Interview: Nick Stahl Talks About His Mysterious Character In HUNTER HUNTER
Drew Tinnin
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Just in time for Christmas, the new survivalist horror Hunter Hunter from Shawn Linden is finally ready to be unwrapped. It’s a great last minute gift, considering that it just happens to be one of the best horror films of 2020. Starring Devon Sawa, Camille Sullivan and Summer Howell as a family out of time living in a harsh wilderness, a threat returns to terrorize them in the shape of a man-eating wolf. What starts as a hunt for their survival turns into an even more deadly situation when a mysterious man emerges from the woods, instantly transforming Hunter Hunter into a much deadlier game.
For movie fans, there’s no guesswork when actor Nick Stahl (Terminator 3, Sin City) is dropped into this story, but believe me, you’ve never seen him quite like this. In the revealing interview below, Stahl seems okay with discussing a lot of his career from the crazy prosthetics in Sin City to being cast as the bad boy in Larry Clark’s Bully. We even talk about Disturbing Behavior and the late nineties horror boom. You can also hear a lot more about his fantastic turn as the unassuming Lou in Hunter Hunter, a man that definitely winds up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
For even more info, be sure to tune into Dread Central’s Dissecting Horror panel for Hunter Hunter this Wednesday, December 16th!
Synopsis: Hunter Hunter follows a family living in the remote wilderness earning a living as fur trappers. Joseph Mersault (Devon Sawa), his wife Anne (Camille Sullivan), and their daughter Renée (Summer H. Howell) struggle to make ends meet and think their traps are being hunted by the return of a rogue wolf. Determined to catch the predator in the act, Joseph leaves his family behind to track the wolf. Anne and Renée grow increasingly anxious during Joseph’s prolonged absence and struggle to survive without him. When they hear a strange noise outside their cabin, Anne hopes it is Joseph but instead finds a man named Lou (Nick Stahl), who has been severely injured and left for dead. The longer Lou stays and Joseph is away, the more paranoid Anne becomes, and the idea of a mysterious predator in the woods slowly becomes a threat much closer to home.
Dread Central: Hunter Hunter has really stayed with me since watching it and your character as well. Have you seen the finished film? A certain song that makes the finale has such a great impact towards the end…it’s just amazing.
Nick Stahl: Yeah, it was a good choice for sure. I thought it was used very well in the film, I agree.
DC: I’m guessing that song wasn’t playing during that scene.
NS: There was a song that was in the script, actually. I think it was a question of whether the rights could be acquired, you know? Because my character actually, in script form, was singing these lyrics as he was listening. We basically had to bail on it because we didn’t know if we could get the rights. So, it was kind of wide open. I kind of had to imagine what it was. Like I said, I thought it was a really cool choice they made.
DC: Yeah, I’ve listened to the song a couple times since then and it really is hard to get some images out of my head because of it. Lou is such a classic third act character that really changes up the dynamic. Were you reading the script thinking, ‘Where am I in this?’ It must’ve been exciting to see everything unfold with this mystery character.
NS: Yeah, for sure. I was interested in the kind of change the character goes through. He shows up and he presents one thing and does his best to masquerade and kind of blend in and look normal. And then he morphs into something else. Who can’t relate to that, you know what I mean?
DC: Was it a challenge to come on set in what I’m guessing was the middle of production and suddenly be thrown into the mix with Camille Sullivan and Summer Howell who established a strong mother/daughter bond up to that point?
NS: I think it was really fitting, it was cool that we were able to shoot more or less chronologically like that. So it made a lot of sense, that was the character’s experience, too. He’s an outsider who shows up late so it was perfect the way they were able to film it.
DC: Did you create a backstory for Lou explaining what he was doing before they stumble upon you in the forest? Is that something that’s a part of your process sometimes?
NS: A little bit. Shawn [Linden] had a lot of really good ideas for backstory from when he wrote the script. I got a lot of help from him in that area. A lot of that stuff helps me for creating ideas for where is this guy coming from? What do his, sort of, day-to-day rituals look like?
DC: The family in Hunter Hunter are pretty hardcore survivalists. Then, there’s you that doesn’t seem to have any business out in the woods. Did you learn any outdoor skills for the film or do you consider yourself an outdoorsman at all? A lot of us are probably hiking more than we ever have before.
NS: Yeah, so I would say that I am not necessarily a real outdoorsy type of guy. I grew up in cities, suburbs, and stuff like that. But like you said, he’s the outsider and he doesn’t seem real well equipped for the survival aspect of things. He doesn’t really have to be and that’s kind of the way I viewed him. In my mind, he lived maybe in the city…and he was kind of this dark visitor.
DC: With Devon’s character, Devon Sawa, he’s the ultimate survivalist in this. Did you know Devon in the past? It seem like you guys would have crossed paths at some point and maybe even auditioned for the same roles over the years.
NS: Yeah, we did actually. I remember, there was a film he did where he was like…man, he must’ve been like 18 called Idle Hands that I auditioned for.
DC: Oh, you would’ve been good in that! It’s kind of become a new classic.
NS: Yeah, yeah. Me and Devon are part of this exclusive child actor club, you know? We have this certain kinship for that reason. So I would cross paths with from time to time in L.A. at auditions and things like that. We finally ended up doing a film together a few years back and had a couple scenes together. So, this is actually our second film together.
DC: Speaking of the young actor club, I remember going to a Larry Clark retrospective in New York and seeing Bully for the first time. I think that film really holds up and Larry Clark has become even more revered in the last 20 years or so. How did Larry work with you and such a young cast featuring Brad Renfro, Bijou Phillips, and Rachel Miner?
Also, I thought your character Bobby is so vicious in that. I felt like I saw some of those same flashes with how you played Lou in this film.
NS: Yeah, yeah. I don’t know man. At this point, I don’t know if it was Bully, it seemed like around that time I just started to really get cast in roles like that. I’m thinking it was that movie because I get scripts like that to play the bad guy a lot now. I’m like, ‘Man, I’m a pretty nice guy! What’s going on here? It’s just very against type, I don’t get it!’ But people seem to see something in me for these roles. So, yeah, Bully was one. I guess that was the first sort of role of that nature that I did. I remember just being very intimidated by it or something. I kind of wondered why I was cast and Larry told me he purposely went against type and thought it was interesting. And that’s the kind of stuff Larry does and probably why he’s respected as an outsider type of artist these days because he took risks like that. Like I said, to this day people want me to play the sadistic bad guy.
DC: They must’ve seen your dark side. I wanted to assure horror fans that there are some incredibly graphic scenes that you’re a part of in Hunter Hunter. What was the practical effects makeup process like for you?
NS: It was pretty arduous, pretty long days in the makeup chair. There was only a couple of days that they had to do it. But yeah, it takes hours, man. That stuff is very tough to put on and take off. It’s not the most fun aspect of the job, I’ll admit. But I’ve done it a bunch of times so I kind of knew what I was in for, for the most part. It’s pretty gruesome, man, and I was really impressed with all the work they did on it as well. Very realistic.
DC: Yeah, very realistic. How did that experience compare to the full body suit for Yellow Bastard in Sin City? Robert Rodriguez tends to shoot pretty quick so hopefully you weren’t in that for too long?
NS: That was kind of tough. I think because of that movie, I kind of grew phobic of prosthetics, you know? It is tough, man. It’s claustrophobic if you have it on for too long, it feels kind of stifling. For that, I think it was like a ten hour process the first time they put the Sin City makeup on.
DC: Wow.
NS: It was an insanely long process. After the test it was much quicker, like a couple hours each day. That was actually fun to do despite that and it helps when you’re playing such a weird creation like that to just look like this alien. I knew that any prosthetics from that point forward was gonna be downhill so this was a breeze in comparison.
DC: I know a lot of horror fans, myself included, love that post-Scream commercial era of the genre in the late nineties and Disturbing Behavior is so much fun. It feels like a Stephen King story that could be a TV series. Do you remember that being a positive experience for you? Again, you’re a part of another amazing cast.
NS: I was pretty young, I was like 17. Man, it’s kind of scary how long ago that was now. It was a blast, man. That was kind of at the height of the teen movie craze and I guess it was the horror teen era, like high school horror stuff like Scream and all that. I thought it was a cool movie because it was a great character in the midst of that kind of genre. It was fun for me. And, uh, yeah, that’s the end of the answer. (laughs)
Hunter Hunter is available in Select Theaters, Digital and On Demand December 18th.
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