Chucky Director Talks Season 3's Bloody Road To The White House - Exclusive Interview
The third season of "Chucky" has arrived, and everyone's favorite killer doll is intent on world domination. Somehow, Chucky has made it all the way to the White House, where he looks set to wreak havoc. Fans of the franchise can expect more gore, more hilarious one-liners, and some serious plot twists.
Following seven movies and a reboot (which featured the voice of Mark Hamill instead of Brad Dourif), the "Chucky" TV series brings the original cast back together again. Dourif reprises his iconic role as the voice of Chucky, Jennifer Tilly is back as Tiffany, and Fiona Dourif returns as the long-suffering Nica. The TV series also features a new young cast of teenagers who find themselves battling serial killer Charles Lee Ray in doll form when they should be studying.
Looper caught up with "Chucky" creator and showrunner Don Mancini to find out what Season 3 has in store for us, from unexpected guest stars to dynamic puppeteers.
Chucky vs. the White House
What can you tell us about Chucky's journey in Season 3?
Chucky is facing a new existential threat, the likes of which he's not faced before. One of the questions that we pose at the beginning of the season is: Why is Chucky at the White House? What exactly does he want? It turns out that the potential solution to his problem requires that he spill a certain amount of blood in the most evil place he can find. In our lore, that's the White House. That's a lot of fun. I have been long fascinated by the stories of ghosts in the White House that have existed for centuries, all of those stories in that lore, and I've long wanted to do something with that, not necessarily involving Chucky. I decided, well, why not do that with Chucky?
It also provided an opportunity to expand our own supernatural mythology. Chucky is, when you think about it, kind of a ghost. He's a spirit that is animating an inanimate object. Viewers will cotton to [this setting] rather quickly, even in the first four episodes that they'll see this month. There's more going on here in the White House than just Chucky. There are other presences, and they make themselves more known in the back half of the season, and that's a lot of fun to do. It's been fun to not only explore that, but expand the mythology regarding Damballa that we've been exploring for the last 35 years. In the back half of the season, you might even meet Damballa, maybe.
You've brought back the core group of teenagers and some of the original cast members like Jennifer Tilly and Fiona Dourif. How did everyone feel coming back for the third season?
We love it. We're a family by this point. We all know each other so well. The kids themselves are now veterans, three years and running. We all love Toronto. That's where we shoot, and being in Toronto in the summer is wonderful. We sometimes describe it as like being at theater camp. It's like being at a summer theater camp, but we have a lot at our disposal. Whereas the classic thing is, "My dad's got a barn, we can do something there," it's like, "We have a network and a studio supporting us." It's the greatest summer theater camp ever. That's how it feels.
We also have a good time on the weekends, too. We all hang out and we eat a lot. Go to restaurants. Toronto's a great city. I love it. Chucky's had a long history with Toronto, going all the way back to "Bride of Chucky," which we shot there in 1998. I really love it and it's a great experience. Everyone is always thrilled to come back and they're always thrilled by the new milieu that we create. We always try to make [each season] radically different somehow, because we don't like to repeat ourselves. Now, we sometimes bring the same actors back in different roles, and it's a lot of fun.
Chucky attracts guest stars
Devon Sawa's back in Season 3 in a new role. What's it been like working with him and has he enjoyed becoming part of the Chucky universe in such a big way?
We love working with him, which is why we keep bringing him back. I can't speak for him, but the fact that he keeps coming back suggests that he enjoys it just as much. It's a lot of fun. I really love writing. It's fun to write new roles for actors that you know, because it's fun to say, "Let's give them something completely different from what they've done before." W
When I told him, "This year, you're going to be playing the President of the United States," he was like, "I wasn't expecting that, but okay, that sounds good." Lara Jean Chorostecki, who played the evil nun last year, she's the First Lady this year. Michael Therriault, who began with us in "Cult of Chucky" when he played Nica's evil psychiatrist, Dr. Foley, he was in Season 1, playing Lexi's dad. Now, he's the vice president. It's something I really enjoy doing. I love actors, and as I said, it's fun for my fellow writers and I to write new roles and tailor them for an actor we know.
You've got some really fun guest stars this season. Are there any dream collaborators you'd like to bring on to future seasons of "Chucky"?
Janelle Monáe. I would love to work with her. She's a huge "Chucky fan." I don't know her at all, but I'm trying. She can be very hard to reach, but she's one. You know who's someone I would really love to work? Martin Short. I love funny people, obviously. We have a lot of funny people on the show, Jennifer Tilly being one example. Our guest stars for this season are Kenan Thompson and Sarah Sherman from "Saturday Night Live," and Nia Vardalos from "My Big Fat Wedding."
It's fun to have Chucky collide with these other iconic figures from other aspects of pop culture. It's really fun to do that and an honor to work with people on the level of Kenan, Sarah and Nia. It's thrilling to have the opportunity to do that. I have Chucky to thank for it, because they wouldn't be interested in working with me. It's Chucky. It's Chucky they're into. I'm like Chucky's agent. We all work for Chucky.
Developing queer love stories
Were there any challenges working with puppets on set?
Oh yeah, it's tough, because it requires six or seven people to work together and coordinate together to create a single character. One of the interesting things about puppets is you have to reduce emotion to iconic gestures and expressions. You learn to do that. One of the great things about working on the TV show as opposed to the movies — because we would do a movie, and then we'd come back a few years later — now, with the show, we're doing it pretty constantly, so we're all in shape, in a way. We're all well tuned.
The puppetry in this season of the show is the best it's been, possibly in the whole franchise, certainly since "Child's Play 2." That is largely due to and a testament to the puppeteers themselves, because they're so in sync now. The fact that we've been doing it for three years continuously, that really helps the performance of Chucky.
I also really love the central romance in the show between Jake and Devon. What's it been like developing their relationship over three seasons now?
It's been great. Ever since "Bride of Chucky," I've worked hard to bring queer content to the franchise, because that's been important to me as a gay man and a gay creator of stories. It's great that we live in a world now, and this is rather different from when we started the franchise in the '80s, where you can depict [queer characters] in a way that simply wasn't done back then. That's really gratifying. It's so great to be able to provide young gay people points of identification among the characters on our show, because I didn't have that when I was a child, when I was a teenager. I would've loved having that, to see an honest and sympathetic portrayal of teenage gay romance.
One of my favorite scenes of the whole season this year is from Episode 2 where Miss Fairchild, their former biology teacher who is now their legal guardian, gives the boys their sex education talk. It's awkward and hilarious, but also sweet. That was our intention, that it would be sweet and heartwarming because all of these poor kids have lost their parents because Chucky has killed them all. Now, Miss Fairchild is their parental figure. I would've loved to have a parent talk to me in that sympathetic caring way. That's one of my favorite scenes. It's a real testament to the actors, Zackary Arthur and Bjorgvin Arnarson, that they do such a great job with that.
Celebrating Bride of Chucky
Do you have a favorite "Chucky" film?
I think it's "Bride of Chucky." It was the first successful reinvention of the franchise. That was after the first three films, which were all pretty similar in terms of being slasher movies. With "Bride of Chucky," we took a bit of a gamble — my producing partner, David Kirschner and I, [he's] been along with me for the entire franchise. It was a bit of a gamble turning it into a comedy in that way. The fact that it worked so well was really gratifying.
It was the first one where there was an explicitly gay character in the story [and] the first one that had a real tangible gay sensibility about it with the camp and some of the casting: Jennifer Tilly, Alexis Arquette, John Ritter, and also the director of that movie, Ronnie Yu, and his cinematographer Peter Pau. The movie was so beautiful. That's something that we're always trying to live up to.
One of the things that we've found over the years is that Chucky operates best in a world that's somewhat stylized, because he himself is stylized, because he's a puppet. He's a doll. That's a stylized expression of a human being. That kind of stylization and surprising, incongruous beauty that goes along with the horror is something that really appeals to me, creatively and aesthetically, about the horror genre.
All of these things, it probably makes that movie my favorite. That was the first one where we worked with Jennifer Tilly, and I wrote it for her, but I didn't know her at the time. The fact that it worked out and she has become one of my best friends, I have a real fondness for that movie and the experience of making it in Toronto, which is where we make the show. I have a real sentimental attachment to Toronto.
I love them all, because they're all like your kids. The consensus fan favorite is "Child's Play 2." Most fans would say that's their favorite, and I love that movie as well. One of the reasons that people love that movie as much as they do is because of the way the director John Lafia presented Chucky. His character and his look and the way John shot him with the lenses that he used was all so perfect, and something else that has been very instructive for us now 30 some years later.
I love "Curse of Chucky" too, because that was another successful reinvention where we brought it back to gothic horror. That also introduced me to someone else who also became one of my best friends, Fiona Dourif, which is weird, because I'd known her father since before she was born. That movie is also very beautiful. Generally, when I get asked that question, I feel like I have to choose one that wasn't directed by me, because then I would look like a bit of a jerk. "Oh of course, it's one of the ones that I directed."
Reflecting on a career in horror
You spend a lot of your time in the "Chucky" universe, but you have worked on other projects. What are some highlights from your career?
My first experience in television was co-writing an episode of "Tales from the Crypt." That was really fun to do, because I was really into that show. This is a long time ago; it's 1990. That episode was directed by Jack Sholder, who had directed "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2" and "The Hidden." I really loved "The Hidden," in particular. That was a great experience, and it was fun for me to see my name on something with Richard Donner, who directed "The Omen" and "Superman." That was great.
Working on "Channel Zero" with Nick Antosca, who is one of my fellow executive producers on "Chucky," I learned so much from him, working for him on that show. He's such a brilliant writer and showrunner. That was a great experience as well. [Season 1 of "Channel Zero"] "Candle Cove," that was really fun to work on. That [was filmed in] in Winnipeg, where we shot "Curse of Chucky" and "Cult of Chucky," so there was a lot of crew overlap. I wasn't the showrunner on that show, but I did go up to Winnipeg at one point. There were a lot of people I knew working on that show from having worked with them on "Curse" and "Cult."
"Candle Cove" is so cool. Marina Kerr played Mrs. Booth, and she was so great that she ended up auditioning for the role of Angela in "Cult of Chucky." In "Cult of Chucky," she played the woman who thought she was a ghost, because it all takes place in an asylum. She has a hilarious scene with Chucky where she's not afraid of him and he gets all frustrated. He goes, "You know what? I'm going to come and kill you in a few minutes. I have something to do now, but I'm going to be back." She's like, "Bye." She was great.
I also loved [Season 2 of "Channel Zero"] "No End House." I worked on that. The whole premise of that, and the way Nick expanded the creepypasta story was really cool. I didn't work on the last two seasons, but they were really good. "Dream Door," the last season, I really loved that. I thought that was so good. I wish I had worked on that, but I was busy directing "Cult of Chucky" at the same time.
New episodes of "Chucky" air Wednesdays on USA/SYFY at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT and are available on Thursdays for streaming on Peacock.
This interview has been edited for clarity.