Blumhouse’s upcoming Halloween movie has a lot of reasons for fans to be excited, one of which is the return of original Michael Myers actor Nick Castle. When Castle was first announced, there was plenty of confusion regarding how he would handle the role, considering he wasn’t as young as he was in 1978. The announcement also revealed he’d be sharing the mask with stunt actor James Jude Courtney, who most assumed would simply handle the more physical scenes of the film. Now it turns out that isn’t the case.
In an interview with Halloween Daily News, Courtney explained he actually plays Michael for a majority of the film.
“David [Gordon Green] was really sensitive and generous when he said, ‘We’re inviting Nick Castle to come back to do a little work. Do you have a problem with that, because you’re the Michael Myers now?’,” Courtney revealed to the site. “And I was like, ‘Oh my God. Are you kidding? What an honor it would be, first of all to meet the guy, but secondly to work with him. How good does that get?’”
He continued,
“So we started work, and I can’t remember if it was the second or third week that Nick came in and did kind of a cameo. He did a couple of scenes, and I’m in the scenes with him, which is really beautiful. He and I were hoping that would happen, because he even said, ‘This is the passing of the torch.’ We met with foreign journalists on the set, and Nick was so super gracious and just saying, ‘Look, I’ve come in to do a cameo. Jim is our Michael Myers now.’”
He even stated how laughable it was that people thought he’d be Castle’s stunt double.
“Through the filming, I’m in every scene. I was there almost every day, long days, (and it was an) extremely physical role,” he explains. “I started reading this thing about my being his stunt double. I mean, Nick is 5’10, 170lbs, and I’m 6’3, 210lbs, so… (laughs) I think that’d be really difficult to pull off.”
He also spoke about how Myers will act in the new film:
“I think cats are the perfect hunting, killing machines on the planet. And the beauty of it is we don’t judge a cat for what a cat does. A cat does what a cat does because that’s a cat. So I sort of carried that movement and the non-judgmental approach to the way I moved as The Shape, which I learned from my cat Parcival. He’s a little Grail Knight. He’s a badass.”
In the new film…
Laurie Strode comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.
Halloween returns on October 19, 2018.
What do you think of this news? Are you still excited for the upcoming Halloween movie? Be sure to tell us all of your thoughts on the film in the comments!