‘Slasher: Ripper’ Star Eric McCormack On Playing A Diabolical Character In The Shudder Series
Mary Beth McAndrews
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Most people know actor Eric McCormack from his 11-season run in the iconic sitcom Will & Grace. He’s a comedic actor, first and foremost, with an eye for razor-sharp jokes. But now, McCormack is dipping into his dark side in Slasher: Ripper, the fifth season of the Shudder original series.
Read the full series’ full synopsis below:
Slasher: Ripper takes the franchise back in time to the late 19th century and follows Basil Garvey (McCormack), a charismatic tycoon whose success is only rivaled by his ruthlessness, as he oversees a city on the cusp of a new century, and a social upheaval that will see its streets run red with blood. There’s a killer stalking the mean streets, but instead of targeting the poor and downtrodden like Jack the Ripper, The Widow is meting out justice against the rich and powerful. The only person standing in the way of this killer is the newly promoted detective, Kenneth Rijkers, whose ironclad belief in justice may wind up being yet another victim of The Widow.
Dread Central spoke with McCormack over Zoom about getting an opportunity to play the bad guy, period pieces, and more.
Dread Central: I’m excited to chat with you about Slasher: Ripper. I watched the first two episodes. It’s disgusting. I wanted to hear first from you how you got involved in the project.
Eric McCormack: I had just done a series in Toronto called Departure. I think it was season three. The woman that runs it called me a month later and said, I got something else. I didn’t know anything about Slasher. I had just heard the name and heard it was a horror thing. I think I was three scenes in [to the script] and I called my agent and I said, “Uh, “I’m in.” I love this guy. I love the language of the show. Ian and Aaron have written a beautifully Gothic darkly funny show, but this character is such a bastard.
DC: He really is.
EM: I think I say motherfucker four times in the first episode. I mean, I never get to do that. It was so much fun. This feels like like a Tarantino [film]. It has that sort of richly Gothic violence to it because it’s set at the turn of the century. It’s not just your run-of-the-mill modern-day slasher. There’s something truly haunting about it.
DC: So for our readers who maybe aren’t familiar, can you describe your character Basil Garvey?
EM: I’ve sometimes said he’s like Rupert Murdoch, if Rupert Murdoch killed people. He’s the most powerful guy in Victoria and Toronto. He’s ruthless and will stop at nothing to maintain and wield his power. He’s violent. But he’s not subtly violent. He’ll smash your head against a wall, he’ll cut off a limb. I mean, he’s not afraid to be evil. He loves it. The only thing that saves him, which we see in the pilot, is he meets this way-too-young woman that he falls in love with. The audience will know exactly how much to hate Basil Garvey. But this throws a bit of a wrench in the works, I think.
DC: So you said it was really fun to play this kind of character. It’s different for you, right? You got to play kind of this really nasty asshole that operates purely on impulse but is also very smart.
EM: Oh, he is incredibly smart. Like anybody, I love reading stories about mafia figureheads. I just watched a whole documentary about Montreal crime in the 60s and 70s. You watch these stories going, “You’re gonna get killed, your own people are gonna kill you”. You can’t be that much of a ruthless leader and not eventually get murdered. So I think that’s the air that is surrounding Basil. Who is ever gonna have the balls to eventually stand up to this guy? And the answer might be the Widow, whoever the Widow is. He may have met his match and I think it’s the first time he’s ever been scared for his own life because he has such power, but also such ego. He truly believes he is indestructible.
To see a guy like that actually lose his heart a little bit like the Grinch, but also be a little petrified is really massive stuff. But more than anything, I just loved his language. I love how he speaks. I dropped my voice like an octave just because it was such a great outfit to put on every day.
DC: Well, and speaking of outfits, this is a period piece. So what’s that like, transporting yourself back into a different time?
EM: In some ways, it’s easy because of the wardrobe and the location. My first great role in television was in a series called Lonesome Dove at 29 years old. [My character was] a similar character [to Basil]. Not quite as awful, but very ruthless, bearded, a Civil War colonel. I had such a great wardrobe and the boots and riding horses, everything about it sort of puts you in. It does half the work for you, you know? We’re almost entirely on sets, so we’re not on a street with a whole lot of horses all the time.
A lot of the younger characters in the show are wearing stuff that would’ve been popular in 1905 or whatever. But I got there and I said, to the wardrobe woman, “I don’t think this guy has bought new clothes”. I don’t think he’s buying what the young people are wearing. I think he’s still wearing what he wore in 1880, and quite proudly. So there’s a real old-fashioned sense, something closer to Scrooge than to roaring 20s. So I think for me, just making that choice and committing to it, the high collars and cravats, I loved it. I loved it every day.
DC: So I really love the scene in the pilot where you’re in the theater watching the magic show. What was shooting that scene like? I just love the tension between what’s going on onstage vs in the audience.
EM: That’s actually an old theater in Hamilton. They didn’t even have to do that much work to it. It feels like a great old Gothic theater. That was a big [scene] for Thom Allison, who plays the Magician. He had two full days of all this long Gothic dialogue. It was pretty fun.
DC: That’s awesome. I know this is not about Jack the Ripper, but it’s kind of Jack the Ripper adjacent. Were you familiar with Jack the Ripper at all before coming in?
EM: Yes and no. The main reason I know a lot about the original Ripper is because of a movie you may not have seen called Time After Time. It’s Malcolm McDowell and David Warner. It’s the movie that introduced most of the world to Mary Steenburgen. I love it so much.
Jack the Ripper and H.G. Wells, as it turns out, they’re friends, they’re in the same friend circle in 1880. And in this movie, H.G. Wells actually creates a time machine. Jack the Ripper escapes to San Francisco in 1978, and he becomes kind of the modern-day serial killer. Only Wells can get into his own time machine, which he didn’t even think would work, and pursues [Jack]. So you’ve got actual H.G. Wells pursuing actual Jackie Ripper in 1978. They both come in contact with this bank teller, who is Mary Steenburgen. I just, I think it’s one of the great,
DC: I wanna watch that immediately. This sounds incredible.
EM: Right? It’s so great. So anyway, that’s where my early love of, or at least interest in Jack the Ripper [came from]. He was amazing. It’s awful. But it’s amazing what he got away with for how long. There’s still some mystery. They think they know who it was, but they’re not a hundred percent sure.
DC: Then are you a horror movie person?
EM: Generally not. I’m that old guy that goes, “Well, it’s nothing like The Exorcist.” For me, mostly it’s my brother and his wife who are into horror. They’ll watch everything. They love the gore, they love the terror, the suspense of it. It’s too much for me sometimes. I want to know what’s around the corner. It’s different when you’re in it and you’re creating that for someone else. Adam MacDonald directs all the episodes and oh my God, the stuff he has in store for people. He couldn’t wait for the gore parts. He was so into it.
DC: Do you remember the first horror movie you ever saw?
EM: Ooh, yeah. It was a Lon Cheney Jr. movie on late-night television and it was called The Indestructible Man. I think that was the first scary movie that my mom let me stay up and watch. It’s funny, no one’s brought this up, but I was deeply into the idea of horror movies when I was young. In sixth grade, I did a whole project on Boris Karloff and the 1930s black-and-white horror films. I was fascinated by the makeup that went into those, those universal monsters.
Then eventually when I was about 10, that’s when the first Planet of the Apes movies were coming out. They’re not really horror, more science fiction, but I was fascinated by all the makeup. So that was definitely a big piece of my past. Every Halloween I was the mummy, you know because I just wanted to wrap myself in shit. So there is a horror gene in me. I think I’m probably more of a ghost story person.
DC: When did you realize maybe horror isn’t for you if you were so into it as a kid? Was there a specific turning point or a movie?
EM: You know, to go back to The Exorcist again, what I loved about it was the acting, especially a young Jason Miller, the young priest. I’m only 12 when I’m watching it and I just thought to myself at the time, “I’m gonna be a dramatic actor. I’m gonna play roles like that”. But then what changed me was when everybody else discovered Star Wars, I discovered Woody Allen. And so then everything shifted for me. It became a lot about being as funny as I could. <laugh>
DC: Can you tease anything about what’s coming up for Basil?
EM: I can tell you that everything you want for Basil, he’ll probably get.
DC: You’re great in Slasher colon Ripper. So does that give you more of a bug for playing more gross characters?
EM: I don’t think we should say Colon Ripper.
DC: Oh God. Oh no. I made an error <laugh>
EM: I don’t want people to think the entire season’s about some mysterious figure who’s ripping up people’s assholes. You can use all that in your article if you’d like. <laugh>
Well, let’s put it this way. In anybody, there is a dark streak that we don’t want to admit. I’ve never thrown a punch in my life. So there’s a lot of pent-up anger and violence that just simmers for your adult life. So in a part like Basil, I get to live all that. <laugh> It’s sort of shocking how easy it was, that was the fun part.
They’d already been shooting for I think 20 days before I showed up. They’re family. Most of those actors have been in previous seasons. So I showed up and I don’t think they have any idea what I’m about to do. I think Adam mostly knew me from Will and Grace. So I walked in, and I had five scenes on that first day. By the end of the third scene, I mean, Adam was in tears. He was just like, “I can’t believe this, it’s so great, man”.
He basically kept saying, “Where does this come from?” I just said mostly I do other stuff, so people have seen me be lighter and less vengeful. But we all have vengeance in us. There are a few scenes that come later in this season that I won’t give away. But there’s some tremendous physical cruelty, just the misogynistic heartlessness of the character. It was an exploration of my dark side.
Slasher: Ripper has its two-episode premiere on Shudder on April 6, 2023. New episodes are released weekly on Thursdays.
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