Lee Tergesen, perhaps most famous for his roles in Wayne’s World and the HBO series Oz, plays Holden, a menacing biker who gets worse than road rash when he’s involved in a wreck near the Hewitt family home in Texas.

Horror.com’s Staci Layne Wilson was among a group of select genre journalists invited to the hot, buggy, and oh so bloody set in Austin, Texas in November 2005. Here is the bulk of the interview, with spoilers cut out (we’ll run those parts of the interview, uncensored, after the film’s release which is currently set for October 6, 2006).

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Q: You kind of look like you did back in Wayne’s World.  You’ve got the Wayne’s World hair.

Could you slide up a bit, so that the tape recorders . . .

(Lee hops off his stool and squats in front of the assembled recorders, getting as close to them as he can).

LEE TERGESEN:  If anyone comes in here they’ll think I’m shitting, but whatever . . .

(He gets back on his stool)

Lee, when Monster came out I got to interview Patty Jenkins and I asked her what made her – she cast straight character actors as each one of the guys that she killed, and I asked her what made you cast Lee?  And she said, ‘because I know anything I ask Lee to do, he’s done something ten times worse.’

LEE TERGESEN:  She was wrong. (laughs).  That was the worst thing I’ve ever done.

And how did that factor into this film?  What kinds of things are you doing in this film that are off the wall?

LEE TERGESEN:  Actually, I don’t know . . . if I’m allowed to talk about any of that kind of stuff.  I get to ride a motorcycle, I’m . . . I don’t know (turns to publicist) are there rules about that kind of stuff?  What I’m supposed to say?

You’re with the family, aren’t you?

LEE TERGESEN:  No, no.  I sort of come across Jordana and everybody else on the road and then – right before we get into the town – and then my girlfriend sort of disappears and I’m looking for her and I come across Jordana and her friends have all been, you know, something’s happened to all them.  So we decide to sort of team up, if you will.  Not really, but I just use her to try and find my friend, and then—

So you’re a good guy in this?

LEE TERGESEN:  Basically I’m trying to save my friend who’s in this . . .

Are you just passing through or do you live here?

LEE TERGESEN:  Yeah, yeah, I’m part of a biker gang that was just cruising through.

Sounds like you don’t really enter the movie until, what?, halfway through?  A third?

LEE TERGESEN:  Yeah, well, a quarter of the way in.

Are you a full-fledged biker with like a leather jacket?

LEE TERGESEN:  Yeah, leather jacket and . . . The Pistoleros, that’s my gang.

What’s the initiation?

LEE TERGESEN:  I could show you (laughs).  But I can’t tell you.

Did you have to audition for this, or did you them?

LEE TERGESEN:  Yeah, yeah.  I actually went and met with Michael Bay and talked about it.  And for me it was like . . . I had just finished working on Wanted – which is on TNT, new episodes come on December 5.  Real Drama, Real Drama.  (laughs).  And it sort of worked into my time schedule.  I’ve always been a big fan of horror films, I love a good scary movie.  And I have friends down in Austin and I didn’t have to cut my hair, so it sort of all worked together.

And you’ve been in horror films before?

LEE TERGESEN:  I don’t think so.

Forgotten.

LEE TERGESEN:  Is that a horror film?  It was scary at times, I don’t think it was a horror film.

You were with Julianne Moore in Cast a Deadly Spell, that was kind of a horrorish, kind of a comedy.

LEE TERGESEN:  Yeah, that was the first time I was in drag (laughs).  On film.  Anyway . . . (laughs)

So this takes place in the 60s, are you playing this Brando ‘Wild One’ motorcycle gang or . . . ?

LEE TERGESEN:  Actually there was a movie I saw – which I’m sure no one here saw – but I saw it at a drive-in before ‘Billy Jack’ when my family went to see it in 1970, and it was called ‘Chrome and Hot Leather.’  And the first scene is this biker gang driving around this car with two girls in it.  They have all sorts of things and they’re banging on the car – so the first scene where you see me, it’s sort of a scene like that.

And how was it working with R. Lee?  We couldn’t – at the little monitor we saw, I think he holds you down?

LEE TERGESEN:  Working with Lee, as we call him, is confusing because we’re both Lee.  (laughs).  So every time they’re like ‘Lee! I need you to—’ we’re both like, ‘which Lee?’  For while I had the upper hand with him, in this movie.  For a while.

And who’s more intense, Lee Ermey or – I can never say his name – Adewale . . . Adibisi from Oz.  I can never say his name.

LEE TERGESEN:  Yeah.  Adewale.

So you said you had the upper hand, so you fight back pretty well, you kick a little ass?

LEE TERGESEN:  I sort of come in, I sort of, I have the element of surprise, initially.

I gotta go off topic, ‘cause you were just on topic.  I’m a huge fan of Oz and the end of the series is just infuriating.  How did you feel about that ending?

LEE TERGESEN:  What infuriated you?

You never – we never – I got a chance to talk to Eamon Walker a few weeks ago and he was saying how he kind of compacted three years of endings of storylines into the last season of Oz.  And every week someone was dying.  It was a little jarring for people who had been following for all those years.  How did you guys feel about that?

LEE TERGESEN:  I sort of thought . . . I thought it ended well.  I thought . . .

I dented my furniture when you went back into prison.

LEE TERGESEN:  That’s exactly Oz.  It’s that sort of thing where just when you think everything’s fine it goes terrible again and I think the fact that it ended in that nebulous – they’re just there and now they’re being moved – and that, it doesn’t end.  It’s just continuing on.  I think Tom wanted it to not feel like it was a – it wasn’t really a happy ending – but he didn’t want it to be wrapped up and like ‘I’m out, and I’m with a woman,’ and you know.

I know actors don’t ever think about this, do you ever think about what Beecher’s doing now?

LEE TERGESEN:  No.  I don’t think about it.  Sometimes I think we should have done one more season. (Laughs).  But I think we were right to end it when we ended it.

Let me ask an Oz question that goes back to this – after doing that show for so many years, it was a horrific show in many ways.  Do you think you approach a movie like this differently from how you played a character in a much more realistic horror scene, if you will?

LEE TERGESEN:  This is much more realistic horror?

Oz.

LEE TERGESEN:  In a way.  In a movie like this you’re sort of . . . the kinds of work we were doing on Oz, you just sort of had to throw out the window a little bit.  This is a whole other thing, you know?  It’s about what’s scary and so certain laws and certain things that apply normally don’t really apply.  Whatever’s going to give the best effect, you know?  I think sometimes – I was trying to have logic conversations about certain kinds of things and that sort of thing doesn’t really . . . wherein Oz, you would talk about where the characters come from and what’s happening and why.  When the new directors would come in they’d say ‘you sit there’ and I’d say ‘but I just killed his son yesterday, I can’t . . .’ you know?  In the last episode when you weren’t here.  So there was more of that continuity.  In this it’s more of a wild free for all.

Are you a fan of the chainsaw franchise?

LEE TERGESEN:  Mmmhmm.

When you were reading over the prequel script and the back story’s coming out, what’s the one thing you read where you were like ‘wow, that’s awesome.’

LEE TERGESEN:  The thing I enjoyed from when I read the script, from the one from 2003, I just loved R. Lee Ermey’s character.  He’s much more developed in this movie, I think.  So that stuff was – he’s so fucking twisted.  It’s fun to see how that stuff began, stuff like that.

The chainsaw series has always been known for the physical intensity of the horror – running with the chainsaws and screaming.  Was it like what you were expecting when you got here?  Is it even crazier than you thought it would be?

LEE TERGESEN:  Like I was saying, it’s been – it was pretty easy until yesterday, and then that was . . . like I said it was so physically demanding and it was definitely something where you feel like you’re out on a limb and you’re pushing yourself.

It must be a really cool moment on set the first time that chainsaw is out and pulled and you hear the noise.  Were you here on that day?

LEE TERGESEN:  No, I don’t think I was here the first time it got pulled.  But when we were doing this scene [previously that morning] we did all the stuff that led up to when he starts the chainsaw, and then once the chain saw comes on. . . . It’s like Lee Ermey was saying, it’s like all of sudden it feels so real.  It’s terrifying.

Do you have anything else coming up?

LEE TERGESEN:  I think I’m going to go to Japan in December, just for vacation, after that I think we’re starting up with wanted again.  That hasn’t officially been said but it looks like that’s what’s going to happen.

Who from Oz, I thought it was you, was in one of the Hellraiser movies.

LEE TERGESEN:  Eamon.

Jordana was saying that she didn’t want to get to know Andrew very well because she doesn’t want to get to like him because he’s the villain.  Do you have that same sort of deal as an actor, or can you totally separate yourself from the reality when you’re doing a scene like that?

LEE TERGESEN:  Yeah, I can separate.  Have you talked to Andrew yet?

No.  We’ve seen him in bits and pieces – he likes to wander set in character, and be over the top.  Really mellow guy.

LEE TERGESEN:  Yeah, he’s one of those guys who – I’ve known a lot of guys like him so I think he’s a really great guy.  I think sometimes he can be a handful.  He’s playing that character so it’s sort of like – I don’t know.  When I met him last Friday I hadn’t met him yet and I was walking home to the hotel and he’s walking by me and he goes ‘Hey Man!’ and I’d been at the hotel and a lot of people had been stopping me and talking about Oz or whatever, so I just assumed – I didn’t know where it was coming from.  So he was like ‘hey man, lee’ then he goes to give me a hug and I go ‘whoa! Who are you?’ and he goes ‘Dude, I’m Leatherface.’  And I go all right.  And he goes ‘we didn’t get to meet on the set the other day but don’t believe what you heard about me.’ (Laughter).  And then he walked away.

But he didn’t hug you.

LEE TERGESEN:  I think we might’ve hugged, I don’t know.  But I’m huggy though.

You are?

LEE TERGESEN:  Although the thing that’s been hardest for me on this set is, they’re bump crazy.  You know this thing here (mimics hitting his fist to someone else’s).  And I don’t do that.  I don’t do that and I don’t do the high five.  So that has been really . . .

What do you do?

LEE TERGESEN:  I don’t do anything.  If it’s funny I laugh.  And if I feel the need to touch you, I just touch you, give you a little of that.  And it just drives you up the wall.

What about it bugs you?

LEE TERGESEN:  Because it’s like fucking crack cocaine.  Once you do one it’s like everything I say we gotta bump and bump and aahh! (Laughter).  And say a lot of things that are high fiveable.  It’s not a called a bump though, it’s a called a . . . ?

A pound.

LEE TERGESEN:  A pound, exactly.  So they’re always like (mimics giving a pound) and I’m like ‘fucking stop that!’  I usually give people one, and then say ‘listen, that’s it’.

Maybe if your character could do one of those things right before he dies… assuming he dies.

LEE TERGESEN:  Right.

What are some of your favorite horror films, besides the Texas films.

LEE TERGESEN:  I loved Halloween, and I just saw – and I liked the first and can’t remember, was it the fourth Nightmare on Elm Street?  There was one that wasn’t the second one that was good.

(There follows many people talking over each other about different Nightmare on Elm Street films and which were the better sequels).

LEE TERGESEN:  I couldn’t remember if it was the third or fourth one.

The third one was the one with the teenagers with the super powers.

LEE TERGESEN:  Also Rosemary’s Baby.

LEE TERGESEN:  Now I can go home.  Where you guys staying?

Same place as you.

LEE TERGESEN:  If you see me, pretend like you don’t know me. (Laughter)

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