Jared Padalecki Interview, Friday the 13th Remake

Welcome back to Crystal Lake in a chilling re-imagining of the classic horror film “Friday the 13th.” MoviesOnline sat down recently with Jared Padalecki to talk about his starring role in “Friday the 13th,” directed by Marcus Nispel from a screenplay by Damian Shannon & Mark Swift.

Against the advice of police and cautions from the locals, Clay Miller (Padalecki) pursues what few leads he has in the search for his missing sister, Whitney (Amanda Righetti), with the help of Jenna (Danielle Panabaker), a young woman he meets among a group of college kids up at Crystal Lake for an all-thrills weekend.  But they are all about to find much more than they bargained for. Little do they know, they’ve entered the domain of one of the most terrifying specters in American film history—the infamous killer who haunts Crystal Lake, armed with a razor-sharp machete… Jason Voorhees (Derek Mears). The film also stars Aaron Yoo and Travis Van Winkle.

Padalecki is currently filming the fourth season of The CW's successful thriller "Supernatural," in which he stars as Sam Winchester, the sweet, reluctant hero who joins his brother (Jensen Ackles) to save their father from unseen forces. Previously, he had been best known for his starring role as Dean, the boyfriend of Alexis Bledel's character, Rory, on "Gilmore Girls."

Padalecki recently starred as famed artist Thomas Kinkade, alongside Peter O'Toole and Marcia Gay Harden, in the biopic "Home for Christmas." Based on the life of one of America's most collected living artists, the film dramatizes the inspiration behind Kinkade's painting The Christmas Cottage.

His additional feature credits include the horror film "House of Wax," with Chad Michael Murray and Paris Hilton; "Cry Wolf," as a precocious boarding school student drawn into a "liar's club" hoax involving a serial killer; "Flight of the Phoenix," opposite Dennis Quaid and Giovanni Ribisi; "New York Minute," with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen; and "Cheaper by the Dozen," starring Steve Martin.

Born and raised in San Antonio, Jared Padalecki is a fabulous person and we really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us about his exciting new movie:

Q: You and Jensen Ackles have dualing slasher movies now. How weird is it that your 'Supernatural' co-star had a horror movie come out right before yours?

Jared: I know, yeah. When we found out that we were coming out on February 13th and his movie is obviously called My Bloody Valentine, we were like “Oh, man, I hope they don't go up against each other” because we're buddies and it's not like it’s really going to affect anything but it’s like, you know, I don't really want the stigma but, luckily, his already came out and did tremendously. Now, it's my turn.

Q: Both of them are good. Did he say to you, “But mine is in 3-D”?

Jared: Well, we actually went and saw it opening night. Bizarrely, for one of the rare times of the year, we each had a day off and his girlfriend was in town and Kerr Smith, who is in the movie also, was in town. So, we actually snuck into the theater, put the little glasses on and we got to thinking later, “You know what? I'll bet you the people behind us were like 'These glasses are amazing! It's like they're right here!’” [laughs] So, it was a lot of fun. It's a really fun movie. If you haven't seen it, it's a lot of fun to go see. I’m giving him a shameless plug.

Q: Has he seen yours yet?

Jared: I haven't even seen mine because I've been working. Every time they have a screening, it's like “Oh, I have this.”  Every time they're like “Hey, you comin' to the party tonight?”, it's like “Well, it's Thursday. I'll probably be working till 3 A.M. in Vancouver.”

Q: How hard is it when Derek is such a nice guy to look at him in the mask and really be scared? After meeting him, I wasn't scared of him at all.

Jared: Derek's an awful man. No, Derek is incredible. I think, if it had been maskless, like if he just played like 'Here's a big dude and he's gonna kill you' without the stigma of Jason....that's the second time I've used that word (stigma) in probably ten years. I've used it twice in the last five minutes. If he hadn't had the mask and the physicality, then I would have been like, “Oh, Derek, you're not gonna hurt me. You could kill me but you're too nice.” I'd probably kick him in the shin and he'd be like “Man, you know, leave me alone!” But, he's tremendous from what I've seen. I sort of get to cheat and I have lines and I can use my facial expressions and stuff like that and he just expresses so much with his movement and he’s so capable that it was really easy to get there and, plus, they call “action” and you're looking at Jason and you're like “Ha, ha! I grew up watching you. Let’s fight.” So that's really cool. But, it was really comforting to work with him because we had a couple of fight scenes, as you know, like the one in the barn.  I had mud in my eyes and I couldn't wipe my eyes so most of the takes, like the second take, I had sand and stuff and I couldn't really see anything so I'd slip and he'd pause, holding me and pull me back up and I'm 220 pounds and he's like “I gotcha,” back on my feet, “Thank you.” He's really a cool guy but I can't wait to see his performance.

Q: The original series wasn't much on character and acting, were you concerned about that?

Jared: (laughs) What? What do you mean?

Q: Were you surprised that there was so much to do in this one? Or, did you have any thoughts before you got the script?

Jared: Before I got the script, honestly, my thought was “Man, I really like Friday the 13th” and I'd seen “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” [re-make] that they had done and I loved it. Before we started shooting “House of Wax,” we watched it and Joel Silver said, “Listen, this is kind of what we're doing. We're trying to re-make an old classic and make it new and fun and modern and sexy and scary.”  We watched it and all of us were like “That's a really good movie.” It was really well-shot, really scary, really real. The characters are fun. You kind of felt for them and you could identify with them. You're like, “Ah, I get it.” They actually had arcs which is nice because I love just the cheesy horror for the sake of horror, death for the sake of death, like “Ah, fun, crazy. Let's wait for the next kind of kooky death.” But, it's kind of fun as an actor to go like “Hey, kill me, fine.  That's cool. Make it fun.” But give me something to do. Give me something to make it real for myself so I'm not just running around going “All right. When is it my turn to die?”

So that was exciting to read the script and then exciting to sit down with Brad Fuller and everybody and talk about “Hey, we're trying to make it real. We're trying to plug into the reality.” It's so funny because we were filming a movie about a guy who's immortal and he’s going to go kill everybody in the woods but we'd sit down and they’d be like “This doesn't feel real.” [laughs] And you’re like, “Well no, it doesn't feel real. This is Jason Voorhees. It's not real.”  But, sometimes we'd pause for like thirty minutes and we're like “Listen, this is where the audience is watching it and they’d start to laugh and get up and leave because it's so bullshit.” So we'd sit down and fix it. They were like “Let's make it real. This wouldn't happen. None of this would happen but this really wouldn't happen.” So, that was nice to be a part of.

Q: You're from San Antonio. Were you familiar with any of the Texas locations you worked in?

Jared: Austin is my favorite city.

Q: Were you the tour guide for everybody when they were goofing off there?

Jared: Kind of. I still was doing “Supernatural” for the first two weeks of principal photography on “Friday the 13th” so they'd been there a while in the city but some of my best friends live in Austin. A really close friend of mine, Logan, he's got a boat. We go wake boarding. My sister was graduating from college there. I was actually enrolled at UT Austin. Austin was always my favorite city. I was south of Dallas where my brother and his wife had a kid. It was great. The location was perfect for me. If I didn't work that summer, I would have probably been in Austin hanging out with my friends so it was like cool! What an amazing opportunity. Austin's awesome for those of you who haven't had a chance to see it. I know you'd like it.

Q: You don't just have to contend with Jason in this. You also have to deal with douche bag Travis [Jared bursts out laughing]. He's the best cinematic douche bag in the last century.

Jared: That's so funny.

Q: Your scenes were great with him. Did you guys improv some of that?

Jared:  A little bit, yeah. What's funny is, maybe it's my fault for being jaded by Hollywood, but I saw a picture of Travis and I saw his resume. I hadn't really seen a lot of his work and I was like “Oh, he's gonna be a douche. He plays a douche. He's gonna be a turd.” And then I met him and he's like the coolest, most down-to-earth guy. He was talking about how he still gets his hair cut at Supercuts but his agent got mad at him. He was like, “Quit getting your hair cut at Supercuts!” He was like “Why, man? Like it's five bucks!” He's just that guy and we'd go work out and he was just a total, total rad guy. So, I learned. I had the pleasure of being humbled many times. As soon as someone's like “Great. He has three names? He must be a turd.” But then he was really cool so it was nice to get along. We had fun. After the takes we'd be like “Cool, man. That’s kind of fun.” We were kind of playing with each other, but I'm excited to see his character having heard that he's the biggest douche bag character in a long time. He gets a lot of good audience reaction. He does have a good death. That must be really fun for the audience.

Q: That was you on the motorcycle, right?

Jared: Yeah, that was me on the bike.

Q: You ride a lot of cycles or not?

Jared:  I don't, actually. I've been on dirt bikes and I've ridden motorcycles every now and again and like Vespas and stuff like that. But, when I found out that I was going to be riding in the movie, I was still up in Vancouver on 'Supernatural' and I called a stunt guy that's a buddy of mine who has like four motorcycles and I was like “Hey, man, I'm riding a motorcycle in the movie. Want to show me some stuff?” So, he literally brought a bike down to stage and left it there for me. He was like “Listen, when you aren't shooting, just start it up and ride it around.” We'd get like an hour or two hours between set-ups and a few of the guys on set ride hogs so they'd give me advice. One of our camera guys, Jose, gave me a book on "Advanced Motorcycle Techniques" and stuff like that so I wasn't doing any of those but they went through the basics so I had a lot of help. I'm sure that they only used the takes where I looked cool because sometimes I was like “Ahhhh” [indicates holding onto the handlebars shakily] “Cut, cut.”

Q: Did you get to watch anybody else's death scene? Well, we can't say who dies but...

Jared: I was there during... well, we filmed on location and if I was not in a location....let's just say if I was not in a woodshed, I would not have seen what happened in the woodshed. Let's say, however, I was in the woods, and if someone happened to die in the woods, I would be there on that day. It's almost really cool to watch on screen and really just exhausting to watch in life. It's like a sex scene or something. It’s like, “Okay, well, we can kind of see her breast so kind of lean to the right a little bit,” “Okay. Now your neck...” It's so calculated. It's almost like “Okay, if you stab like this then we're not gonna see the light shining off the blade so make sure you stab like that” and you realize it really takes a lot.  It's not just “Okay, go in and stab!” and they go “Wooooo.” With the hand coming down, it has to look dead. “Oh, the hand flexed a little bit. We can tell you're not...so really keep your hand [still].” Man, you don't think about that. It's a very painstaking process to kill somebody on screen, especially for a horror movie where it's about the deaths, it takes a long time.

Q: Is there a big season finale cliffhanger coming for 'Supernatural'?

Jared: I assume. As soon as we get the note on whether or not we're picked up for Season Five, I think they'll probably decide what they're doing. Right now, we're in that awful, sort of limbo of “Well, we really like the show but we don't know if it's coming back so make it really good for the final five episodes.” “Make it really good? How? Should we kill everybody? Should everybody live? Should we introduce somebody new?”

Q: Doesn't doing a cliffhanger give you more leverage, like “Well, we can't just leave it hanging now”?

Jared: Kind of, but I think one of the blessings of the show is that our creator Eric Kripke really hates the normal TV process. Actually, we kill everybody on the show. I've died and Jensen. He's like “Ah, they love dad. Let's kill him!” He doesn’t just go, “Oh what's gonna happen?” Answer “Oh, this is gonna happen.” “What does that mean?” He'll answer questions. He'll go like “Hey, well we need to make something happen. Kill somebody!” He doesn't want it to be a thirty season show. We're not making "Smallville." We're not making "Bonanza" where they can just go for fifty years and be good. He's like “Listen, let's tell a good story. I don't care if I'm supposed to cliffhang or not. If you are getting cancelled, you are gonna die. Let's put some finality to this.” So I think we'll find out in probably the next month and then we shoot until April.

Q: Can you say anything about what will be coming up with your character on the show?

Jared:  Once again, it just depends on whether we go to five [season five] or not.  It's been clear to me that Sam's gonna go darker so, to what end, I'm not at all sure, but he's doing things right now that are not okay with anybody.

Q: That must be fun for you.

Jared: Real fun. That's what I really like.

Q: How fun was shooting this as a break from your series?

Jared: It was a lot of fun. Ultimately, whether you're doing a romance or a classic piece or a comedy, drama or a horror, whatever, or a TV show, it's like you get to work and you do your work. But, it was fun for me to do a movie. I much more enjoy the process of working on a movie where you know your character, you know your arc and it's not like “Oh, I'm going to make this decision about my character” and the next episode you read that it's actually [something else] and you're like “Awww, come on!” Plus you get to take your time and, instead of shooting eight pages a day, you shoot three, so you get to really explore different options and do different thing and really embrace it. It's not like “Okay, clock's ticking and we're behind at lunch.” It's like “Hey, let's do what needs to be done. Let's do it right.”

Q: You open the day before Valentine's Day. Do you make a big deal out of Valentine's Day? Do you do special things?

Jared:  My plans are to hermit that weekend. I get kind of funny. I think I'm going to stay in my room with blinders on so nobody can see me and I can see nobody.

Q: A lot of people can relate to that so why do you avoid Valentine's Day?

Jared: Well, it's not just about Valentine's Day. Just the fact that my movie is coming out but I don't know about Valentine's Day. I think it's nice to do romantic, nice things all the time, not just for a day. It feels contrived.

Q: What are you afraid of in life?

Jared: Bears. Bears are scary. They can climb trees. They can bite. They can scratch. I think bears scare me.

Q: They're Godless killing machines.

Jared: They're Godless killing machines, yeah. I've never used that phrasing but I've always thought that.

Q: It’s Stephen Colbert.

Jared: Is it really?

Q: When you were a kid and you saw “Friday the 13th,” were you one of the ones that cheered after every kill?

Jared: I wasn't a cheerer. From what I can remember in my short movie-going experiences, I think cheering's pretty recent. I think you used to be like [hiding his face a bit] “Ooooo.” But now it's like “Yeah!!” Maybe that's speaking on the generation or something. I would just go like “Oh, that was cool.” No out loud cheering. Maybe this time.

Q: Travis's death got the biggest cheer.

Jared: Yeah? Good. He deserves it for douche bag of the Century.

“Friday the 13th” opens in theaters on February 13th.