I had to audition. Linda Francis who was the casting director was somebody who took a liking to me before I got any breaks. She championed me to give me opportunities. She was the one who called me in for that role. The rest is history.

I’d been pursuing it. I had been in a professional workshop. I’m actually out here from LA so I had been in a professional workshop since I was 13.

I read the short story once I got the role. No, I think they’re fairly different. Malachai was a very small character in the short story.

You know you’re in character and you’re just doing your thing. It doesn’t really occur that way. For me I had been studying for years and waiting for my chance to show what I could do. I was all business just like my character was all business. I had no idea it would go on to be such a big movie. I certainly felt I needed to prove to myself and everyone else that I belonged. That was the mission.

It’s funny you see me in You Can’t Buy Me Love I play that motorcycle game. I’ve never been a big videogame kind of guy. A little bit here and there. Not like people I know who have their game boxes and all that stuff. It’s not my thing.

No, that scene between Peter Horton and I was all choreographed. We did it all ourselves. The guy did a really good job with that. What they didn’t do which I learned later because I didn’t know better, they didn’t dig up the ground a little bit for us. Usually when stunt guys have falls they’ll dig up the ground a little bit just to give it a little cush.

That ground was real hard and cold. We were shooting at 2 o’clock in the morning and it was chilly. I definitely got banged up a little bit. I felt myself banged up the next day. When you’re doing it you’re all geeked up. You don’t notice. I learned my lesson. Let’s dig up this ground a little bit. You learn a lot of the tricks to make things easier.

Sioux City, Iowa. That was so we could find the best corn. You’d think Nebraska, but for some reason Iowa was a little better. It’s right on the border of Nebraska anyway. It’s a real small town.

Sure, she was very nice then and I’ve certainly seen her since. She’s just a very nice person. She’s very down to earth with it all.

John Franklin and I remained friends over the years. I haven’t talked to him recently, but I can kind of update you. The last couple of years he’s stopped pursuing his acting career and started teaching English in school out here in LA. It’s gone well and he’s having a good time doing it.

It was time for him. He needed to get a steady. Just get something that he was doing that he was happy with. It’s been good for him.

Well, yes and no in that John Franklin and his cousin wrote that script. They generated that idea. Hats off to him for getting a movie green lighted. I’ve thought about the idea, I’ve never really pursued it. I actually am doing a bit of producing now. Last year I co-executive produced a movie called National Lampoon’s Dorm Daze that MGM put out and just recently I did two films and a short of a film called The Phobic which is a thriller that I’m in and a rock and roll road comedy called Benny Bliss and the Disciples of Greatness which we’re working on the distribution on all of those right now so I am down there on the producing side. I have considered it. They’re strongly talking about re-franchising Children of the Corn right now because prequels are really hot. I don’t know how they’ll do a prequel.

They’ll be doing Children of the Corn the original again. They’ll re-bring it back with a new Malachai and all that. If I’m going to do it, I think they’ve done 7 or 8 now, it would have to be very soon because I think they’re going to re-franchise the whole Children of the Corn series.

Back then the whole concept of sequels was not done. Certainly no one knew in terms of horror you could do so many. They’ve done 10 Halloweens or whatever. It was a new frontier. Teen cinema in the 1980’s was a fairly new frontier. That’s what I ended up being a part of without knowing it. Doing a horror movie and also movies like Can’t Buy Me Love which was sort of like the first 16 candles teen sort of thing. I did all the genres of teen cinema. I didn’t realize we were forging that whole frontier.

Hard Bodies is that whole T&A, Porkies, those kinds of films. Whole genres were being invented in the 1980’s for teenagers.

There was a girl band called Vixens. They were fine. There was a lot of music driven in that movie. There was another band too. I can’t remember the guys’ names. There were two or three bands that performed in that movie.

Oh my God. The funny thing is that twenty years later everything is cool again. So the 1980’s right now are cool again. It’s not just people from my age range who saw it in the theaters, but actually a lot of 20 somethings are all over it again because they love 80’s movies. To them it’s like the 1960’s were for us. It’s really bizarre.

They say, "They don’t make movies like that anymore." And you’re like, "Wow". You just don’t think it’s going to be like that. That’s how it is. This is my 20 year cool period so I’ll enjoy it for the next few years. I’ve been doing some convention stuff so I’ve been out there now seeing who the fans are. It’s people from my age range all the way to people in their 20’s.

That’s true too.

It always plays.

That’s digging deep. That was the first film I ever did. It was a short for American Film Institute. First of all I think Crispin is fantastic. So I go in to do the rehearsal and I’ve never done anything before. I’m some long haired kid smoking out in the boys’ room kind of deal. They say let’s cut to rehearsal. Crispin comes out dressed as Olivia Newton John. He does this whole Crispin thing of, "Hey guys how are you doing? What’s going on?" He does that whole thing that he does and I’m thinking this guy.

First I’m like, "What the fuck is this?" I didn’t know what the story was. Then I’m thinking this guy is interesting. So we did that scene. He still says that to him it was one of the most favorite things he’s ever done. It’s some of the best work he’s ever done. I recently got a copy of it. I haven’t seen it yet, but he was always, "You have to get a copy. They’re all over the internet." I did a little with him in Back to the Future as well and that was a year after we did The Orkly Kid. Again, he was very gracious. He remembered me. He’s a great guy. He’s a very interesting, eccentric person.

That was totally interesting too. I had never seen anything like that. I was a young, naive kid. I was certainly a little nervous about the whole thing, but he made it very easy and comfortable. He was actually a great guy. He was starting to break into his own when he passed away. He was doing a crossover thing. He was HUGE in Europe. America was just sort of discovering him as he passed. It was a great experience. I got to shoot a movie in Santa Fe, New Mexico and all these veteran actors. I was the young kid. I was absorbing everybody’s talent. People like Geoffrey Lewis. It was a very, very good experience.

I think that movie is very funny. It depends on your kind of taste, but I think it’s a pretty funny feature. I’m definitely proud to be a part of it. That was one of my favorite films. I went from Children of the Corn to Hard Bodies to that.

Yeah, I met Cesar Romero. My God at one point that guy was a huge star. To watch someone who had done as many movies as he had. Tab Hunter also was a huge star at one point. You have to think veteran actors. I was in awe.

That was during the writer’s strike. A lot of people don’t remember that. It was dead in LA. We were on the Universal lot. There was us and Fletch 2. That was it. It was like working in a ghost town. We were working nights too so it was even more like a ghost town. We had the whole lot to ourselves. It was weird.

It was the same cul de sac where they shot Leave it to Beaver. Tons of movies have been shot on that cul de sac.

That’s what they say. I wasn’t with him.

Joe Dante was great in terms of what he wanted. He really helped to create that character quite a bit, everything from knowing what kind of haircut to the kind of clothes to the teeth. He kept laughing and saying you’re never going to work again. He was just going to make me look so hideous. He was very cool. He helped shape what I was going to do.

Again, the chance to work with a ton of veteran actors, people like Bruce Dern took me under his wing and gave me a lot of great advice career wise. He encouraged my work. Tom Hanks is a super nice guy. He is how he seems. He is a very genuine man.

I don’t remember her smoking. She’s got a very strong personality in terms of knowing what she wants. With Joe Dante his hair was kind of long and he kept wearing the same shirt with this Felix the Cat tie. She couldn’t take it so she took him shopping. When he came back he had a haircut and a new shirt on. I was like, "Wow, how does she do that?"

Yeah, she’s definitely a sparkplug. She’s a little fireplug for sure.

It is, but it has an impact. There were three main gangs: The Bloods, The Crips, and then the other fictitious gang which is the 21^st street gang. That one was kind of mixed. I was the only white gang banger in the movie. I was very excited to be a part of that because having grown up in LA I know there are white guys in the gangs. At that time nobody knew anything about what was going on out here. When they would make movies before that they totally had it all wrong. The way they dressed. Everything was very in-authentic.

Dennis Hopper going on to make a real movie about the gangs I was like I got to be a part of this. I knew they were looking for a white guy and of course they were going to have a hard time finding him. My acting mentor Virgil Frye, he helped Dennis make Easy Rider so I had an "in" to that whole thing. I just went into that meeting and said, "I grew up in the neighborhood. I know the deal." He was like, "Cool. Give it your all." It wasn’t a huge role, but it stood out because like I said I’m the only white gang banger in the movie. That gang had a big storyline so we were in the movie a lot, our unit of guys.

That movie was huge. It essentially broke East Coast Rap. Gary Goetzman who runs Tom Hanks company Playtone was the music supervisor on Colors. People like Ice-T broke off of that movie. It had a huge impact on a lot of levels. It was the first real movie about gangs. Nowadays they hire real gangster to play gangsters. Back then people weren’t even thinking like that.

I didn’t have any scenes with him. My character was the scientist who caused all the problems to create the snake. I had a scene with the guy who was the doctor and I’m in the opening sequence of the movie. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet Pat.

It was animatronics. It wasn’t CGI. It was right before CGI. It was a pretty low budget project.

I did a cameo. There are a lot of people not happy about the idea of a remake of Halloween because it’s considered THE quintessential horror film. Rob Zombie is taking it on and what he’s done is a prequel/sequel because prequels are hot right now. The first half of the movie is Myers as a kid and how he gets to the institute. The second half is basically Halloween from that point on, from when he gets out. My scene is right in the middle. Myself and Lew Temple who was in The Devils Rejects, we are attendants who bring a girl into Myers room and kind of provoke him. That starts him on his terror and escape and all of that.

There’s a ton of cameos in the movie that are all recognizable horror people. When I heard the movie was going to be made I definitely wanted to be a part of that and pursued it. Rob found a spot for me. It was a great cast period, but every small role is somebody that if you’re a horror fan you will know them from another movie.

I was glad Rob was willing to include me in the process. We did our two days and it was pretty intense scenes. Everybody thought it was pretty disturbing so I guess that’s good and the movie is coming out the end of August, Labor Day weekend. It’s going to be a big release. I’m excited to be part of it and it was great to meet and work with Rob.

Have you seen The Devils Rejects and House of 1000 Corpses?

I have not seen House of 1000 Corpses, but I have seen The Devils Rejects. What I think is interesting is that he’s making horror films for adults. I mean generally speaking horror films are geared for a teen audience. He’s making horror films for people 30 and over. Not that teenagers can’t watch it, but they’re more adult in their content and the characters are not always teenagers. The Devil’s Rejects that was not young people which I think makes it more gritty, interesting, and a little more mature. It’s maturing horror if you will.

I’m not a huge horror fan. No, I’m not real big into blood and guts, but something like Halloween that’s significant to do a remake of that movie. It’s a big deal.

I think somebody like Rob putting his name on it has a lot of pressure to deliver something very, very good. Whether that’s going to happen or not I can’t say. I’m saying there’s more at stake than just some company making a remake of Amityville Horror. He’s such a brand himself. There’s a lot on the line for him. I know he’s doing certainly the best he can. Their last day of shooting is today so they’re almost done. We saw a trailer and that looked pretty good.

There are tons and tons of cameos. There’s like 60 characters in the movie and every one of them you’ll know who they are if you’re into the genre.

You saw a trailer for that?

That’s an interesting story. This filmmaker named Martin Mayo, years ago we started to make this movie and he’s still finishing it. It’s like 15 years in the making or something. He’s almost done I think.

You have no idea what this guy has been through. It’s been a long, crazy journey for him to get this film done. Hopefully, he’ll finally get it out. It’s a movie that delves into S&M and all of that. It was a long time ago for me.

If the movie comes out and does well it could be an embarrassment. Who knows? It could be something I can’t live down. For his sake all the years he’s tried to get this done I hope he gets it done so he can kind of move on. That’s a lot of years of your life to try to get a movie out there.

I feel fortunate that I’m still in the business working 20 years later. That’s really the deal. You have to keep reinventing yourself. You have to look in the mirror and go, "What can I do now? Where’s the industry now?" Hopefully, I have enough chops that I can do a wide variety of things. I think that’s probably been the key.

Being able to look at yourself and figure out what you want to do and where you want to go with things.

Yeah, and being able to execute that when other people think you can. In the 1990’s I played a lot of bad guys. Mainly like guest stars on TV and a lot of movies going straight to DVD. I had long hair and a goatee. There were teenage movies and you had to be 30. I had done the teenage movie thing so I had to look older. I did that.

I had cut off my hair and it’s time to do other stuff and I want to get into theatrical performance. My agents where like, "What are you talking about? You do bad guys." I was like, "Man, go back to my 80’s films. I can do comedy." Basically, standing for that and I stopped going up for bad guys. After awhile I finally got a break and did Sweet Home Alabama playing the sheriff in that. That opened up a whole nother door.

The 2000’s I’ve done a variety of things. Comedy has been back on my slate. I’m playing guys with ties for a change. I’m not a teenager anymore. You have to figure out, "What can I do now? What kinds of roles are available now?" Sweet Home Alabama was a huge film a couple of years ago. Whatever you did last is what they remember for the most part. Something like Children of the Corn is the exception. As long as there’s horror they’ll be Children of the Corn to be talked about.

The horror fan base is very strong which is why there’s so many horror films being made and why the studios are now investing in horror films. They’re trying to remake and prequel every decent horror film that’s ever been made.

That’s a good question. I don’t know what exactly caused it either. I think the fact that there are all these conventions and the fact that people show up to those. They started to realize there’s a core fan base they could rely on.

Oh sure. I’ve had that happen. I recently put a MySpace page together because somebody posed being me and the fans found out and they got mad. They asked me if I wanted to take it over. Now I’m reaching out to people. I’ve got a little of a stalker person going on right now. A stalker girl, stuff like that so that’s a little weird.

That’s why you have to make sure people don’t know where you live.

For the women in horror I think it’s very intense because if you’re a horror scream queen you’re not going to be a billionaire or even a millionaire most likely. You’re going to be somebody who’s known, but you’re not going to be rich enough to have a house in Bel Air with a giant gate. So, if you get a stalker and you’re going to get somebody who is obviously a little twisted they can find you. It’s not that safe. I know someone who has had some very close calls.

I’ve actually thought of that.

It is a creepy subject, but perhaps one of these girls wants to come out with their true story and play it. It would be based on what they went through. It’s something I’ve thought about. I haven’t really approached anybody with it. I do think it’s kind of an interesting story. That’s the sick thing about being in the business. Somebody’s true life tragedy you’re like, "Oh, that would make a good story."

You remember that movie called Scandal with Joanne Whalley. You know who Joanne Whalley is? An English actress? You’d know her if you saw her.

She was married to Val Kilmer for a minute after they did Willow. She was HOT in that movie. That movie was directed by Michael Caton-Jones who eventually directed me in Memphis Belle. I’d say when I was younger she was my retroCRUSH.

She was very hot in that movie. She plays a very sexy character in the movie anyway. It’s based on a true story, she gets in a relationship with a very powerful official in England and it all comes out in the press. It was the first kind of thing to come out in the press like that. It was in the 1950’s. She plays a very hot character. She was steaming in that movie.

I think you talked a little about the stuff that’s coming out. Hopefully, people will keep an eye out for that. We’ll be putting out Benny Bliss and the Disciples of Greatness. We’ve actually cut a deal where we’re going to include the CD and DVD in one package which will be kind of cool. I wrote about three or four of the songs. I front the band. The music is all live in the movie which is sort of cool.

Sort of kind of…that’s what’s great about this movie. I have a CD I put out in the past. These are all pro musicians and I’m a character, but I front a band. It’s a bit of a platform where I get to rant about we’re way too addicted to our technology.

-Randy Waage
randy@retrocrush.com