful song [at the ending], but you knew it was good, and you knew that the performances were great, but everyone asked you, ‘Did you know it was great?’ I knew it was good, but it got so much better in post with re-edits.” In fact, the movie was so unfinished that Thatcher didn't even know the final version would be black-and-white. The star says, “I just thought they were showing in black and white, so they weren't doing color-correct or anything.”
After this first screening of Werewolf by Night, Thatcher would only see the movie again in its final form during an L.A. premiere. It was then that Thatcher went, “Wow, this is really fun.” Thatcher was already convinced Werewolf by Night was good, but that L.A. premiere proved him right. In Thatcher’s words, “the cinematography was so great. You just knew it was a good movie, but you never know. I've worked on things I thought were going to be really good and just people are like, ‘Eh, it's fine.’” After that evening, there was no doubt because “we knew all of it was good, but to know that it tickles the audience the way it does was great. And it's really great to see with a live audience.”
During our exclusive interview, Thatcher also discussed Marvel Studios' success, saying that it comes from a place of love since producer Kevin Feige and all the people involved with the MCU are really passionate about what they do. According to Thatcher:
“That's why everyone's like, ‘Why does Marvel do so well? Why does Pixar do so well?’ Because it's under the umbrella of a corporation, but it's run by people who get it and love it. They're not like, ‘I'm an MBA, I'm a Harvard MBA and I ran a software company or a shoe company, and now I'm taking over film because they know how to market and sell.’ They know their audience because they are the audience. I think that was a big part of it.”
Werewolf By Night is streaming right now on Disney+. Look for more from our exclusive interview with Thatcher soon.