The latest issue of VIDEOSCOPE #126 includes an interview with actor Steve Railsback, best known for STUNT MAN and LIFEFORCE, but also for portraying two notorious (to say the least), cult murder figures, Charles Manson and Ed Gein. Railsback played Manson in the 1976 mini-series, HELTER SKELTER, and serial killer Ed Gein in THE LIGHT OF THE MOON (2000).
In the interview by Terry and Tiffany DuFoe (Terry has been recovering from cancer), Railsback says he was careful to resist chances to play such characters again.
"I haven't really done that many horror movies, " Railsback says. "I was worried after I did HELTER SKELTER because, I swear, after it came out it was the highest rated show.... I was offered, and this is the truth, every killer in town, whether it was television or theatrical. Give it to Railsback!
"And I turned them down. I turned them down because I knew I'd have the chicken ranch, if you know what I'm saying, but I'd have no career after a couple of years.
"Thanks God that THE STUNT MAN came around and those things. And it's hard, too, because when you turn something down in this town a lot, they think you turned it down because it wasn't enough money.
"So they offer you more money and I said, 'No, it didn't have anything to do with money. I just don't want to spend my life or spend the next couple of years killing people and living on chicken eggs.' "
As for ED GEIN a decade and half later, Railsback says, "They originally brought it to me as a slasher film. I said, 'No, I don't want to do that. If we can make it a character study, we can work something out.' So I became the executive producer, and we shot the ninth draft. And it's a character study."
"I just wanted to get into all the colors that made him up. You know, the child, the man. That's what makes me love what I do. It's getting into a mind. ... I just want to find the character, find out who he is, what makes him walk, how he thinks, all those things."
There's a lot more, plus a talk with the late Douglas Cheek, who directed the 1984 sewer-monster film, C.H.U.D., by Pat Jankiewicz.
In the interview by Terry and Tiffany DuFoe (Terry has been recovering from cancer), Railsback says he was careful to resist chances to play such characters again.
"I haven't really done that many horror movies, " Railsback says. "I was worried after I did HELTER SKELTER because, I swear, after it came out it was the highest rated show.... I was offered, and this is the truth, every killer in town, whether it was television or theatrical. Give it to Railsback!
"And I turned them down. I turned them down because I knew I'd have the chicken ranch, if you know what I'm saying, but I'd have no career after a couple of years.
"Thanks God that THE STUNT MAN came around and those things. And it's hard, too, because when you turn something down in this town a lot, they think you turned it down because it wasn't enough money.
"So they offer you more money and I said, 'No, it didn't have anything to do with money. I just don't want to spend my life or spend the next couple of years killing people and living on chicken eggs.' "
As for ED GEIN a decade and half later, Railsback says, "They originally brought it to me as a slasher film. I said, 'No, I don't want to do that. If we can make it a character study, we can work something out.' So I became the executive producer, and we shot the ninth draft. And it's a character study."
"I just wanted to get into all the colors that made him up. You know, the child, the man. That's what makes me love what I do. It's getting into a mind. ... I just want to find the character, find out who he is, what makes him walk, how he thinks, all those things."
There's a lot more, plus a talk with the late Douglas Cheek, who directed the 1984 sewer-monster film, C.H.U.D., by Pat Jankiewicz.
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