Talking with Rob Zombie and Halloween cast on the set
by Staci Layne Wilson
It's the final week of principal photography for writer/director Rob Zombie's stab at the famed Halloween film franchise, and accomplished English actor Malcolm McDowell — Mr. Alex de Large his own self — is joking around with the crew grouped in the video village between shots.
We are in the "asylum" (located at the North Hills V.A. in L.A.), a hugely atmospheric practical set. As I bend an ear to hear, it seems McDowell is giddily dishing on an actor with a rubber fetish… and something was said about baby powder.
But now it's time to get back to work, and into the severe character of Dr. Loomis, the psychiatrist who's been unsuccessfully treating psychopath Michael Myers (Tyler Mane) for 17 years. The patient remains silent, while the doctor babbles on about ex-wives and other strange, intimate and personal things.
As I listen to the verbal riffing and watch the scene seated just behind writer / director Rob Zombie, I'm thinking: Is this scripted? It's so outrageous!
A few minutes later, I have the opportunity to ask McDowell about the scene. "I added a few bits of my own," he says with a sly grin. "I just go off on tangents. But I've learned not to do too much because I know it will be cut if I do. But a lot of the stuff here is improvised. I mean, Rob will write me a roadmap of the scene, this is what he wants and OK — I love to work like that because I can just take it and go with it, and see which direction it goes in."
Filming resumes, and Zombie darts between the monitors and the set. When he is seated in his director's chair he is very, very focused as he watches the scene unfold: Hunched down, head in hands, an unwavering gaze fixed on the screen. The only distraction is the silence-shattering roar of a motorcycle which seems to be passing back and forth on the busy boulevard outside – it's just one of the hazards of not being ensconced in an insulated soundstage, but the location is worth it.