Derek Mears Interview, Friday the 13th Remake

We go machete to mask with Derek Mears who plays Jason to talk murder and mayhem on Friday the 13th! Friday the 13th is a chilling re-imagining of the classic horror film directed by Marcus Nispel from a screenplay by Damian Shannon & Mark Swift.

While Nispel and the filmmakers were busy assembling the cast of characters who find themselves at the mercy of a psychotic killer, they also had to decide who would brandish the machete and slip on the iconic hockey mask, effectively becoming the new Jason Voorhees. During the almost 30-year history of the franchise, there have been several actors who have played the character. This time around, the filmmakers chose actor and stuntman Derek Mears to portray the genre's instantly recognizable villain.

"When we talked about who would play Jason, we all agreed we wanted an imposing actor," says director Nispel. "We had already hired Jared Padalecki, who is six-foot-four, so we knew we needed a very big actor as well as a stunt double to do the stunts for the actor playing Jason."

"When Derek stood in the room and you could see exactly how he's built and how he moves, we knew he was Jason," remembers producer Andrew Form. "He had the exact build we were looking for and it was a blessing that he was also a stuntman. We were much more interested in his acting because it was really important for us that he was not mechanical in any way. We wanted a real actor behind the mask and Derek took that very seriously."

"I grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons, collecting comic books, and I loved horror and sci-fi films," says Derek Mears. "'Friday the 13th' is one of my favorites. It's such an honor to play Jason Voorhees, and I feel a tremendous responsibility to the fans."

"Derek really transcended the character and put so much care and meticulous thought into his performance," says director Marcus Nispel. "He brought an intensity and fluidity to the character that audiences have never seen before. I really hope that moviegoers have the vision to look behind the mask; he adds so much that comes through and it really elevates the film."

Mears has established himself as one of the busiest actor-stuntmen in film & television, in such films as "The Hills Have Eyes II," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," "Zathura," "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," "Men in Black II," and "Wild Wild West." His additional feature credits as a stuntman include "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," "Semi-Pro," "Blades of Glory," "World Trade Center" and "Signs." For television, Mears has been featured in guest-starring roles on such series as "CSI: Miami," "ER," "The Shield," "Masters of Horror," with John Carpenter, and the Jack Black-produced sketch comedy show "Acceptable TV," among many others.

Derek Mears plays one very scary dude in Friday the 13th, but in real life he’s the nicest guy you will ever meet and we really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us about playing the legendary Jason Voorhees:

MoviesOnline: It sounds like the whole cast had way too much fun.

DEREK MEARS: Oh man, I’ve never had so much fun. It was a blast, I’ve never been so close to a cast before, we all genuinely liked each other, and we all still hang out. It’s like, (says in weird high pitched voice) ‘What are you doing, no, we’re all going to go here, let’s go.’ It’s unbelievable.

MoviesOnline: You’ve got to tell us about the first time you put on the mask.

DEREK MEARS: The first time I put on the mask was – I went to Scott Stoddard, the make-up effects artist, who in my opinion is fifty percent of the Jason character, with his amazing, amazing designs. I went into his shop and I still hadn’t officially signed for the part yet, and he showed me the designs for the character and talked about what he wanted to do. And he goes, ‘Hey man, since you’re here, why don’t you try it on.’ I went, ‘What?’ and he brings out this giant case and pops it up, and six masks are in it, and he pulls it out. Everybody in the shop, people were working on body parts and making vats of blood and all those nasty things, everyone kind of stops and looks over at me, and I’m like, ‘Ohhh, this is really weird.’

I kind of thought at that moment, like I said before in different interviews, it’s like a kind of Excalibur moment, it’s shiny in the bright light, ‘Alright, here we go.’ I got this tingly feeling like when you first see, I still see, the first Star Wars, the instrument and theTHX hits that note and the orchestra is like BLAM, and you start to tingle. I put it on and I kind of stand there for a second and everyone just kind of – I could see this slow grin start happening on everybody as they look at each other. It’s like (slow claps) ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s it.’ I went, ‘I’m so happy.’

MoviesOnline: Did Marcus ever think that maybe it would be better if you didn’t become great friends with everyone and maybe kept away from them so there’d be more tension because you were an entity instead of, ‘Oh, it’s just Derek.’

DEREK MEARS: No, that was never really mentioned, it was mentioned early on – I had dinner with Brad and Drew, the producers, and they are like, ‘Hey, you’re really nice.’ ‘Thanks, man.’  ‘No, you’re really nice. You’re going to be able to switch, right?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve got issues. It’s called acting. I don’t have to be the character 24/7.’ There are different philosophies. I have different friends who play similar roles where they want to stay away from the cast to add intensity, but my philosophy is, we are trained, professional actors and we should be able to get to that point when your job is on, when you’re working, and off-camera, it’s play time.

MoviesOnline: Samuel L. Jackson says it’s called acting not being.

DEREK MEARS: Yeah, that’s perfect. I’m going to steal that.

MoviesOnline: Did you have to do the full make-up each time, even though it’s covered by the mask?

DEREK MEARS: No, no, what it was is I wore from my navel up a full body prosthetic to give like a small spinal curvature, with a little bit of a hump. In some pictures, the neck looks really thick because there’s a hump on one side, a very slight hump, and I had a cowl on top of that with my face basically cut out here, so everything else was prosthetics. When I wore the mask, I would have a prosthetic eye attached here, so when the mask came over you could see it there, and-

MoviesOnline: That’s part of what you can see.

DEREK MEARS: Exactly, I had it attached to my face, but not attached to the mask because that way when it moved, the mask would move. It wouldn’t be moving as one, so it would still be my face, so it limited my vision.

MoviesOnline: Were you able to see? Did you ever fall?

DEREK MEARS: (laughs) I’ll tell stories about that in a second, yeah. That’s a whole chapter in a biography. So that’s basically what it was, a cowl and my face was open before I wore the mask, and for the sack, there are days it took about an hour and a half to put on, though it was funny because Danielle Panabaker’s regular make-up without prosthetics took two hours, I don’t get that. Then when I did the actual reveal underneath, that took about four hours and I wore the mask over that for certain scenes because I already had it on. There was no reason for taking off, a waste of time and money – Hollywood.

MoviesOnline: What about falling down?

DEREK MEARS: Oh, the vision was very limited. When I had the hockey mask on, there’s a small slit in the cataract eye, and the regular eye it’s as if you’re looking through a toilet bowl tube, so you lose all your peripheral vision. Many a times – for the fight scenes you’d always block out who’s going where, what’s going on, so you’re completely – I have a good body awareness of what’s going on, except for the scenes which you’ll probably see on the DVD – there will be whole outtakes of me smashing my head into things, like in Jason’s room there’s like low hanging beams, and objects and you’re so focused on what’s happening in the scene, like you’ll race across the room and it feels like someone has a baseball bat just full swing smacking you in the face, and I would get dropped from like a low hanging beam, followed by numerous curses, and after about the sixth time you’d start to hear Brad and Drew and Marcus behind the camera monitors (does selected laughs). ‘Hey, you okay in there?’ ‘Fuck, God damn!’ Yeah, I’m fired. So my neck took a pounding in the movie.

MoviesOnline: I didn’t expect you to grapple with Padalecki – that was kind of cool

DEREK MEARS: I think they wanted to get like part two where – the issue of earlier on was I’m 6’ 5” and Jared’s 6’4” and they were talking about, ‘Oh, they’re both big, to have such a big lead,’ and I’m like, ‘No, it’s just so great because in the original Jason is not a super out-of-this-world giant. I mean, he is a big guy, but to have someone formidable – as a fan I wanted to see someone go toe-to-toe to him and see what happens. Jared, he’s a talent, a physical talent. I’ve become a fan of his just from working with him. He’s a solid strong dude, and I’m jealously disgusted.

MoviesOnline: Is that you hanging from the chains?

DEREK MEARS: Yeah, all the stunts in the film are myself.

MoviesOnline: So how hard was that?

DEREK MEARS: It was extremely [hard]. I was really tired and we shot all night. I remember hanging there [thinking], ‘They’re going to drop me.’ (does dropping noise) It was fun because you would start to close your eyes, when you start to slowly get choked out by the chain and then you never knew when the chain was going to release [you]. You had to take it, you couldn’t put your hands on it to stop yourself from falling down. It was three o’clock in the morning, we’re wet, we shot this during the re-shoots so it was cold out, and so you don’t really want to move that much, so three o’clock in the morning, super tired, exhausted, extremely cold, time to fall so many feet and smash your face on the ground. ‘Alright, does it look cool? Okay, let’s keep doing it, no, no, I’ve got another one. Everything’s cool.’

MoviesOnline: If you re-shot it, what was the end in the original version?

DEREK MEARS: We were running out of time, the original ending was – it’s the same ending but was just shorter, so they had time to elaborate on it, and that’s what I was really excited about. When they showed the film to test audiences, Warner Brothers and Paramount were like, ‘We could put it out right now, we’re happy with it. But we just want to put that little cherry on the top.’ So we went back and added the chain sequence, getting choked by the chain.

MoviesOnline: Were there any other moments throughout production that were extra cherries, certain scenes that things were added?

DEREK MEARS: Oh yeah, yeah, there were some scenes we would fight for. Some of those scenes that Mark and Damian wrote were so great. Sometimes we would run out of time and we wouldn’t have time to shoot things, like the one scene where they drop him behind Officer Bracke. They had him kind of appear and come out, and it’s so awesome, you’re not going to expect him coming from the ceiling. Can we please? They wanted to, but it was a matter of time and money, and so I remember Drew coming over with his two fingers in his mouth (makes popping sound), ‘Okay, you’ve got your shot. You’re going to drop from the ceiling, we’re going to do this.’ I’m like, ‘Awesome! It’s not really my shot, it’s everyone’s – okay.’

I was really blown away that Brad and Drew, the producers, were so receptive to people’s input, because a lot of people on the set are fans of this series, and they would ask people from time to time for different input, and they also listened to the input of the fans. They were on the blogs of the different message boards. I think they’re like ghosts, walking around and seeing what people were saying, and they took that into consideration. I remember originally, the original cut of the film, the Mama Voorhees scenes were taken out, but because of the fans going, ‘We want to see it,’ they put it back in, which was pretty great. So I really respect them for that, because they really wanted to do a good film. That’s what they wanted to do, that was their purpose.

MoviesOnline: Did you create all the fights?

DEREK MEARS: No, I didn’t create the fights, Kurt Bryant was our stunt coordinator. I just got to perform them.

MoviesOnline: Performance-wise, there really is a performance here and it is distinctive from other Jasons. He’s faster, he actually reminded me of Christoper Lee as Dracula because Bela Lugosi used to be slow and elegant and he’s fast and menacing and you’re kind of bringing that to the table.

DEREK MEARS: Once again I’ve got to give credit to Mark and Damian, that’s how it was written in the script because they wanted to get back to what worked before, the basics of the original series, keep it based in reality. Jason is not a supernatural zombie, he’s a normal guy, and they were talking about, you have to be respectful. When you make something like this, being that the fan base is so big and so many people love the series and the character, it’s a hard balance to be respectful and appease the fans who have seen it before, but also create risks by doing new things, for having a whole new generation come in and enjoy it also, and mixing the two together. It’s hard to make, there’s no real formula for that. So it’s like a trial and error. So I’m really happy with how it turned out, and for the Jason character, a lot of people will say, ‘Oh, why can’t they just put a guy in a mask, just a big guy in a mask?’

They really focused this time of making Jason into an actual character. And people ask, ‘Do you act different when you have the prosthetics or the mask on?’ I’m like, ‘No, acting is acting to me.’ If the mask wasn’t on, you would still see the same thing. I’m not like, ‘Oh, I can only act with my eye and my hand, I’m going to show you what I’m doing.’ If I didn’t have any of that on, the same things would – I’m trusting myself as an actor. I’ve done all my research, I’ve made the character, I’m in the right mental space of the scene that I’m doing, I’m trusting that it’s – I’m a firm believer that the energy is going to come through. If you have the mask on or not, it will be captured by the camera. So it’s a leap of faith, but that’s my philosophy.

MoviesOnline: What are some of the things you did as an actor to personally honor the franchise while also doing something new?

DEREK MEARS: Doing the character, to be respectful, I made the character from the blueprint that Mark and Damian did. I’d seen the films, I have all the films being a fan of the Friday the 13th series, I knew what the guys who previously played Jason had done, so I had to put that aside and try to forget about it and build the character off the new script. So it’s all my own thing, but there are times, being a fan, I would do like a tip of the hat, little homages, to some of the guys out of respect, like by the wood chipper. I originally shot a Ted White head tilt (does it) from part four, but it didn’t make it in the film. You see a much subtler version because the direction was, ‘It’s too big, it’s too big, you’ve got to make it smaller.’ Grrrr. So some of the takes I would do alternate little like – you might watch maybe on the DVD where you’ll see some of them. That looks like C.J. Graham.

MoviesOnline: You did kind of like a grab toward the camera like in part three.

DEREK MEARS: Little things here and there, so I’m kind of curious to see what people catch. I actually have to watch it again myself, because I was so focused on what I was doing when I first saw the film, like two days ago, I want to go back and see what made it and what didn’t make it.

MoviesOnline: Have any of the other Jason’s seen it, or have you talked with them?

DEREK MEARS: I’ve talked to some of them. I don’t think any of them have seen it yet. I’ve met C. J. Graham at a signing, and Kane Hodder, I got a phone call from Ari Lehman, who was the first Jason, but everyone’s been really, really cool. I was blown away because C.J. at one time pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey man, I just want to welcome you to the family,’ he goes, ‘It’s a fun ride, it’s a real small group,’ and he goes, ‘but at one point I was the new guy, then Kane was the new guy, you’re the new guy right now,’ and then he goes, ‘Then later on somebody else will be the new guy, so it’s your time man, and enjoy it. Welcome.’

MoviesOnline: Are you hoping for a sequel?

DEREK MEARS: I would love –

MoviesOnline: You could go into space

DEREK MEARS: No, nooooo, Jason goes to the wild, wild West. Party. No, there’s been rumors about a sequel, which there is for any film that people think is going to do well, but I have a second picture option with Platinum Dunes. And it could be for a sequel, it could be a completely different film altogether, it’s just with them in general.

MoviesOnline: Have you gone back and done a stunt gig since you shot Friday?

DEREK MEARS: No, I haven’t actually, I don’t think I have. Have I? No, I haven’t.

MoviesOnline: What would Jason be like in a second one? He’d be pretty pissed at this point.

DEREK MEARS: Yeah, completely. I’m really curious what they’re going to do with the second one. I’d like to think about it, but I have really no –  (he’s taken away by the publicist)

MoviesOnline: Thank you.

DEREK MEARS: Thanks, guys. It was so much fun.

“Friday the 13th” opens in theaters on Friday, February 13th!