Original subtitles

I still think that it's accurate to say I've

murdered more people on film than any actor in history.

Unless somebody can dispute that, but I doubt it.

And if you do, I'll fucking kill you.

You know, I'm not sure why I enjoy horror

so much, but I really do and I always have.

People like to be scared when it's in

the safety of their own home or a theater.

They don't really have to take it with them,

but sometimes I think the most effective

horror movies are ones that you do

in fact take out of the theater in

your mind and it stays with you.

We don't address death.

And I remember thinking I was gonna

live forever when I was young too.

I think I can't believe I lived

through some of the adventures I had.

The horror movie makes us confront death.

It's one of the few places we do.

You certainly don't do it in America's Got Talent

or Dancing with the Stars or The Kardashians,

but you do deal with death in a horror movie.

And if you go to a horror movie, if you sit

in the dark with other people, there's a

collective catharsis that's in the air

and the energy in the the air.

It's a really great experience.

Kinda like riding a rollercoaster,

you know the big hill is coming and you know

you're gonna be rushing down it, but you still do it.

It's this great thing that can happen,

and you share it, and you share that

moment of really confronting your own mortality.

I think that's really the key and really

why the horror movie will always be with us,

it's the place to do that a little bit.

I think a lot of people get labeled

horror icons because they happen to

play a role in a film that ended up

gaining a lot of notoriety or becoming

a franchise or whatever it may be.

Well Kane actually legitimately loves this stuff,

and I think the fact that, look, he played Jason,

and Jason is a huge character, but he really

held the torch for Jason for a long time.

He was doing the conventions, the other

guys weren't, not at that time.

It's kinda ironic 'cause you meet a lot

of these people who play heroes and people

who play bad guys, most of the people that

I've met who play heroes are assholes

and most of the people who play

really bad people are nice guy.

It's kinda funny.

What I admire about what Kane has done

is Kane has transcended the role.

He is Kane.

He has made a brand name for himself.

Kane Hodder, plus it's just a cool kickass name.

Kane being the Hawaiian word for man.

I think it's kinda cool considering

I grew up in the South Pacific,

my first name is really Hawaiian, because a lot

of people think it's not my real name, that it's

a stage name or something, but it really is my real name.

The island of Kwajalein in the Pacific

where an anti-ballistic missile system is being perfected.

This artist conception shows a

typical operating missile site

whose job will be to guard against any

possible nuclear attack from Communist China.

I met Kane in 1971.

We both lived on an island called Kwajalein.

Both of our parents were assigned there.

It's a military base and they

had other companies out there for support.

It was just an amazing place to live.

An oasis in the real world really.

I played all kinds of sports.

The tough thing with playing high school sports is

that we had to play in men's leagues in every sport.

When you're 16 playing varsity basketball

against a men's team, that's not easy.

Every once in a while, certain sports

like basketball, we would go to Hawaii

for a trip and play a couple high schools

which was incredible for us because we had

never competed against another high school team.

We made a road trip to Hawaii,

there was only 12 of us that went.

It was a fun trip because it was just

fun playing other high school students

for one thing 'cause then we did much better,

and then we had a lot of free time.

On one of the days a bunch of us

went to a hotel and we wanted to see

what the view looked like from high up

in the hotel and there was, on each floor,

outside the stairwell there was a balcony

you could just walk out to, you didn't

have to have a room to get on that balcony.

We went up to the 35th floor of the hotel

and we're looking around and I thought hey,

another golden opportunity to entertain my friends.

I thought how fun would it be for

me on that 35th floor balcony to

climb on the outside of the railing.

So I'm holding onto the railing like this

with my feet on the deck, but that's

the balcony, I'm out here over just air.

My friends started freaking out and that

entertained me greatly, so while I'm

holding on like this I thought even more

scary would be to talk to them, go what's

the matter, and then grab on before I fell.

Now 350 feet down.

Sometimes I'm even amazed that I did this

'cause it's not very bright, but I saw their

reaction to that and I did it one more time,

guys I'm fine, and then grab on before I fell.

They took off, they went back into the hotel,

went back down, they were freaking out,

and I thought man, that is entertaining for me.

There were several incidents like that on Kwajalein.

He was a troublemaker.

To make people have that kind of reaction

because I'm doing something that I thought

was easy 'cause I've never really

had a fear of heights at all, I just

found it so much fun to do that with those guys.

I didn't know about Kane's bullying before the book,

and even after we talked about it, it took

a long time for him to open up and really

discuss the bullying and how much it affected him.

During the elementary school years,

when I was 10 and 11, I was a meek, quiet kid.

I started getting picked on a lot.

It became very severe.

There was a story that happened when

my buddy and I went to the community pool

during the summer to go swimming.

It was over at the park.

We went over there and swam all day

and then we were getting ready to leave

and we saw three kids staring at us

that we didn't know, they weren't

from our school, and for some reason

they came over and beat the hell out of us.

I unfortunately got the worst end of it.

There was three of them and they were

much older than us and just beat me

so badly that the next day my face was so

swollen that it was hard to recognize me.

It was so bad that he was embarrassed by it,

and he should've went to the hospital,

but he didn't even wanna show his mom, so he

hid in his room and suffered with all the pain.

I just couldn't figure out why they were doing it

because we hadn't done anything to make

them mad, or to do anything against them

in any way, they just seemed to do it for fun.

I don't know if that spawned other people

to do it from my school, but then I

started getting bullied all the time.

In I think it was seventh grade I was

caught by a guy that had been harassing me

and bullying me who had thrown up

in a baggy earlier in the day because

he was sick and threw it on the ground and

after school thought it would be funny if he

poured it in my face while other people watched.

Everybody thought that was hilarious.

Except me of course.

That's the way it was.

I mean there was always the typical

pushing around, calling names, slamming head

into a locker, stuff like that, but it's

sad to say those were the things that

didn't bother me anymore, that was minor.

I didn't say anything because I was embarrassed to.

It's hard to admit to someone that you allowed

this to happen because technically you did.

There's nothing you can do about it

because you just don't have what it

takes inside of you to stand up for yourself.

So you're embarrassed by it.

Very often the response is well just

stand up for yourself, just hit them back.

Very easy to say, but unless you've been

bullied you don't understand how

impossibly difficult that can be at times.

When a kid is severely bullied and ends up

committing suicide as a result of that,

it's my opinion that happens not because

the kid is scared, or even worried about

anything further happening, it's that

the kid starts thinking they're worthless

because they don't do anything to stop it.

Until you've been there, you don't

understand how impossible that can feel.

And then you start hating yourself.

And then you say you know what, fuck this.

I don't need to go through this anymore.

I'm worthless, I don't do anything

to stop, and they end their lives.

Eventually after years, I don't know

how I did this, and I just somehow

snapped and I swung and I punched him.

I couldn't even believe I did it.

It didn't even seem like me doing it, it seemed

like I was outside my body watching me do this.

I punched him not very effectively

and I got the shit beat out of me

because of it, but I went home

feeling better about myself because I tried.

So I thought hey, you know what, I lost a fight.

I felt better.

Mentally that turned me around and somehow

I started to let it happen less and less.

Eventually it stopped.

After I graduated from Kwajalein High School,

while I was going to college at UNR, Nevada-Reno,

I saw a sign in my dorm looking for

extras for a movie, and I thought

that might be interesting to go down

there and just see how movies are filmed.

So I went downtown Reno and was able to

work on the film, it was called California Split.

George Segal and Elliott Gould.

I was just an extra in the crowd, and I

was fascinated by the process of filmmaking.

I worked on it for a day and then thought

that was fun, and I had classes the next day,

so I blew off those classes and went

back and worked on the movie again

just 'cause I had so much fun doing it.

It was the only time in my life I've ever been an extra.

Even though that was only 1974, it was

the start of my interest in film by far.

It was the very first thing because the

following year I went to visit my buddy Mike,

and Mike lived in Los Angeles and he said

let's go to Universal Studios and go on the tour.

I loved it, I just loved being on the backlot.

I wanted so badly to get off the tram

and just wander around by myself.

Then the tour was over and we went

to a couple of the live shows, one of

which was the wild west stunt show at Universal.

We watched the show and that was it.

As soon as that show was over

I said that's what I wanna do.

And I knew it.

From that moment.

Once he gets something in his head,

and sorry Kane, but it just stays there.

No matter what you say to him, you can't change his mind.

Very fortune of course over the years

to get to where I've gotten, but I've also

worked hard, it wasn't handed to me in any way.

On a professional level, I love the fact

that he takes these parts so seriously.

There's a lot of times, especially with

producers or studio execs where they'll

say whoever is gonna be this villain, we just need

a big, menacing, physical presence, preferably a

stunt guy who can take hits and punishment.

Kane really gets into it and that's why

the characters he plays are memorable.

Did a movie called Prison in 1987.

I was happy to be the stunt coordinator on it,

it was a great movie stunt wise, and then at

the end of the shooting John Buechler,

who was doing the makeup effects, said we have to

have a guy in the full body prostetic makeup.

The wrongly executed prisoner comes

out of the ground strapped to an electric chair

and he has full makeup head to toe,

prosthetics, dentures, lenses, everything.

And I said well I've never done it, I'm happy

to do it 'cause it's not a comfortable thing.

I'd actually designed it on another actor,

but when I went to Wyoming I saw that Kane...

I think he had the chops for it.

I put everything on, it took

3 1/2 hours to put everything on,

and then Randy said you know what

would be really cool, since this is

a corpse that has been buried, he said why

don't we put live nightcrawlers all over you.

I said how could would it be if

I had live worms in my mouth?

He's like you would do that?

I said yeah, I still don't think that was a big deal.

He went nuts with it really.

So I put them in my mouth and did the shot.

I think that Randy and John Buechler both

were impressed at my enthusiasm

for working in that kind of makeup.

John in particular liked how I moved in the makeup.

The thing I noticed about Kane during Prison

was that he worked with the makeup.

It's one thing to design a cool looking creature effect.

It's another thing to have it performed well.

Aside from being an amazing stuntman

and a really fine actor, he works with

the appliances and he tries to

do as much as he can with them.

That stuck with me.

So that's 1987, the following year John Buechler

is hired to direct Friday the 13th Part Seven,

and immediately says I got the

guy that I want to play Jason.

I wanted Kane.

I knew that he could act, and I knew that

he could really work with the appliances,

and I wanted to take the mask off of Jason.

I wanted people to see how pissed off he was.

The thing I gave to the Friday

the 13th movies was the rage of Jason.

The makeup for Part Seven was my favorite look.

Very very well done makeup.

It created the illusion that when he

opened his mouth you saw him through holes.

The very first shot I ever did as Jason

in Part Seven being my first movie was

the single shot where Tina has a vision and sees

Michael being stabbed in the kitchen of the house.

That is the very first thing I ever shot as Jason.

When I put that stuff on and went to the set

it felt so natural, and people are gonna go

oh my God, he's so full of shit, but really,

it felt right for me to be wearing that stuff.

But I wanted to do whatever I

could to make the movie look good.

To this day it's still my favorite

look of Jason, of all of them really.

Certainly of the ones I did.

There had been six films before

I ever came into the picture.

So the Friday the 13th name,

the Jason name, were known worldwide.

For me to be able to step into that role,

how do you not consider that a huge honor?

And you better do it justice.

You're given an opportunity of a lifetime,

so you need to do whatever you can to add to that.

He brings this special focus, I think, to Jason.

When I first put the makeup on and looked

in the mirror, I thought when Jason is staring at

someone and not moving, he looks like a mannequin.

I said what can I do to still do that

same stare but add life to the character?

I don't think people understand how hard

that is to make anything, a lot of it's

just the movement, a little movement.

A lot of it's in the eyes.

He gets in front of that mirror and he

looks at the makeup and he figures

out what he can do with it.

He pushes the limits and he talks to

the makeup artist, can I do this, will it

hurt the makeup, I mean he's very specific.

I came up with the breathing thing

so instead of this you see this.

To me, that made it look like the

character was about to spring any moment.

Even though he's motionless staring at you,

the heaving chest looked scary as hell

and people have said that's one of

my signature things that I do,

but I just thought it worked.

Kane owns that, and I think that it's

very special and I think that most fans

immediately can tell if it's some

other person wearing the mask and why

it's important for true fans, I think,

that they really respond to the way Kane did it.

I remember the first time I seen him

and he was just breathing and taking

in air and I was like oh my God, oh my God.

I'm not gonna sleep tonight, motherfucker.

That Jason's just a predator.

That's it.

It's like an automatic need.

Just pure nihilistic, must destroy.

There's something about the way Kane

plays that focus that's really fun.

I have never in my life broken a bone.

Which I'm proud of because I always

think it's funny that stunt people

brag about how many bones they've broken.

Isn't the whole point to do a stunt successfully?

'Cause anybody can be crazy and

just go do something and get hurt,

but the whole point is to have a

stunt career successful that you don't get hurt.

I always find it funny when guys

say yeah, I broke 225 bones.

You're not very good then, are you?

Kane is perhaps the safest stunt

coordinator that you'll ever wanna work with.

He is very strong, very firm, very creative on a set.

He can figure out something ridiculous

and over the top instantly.

There was a scene written where as Jason

I chase Tina up the stairs, she goes up

the top of the stairs where the door

of course is locked and there's no escape.

So I come up the stairs, the way it was

written in the script was she makes

the light start moving and it swings and

hits me in the chest and I tumble down the stairs.

I mean Kane doesn't do things 50%.

He does things 150%.

You tell him to scrub a floor,

he'll scrub the shit out of that floor.

And I said to Buechler I said that's not

too bad, but how cool would it be if that

thing just swings and hits me right in

the face, in the mask, and then I just

fall back like a tree and I go through the stairs.

He goes wow, you can do that, and I

said I think so, I think it would look great.

I think it's more in character of Jason.

Tumbling down the stairs I think looks too human.

Take the hit and then fall straight back

onto their staircase, that's one of

my favorite shots in the movie as well.

It must've been difficult, but you could

never tell by the way he performed.

He never showed the discomfort or the

difficulty, he was always 100% performance.

We're at the lake set, this is in Bay Minette, Alabama.

To go to the dressing rooms I would always

walk through the woods, and whenever I was

in character in any of the movies I like

to leave the mask on and stay in character.

2 o'clock in the morning one night or something,

walking on the trail, I saw someone coming

to the set, someone who I didn't recognize.

And I thought this might be fun.

So I stopped on the trail, still had

the mask on, everything, and I stared at him.

He uttered the most ridiculous

question I think I've ever heard.

He looked at me, in all that makeup,

and said excuse me, are you with the movie?

That's a dumb bastard right there.

So I just stared at him and he started

looking around, yeah, you're with the movie right?

And that's when I rushed at him.

He took off running back to the

trucks, I never saw him again.

But the next day, just talking to Buechler

before we started, he said hey, you know

that local sheriff never showed up last night.

I said oh, hmm, I wonder what happened.

For a long long time, my all time

favorite kill was a Jason kill.

The sleeping bag.

The sleeping bag.

Sleeping bag.

Sleeping bag.

Sleeping bag.

Sleeping bag.

The sleeping bag.

Sleeping bag kill in Part Seven.

The sleeping bag is one of the

most classic ones in history.

I killed somebody with something

that's not a weapon, that's pretty amazing.

And it was just such an impactful kill

in the theaters, I went to the Chinese Theater

in Hollywood when the movie opened,

just anonymously sat in the back,

and when that kill came up opening night,

I watched half the audience stand up

high-fiving each other and stuff,

I said wow, that was a pretty amazing feeling.

One of Kane's most legendary

stunts is his burn in Part Seven.

At the time it was a record long fire burn,

the entire thing is on screen.

And I thought let's make it a little

different than what you normally see

because you typically never saw the

ignition of the stunt person on camera.

It always cut from somebody making

a reaction, then it cut to the

person on fire already moving around.

This girl has telekinetic powers, so why

don't we have her make the fire blast out

of the furnace and ignite Jason on camera.

And Buechler was like wow, I've never seen

that really, and I said I haven't

either, so that's why I wanna do it.

We did the ignition of the character on fire

with a propane cannon, then I started

stumbling around doing my acting,

which I always love doing, and ultimately

by the time I went down, because I was going

by the feel of it, I had been on fire

so long that the fuel is almost gone.

I was on fire for 44 seconds which is,

if you watch your watch for 44 seconds and

imagine being completely engulfed in flames

for that long, it's an incredibly long time

and it set some kind of records at the time.

To this day it's probably my favorite fire stunt.

And not only is it an amazing on screen fire burn,

it's a stunt done by someone who almost died

from a fire burn, so it's really poetic.

I mean you have to admit that in

Friday the 13th Part Seven he gave

one of the most spectacular full body

burns you've ever seen in your life.

This from a man who was burnt horribly.

I always say that one of the best qualities

to have as a stunt person is a common sense

knowledge of physics where you think of

a stunt and you anticipate what's

gonna happen and what could go wrong.

That's a huge attribute in the stunt

business to think well what if this

happens, then what are we gonna do?

So then you prepare for that.

Maybe I learned much more from my mistake,

but at the time you have to protect yourself.

Basically until the book came out

I never admitted the real story.

Because he knew for the first time

ever he had to face the truth.

He was embarrassed about it for years,

he lied, he told stories to other people

that it was on the set of this,

on the set of that, he made up different

situations how it happened, but no one knew.

It was really this powerful moment with

me and him when he finally decided he

could tell the world and open up

and tell the story and not be embarrassed

about it anymore, that he's matured enough

to face the facts and tell the full story.

Since I had officially gotten into SAG

and done a TV show, that's when I talked

to this reporter and she said let's do

a story about the local kid that's

making his way in the stunt business.

I'll give you some pictures and if you

want I'll do a fire stunt for you live.

She said really and I said sure,

I've been doing it no problem.

We went out, it was just her and I.

We happened to pick a place that was, where I was

doing the fire stunt, it was right next to a lake.

Six feet away from the lake.

But because it was the lake it was real windy.

We did the stunt and I was on fire

and I put myself out no problem.

I knew that I wasn't gonna be happy with it

because the wind was blowing so hard

it was blowing the flames down,

so I didn't think it looked as dramatic.

Too bad I didn't just settle with it.

So the next day they went to a

different area in the desert, not near

the lake, not near the water, he had

no safety stuff with him, it was just him,

his lighter, and the biggest mistake he did

was he couldn't afford rubber cement at the time.

Even though it was a few bucks he was broke

trying to struggle in Hollywood.

I said I ran out of glue, can you get me some.

The reporter brought some from the

office saying here you go, here's some rubber

cement so you don't have to spend your own money.

Having never used that brand before,

Kane didn't realize how flammable it was.

I got all prepped and ready and I

went to light myself, which is normally,

when I would do this you'd have to

touch the glue with the flame to make it ignite.

He put his arm out away from himself to

be safe, and when he lit the match he ignited.

Completely burst into flames everywhere.

You always see stop, drop, and roll on TV commercials

and stuff, and that's a nice theory, but the thing

that people don't understand, unless you've

been on fire, is that when your head is in

the flames, and you can hear your hair burning

and you can feel your face burning

and your ears burning, you run.

It's not the right thing to do, it's a reflex.

And every person that I've ever talked to

that's been burned seriously in the upper body

says the same thing, they ran.

As I'm running and burning, she doesn't

realize I'm out of control and in trouble,

so she keeps snapping pictures, and again,

I don't blame her in the least for any of this,

but she didn't realize until I started

screaming probably that I was in trouble.

Then I somehow got my wits about me and

realized there was some kind of dampness

on the ground, dove into there and rolled

around and finally got myself put out.

And when he finally was conscious enough

to see the reporter, the reporter looked at

him and that's when he knew how horrible it was.

All my clothes that I had on were gone.

My skin was falling off, I had mud all over me

from the ground that was falling off with my skin.

I knew I was in very very bad shape.

She said let's go, we got in her jeep,

we said we gotta get somewhere to get some help

because this is very serious, my face

was burned, everything, my hair was gone.

We're driving in the jeep out of the desert

and the first thing we see is a fire station.

I think oh perfect.

We go there, we bang on the door,

we try and get, nobody answers.

So we got back in the car, we went to

the first house we could get to.

The photographer...

Sorry.

Photographer knocks on the door and a lady answers.

And she looked at me terrified and says get in here.

And I said what, she goes get in the shower,

stand in my shower, I'll call the

ambulance and they'll come and get you.

I do that.

As I walk through the house...

Sorry.

As I walk through the house there's a little girl.

Sitting on the floor playing and she was terrified.

And I don't blame her, I mean the way I looked.

She was scared to death.

Kept looking out the shower, looking at

my eyes thinking why does this not hurt yet.

I was just astounded that I knew I was

severely injured and there was no pain.

But I kept waiting for something to start hurting.

The ambulance finally came, I walked

back out, the girl wasn't there anymore

thank God 'cause I felt horrible.

I felt worse for her than I did for myself.

Was three years old or something, just scared to death.

Got in the ambulance and sat up the

whole time in the ambulance all the way there.

As it turns out, when you burn that badly

you burn the nerves completely off

and there's no pain for a while.

The next day it was incredible and didn't stop.

That basically started the next

six months of horrific torture.

Can we cut for a second?

Once the pain started after the

initial shock wore off, it was so

much more than I ever anticipated.

So much worse than you can even imagine.

The worst part of this was he had no painkillers in him.

He didn't know at the time, but his father

pulled aside the doctor and asked him

not to give him any painkillers.

And the doctor went along with that.

I'm not sure why he didn't just say no,

he needs pain medication to get through this.

I had less medication than I should have had.

And the reason for that was his father

was in The War and he saw all his fellow

soldiers who came back with injuries

who got addicted to painkillers and he

was scared that was gonna happen to Kane.

And I know my dad was just trying

to look out for my best interest,

he didn't want me to become addicted

to stuff, but that's something you have

to worry about later, you have to get

rid of the pain so you can heal.

But the pain itself was so unbelievably tremendous.

I got to the hospital and I didn't

know anything about what is the

proper way to take care of burns.

And neither did my parents, so whatever

the hospital did for me we thought was good.

I don't know how else to say it,

they weren't equipped at all to take care

of my injury, but they thought they were.

My parents came in when they could

and my dad walked in and left immediately.

They could just see me from here up.

My face was burnt, but not as badly as the

rest of my body, so I didn't look that terrible.

I didn't know until later, when he walked in,

the smell that was in my room because of

me being burned I guess brought back

terrible memories of him during The War.

He had to run out and he had to

go to the bathroom and throw up.

Then I remember my mom lifting up

the sheet and looking at this arm and just

started crying because it looked so terrible.

It was very very hard for my parents

to see their son in that situation.

Because I was burned all in the upper body,

I couldn't use my hands at all, so I

couldn't go to the bathroom by myself,

I couldn't even change the channel of the TV myself.

It was a terrible way to have to live,

especially since I was 22, when someone else

has to help you take a piss or wipe your ass.

It sounds funny, but it's very humbling.

Then they would take me to what's called

the Hubbard Tank, and they have

to get rid of the dead tissue.

Even when you're healing, dead tissue

accumulates and it has to be removed

so the fresh tissue can heal.

So they would put him down in the basement

because he would scream so loud they had

to hide him from all the other patients.

They would soak him in a bathtub, and then

the doctor would take the back side of a scalpel.

And scrape all of the burned area to get

the material off that needed to be debrided.

This is, again, when I couldn't even stand

the vibration from somebody kicking my bed.

Now you're gonna scrape it?

There is no way I can ever express

the amount of pain there was.

They did a skin graft surgery and they

splinted my arms straight out like this.

From my body, I couldn't move because

they wanted the skin to take, and when

you do skin grafts you need to be

motionless so, it has to be your own skin,

and it can adhere and start growing to your body.

It's taken from a healthy area, my legs,

put on the burned area, and hopefully

grows into it and helps cover up the burn.

As I'm barely conscious coming out of

the O.R., going back to my room, they realize

I can't get in my fucking room because

my arms are like this, I'm too wide

to go through the doorway to my room.

Now I have to, just after waking up

from major surgery, have to stand up

like this, walk into my room, wait for

them to bring the bed in, and then

get back in my bed, which I thought

was the most asinine thing you could

ever do, not look ahead to that?

You couldn't see that coming?

That was just one of the first days and

that was an indicator of what was to come.

I was in that hospital four months,

consistently getting worse every day.

Trying skin grafts that didn't work.

One of the most important things with

a burn injury is to keep a sterile

environment around the patient.

When I'm in a room with another person who has

some other kind of problem, that's not sterile,

and that's what happened in that hospital.

And everyone had to scrub down to

come in except for the doctor, the doctor

would come through and not wash his

hands, be wearing his tennis shoes,

and just walk over and check Kane.

I was amazed that he thought everybody

else should do it, but he was above it.

He shouldn't have been taking care of me at all.

Unfortunately at that hospital they

did very little correctly for me.

There was such a long list of terrible

things that happened as a result of being

in that hospital that never should've happened.

My veins started collapsing, now I have to

submit to a needle in the vein in my groin.

They put pins through my elbows

and you can still see the scar.

They would hold my arms up like this.

When they took the pins out I couldn't put my arms down.

Not being able to sleep, and then when

you finally do doze off I would twitch.

That happened every single time I would doze off.

And I lost my voice completely.

Put a feeding tube through my nose into my stomach.

I had a catheter for a while.

Gained and lost 50 pounds in five days.

Seven skin graft surgeries.

They kept doing the procedures and it wouldn't work.

And I didn't have any health insurance.

If I read it in a book, I would read it

and say this can't be true, he's exaggerating.

To make it sound more horrific than it was.

That can't all be true, and unfortunately it was.

And it's a horrifying story.

It's bad enough being burned obviously,

but all the other things that went wrong,

I mean it couldn't have been worse.

Bottom line is after four months

that doctor told my parents that

I had a staph infection and it

doesn't look like I'm gonna make it.

My parents are like what do you mean?

After four months he's gonna die from the burns?

'Cause typically if you die as

a result of being burned it's early.

You don't get through the first week.

You don't die four months later usually.

They were astounded that he was saying that.

Then he said we're gonna ship him

to a burn unit in San Francisco.

My dad was wait, burn unit, we didn't know what it was.

He said what's that and he said it's a

place that specializes in burn care.

And my dad almost killed the fucking guy by saying

why did you not send him there in the first place?

I get to San Francisco, the Bothin Burn Center

in Saint Francis Hospital and everything changed.

At that time it was the best burn center

west of the Mississippi River.

It was a real first class burn center.

We had attendings, resident doctors and nurses,

they all devoted their time to

treating burn patients specifically.

My doctors were different, this was

a unit that was self-enclosed.

We have our own O.R., we do all our

treatments here, we have hydrotherapy.

That was built in 1967.

The other thing that the burn unit

had to deal with was that I was in bed

at the first hospital for four months,

never being able to sit in any

other position other than maybe

recline a little bit or sit up a

little bit, but I was always on my back.

So consequently I had two really bad bedsores on my back.

The burn unit had to deal with all that too,

they had to get rid of the bedsores,

they had to get rid of the staph infection,

they had to get me skin grafted

and get my weight up, and they

did all of that in six weeks.

Whereas the first hospital took

four months to get me to that horrible position.

If I had been in the burn unit from

the beginning I probably would've

been in there four weeks total.

What stayed the same from when I started 35 years ago

today is the patience that it takes for everybody,

the caregivers, the patient, the families.

The body heals only at a certain rate.

The caring part, the support that these people need,

is exactly the same through the years.

That hasn't changed.

I started getting a more positive attitude

because this place is state of the art,

even back then, for burn care.

Then that's when the depression sets in.

Because at the beginning you're just trying to survive.

Now that you know you're gonna survive,

now you deal with the fact that for

the rest of your life you're gonna

have that visual reminder, which is the scars.

The biggest misconception is

that it's just about the skin.

It's not just about the skin.

Major burns affect every system of the body.

It affects the immune system, it often affects

the lungs if they're burned in an enclosed space.

It affects the GI tract, it affects every

system of the body, and also I think

a lot of people underestimate the

psychosocial recovery of burns.

I didn't let anybody come and visit me really,

just immediate family and that was it.

I actually wanted to go out and see him,

but he didn't want any visitors, and I respected that.

But it was scary.

I just didn't want my close friends to see me like that.

It's the weirdest thing, the things your mind go through.

I'm never gonna be able to take my shirt off again.

People are always gonna stare at me.

I'm gonna have scars for the rest of

my life, limited movement, which I still have.

I got very depressed even when I was getting better.

I was laying in my bed depressed because there

wasn't much to be happy about other than surviving.

I looked at somebody come in to visit the nursing staff.

Everybody had to gown up, when you go in the unit

you have to put on everything to keep it sterile.

Even visitors.

This guy, who I didn't recognize,

was at the nurse's station, and I'm

watching him, he starts laughing

and having a good old time, being happy,

shaking hands with people and I was

laying in there saying fuck you.

You have no idea what I'm going through

and you're fucking happy, I hated him.

Truthfully I became somewhat, I guess you could

say suicidal, because I didn't know

if I wanted to live like this.

I watched this guy laughing and having a good

old time and thinking God, you are so lucky.

He pulls up his sleeve of his gown,

'cause he was warm or something, and I'm

looking at him thinking oh wait a minute.

He's got burn scars.

This guy was in this unit.

He's a former patient that was in here,

burned badly 'cause I could see his arm just like mine.

And he's fucking happy.

And I thought holy shit, this guy does

know what I went through and he's happy?

I thought holy, man, maybe there's

something positive that'll come out of this.

He completely turned my whole attitude around.

So if he can do it, I can do it.

Everything changed after that,

everything started improving.

That's the thing with a burn injury.

If you're sitting and talking to somebody

and they're telling you what to expect

and you don't see burn scars on them,

in your mind you're just thinking,

you're not even listening because you don't know.

But if you're sitting there with scars,

I'll listen to you all day long because you do know.

We do a burn support group once a month

here in the burn center where we have

patients come back for years to

get that support from people who

had been through it like them.

It was an amazing experience that

this guy completely, basically saved

my life a second time without even

knowing it, and never never knew his name.

It seems like this was the angle.

Right here.

It was bigger than this, it went out a little farther.

The beds were this way, not this way.

Right.

We were like this.

He was here.

I guess that could've been the angle I was looking at.

Yeah, I think that was my room.

My biggest goal was to get home for Christmas.

Just to be out of the hospital and home for Christmas.

My doctor's name was Angelo Capozzi.

He was okay with sending me home

really before I should've gone home.

Well I think as we've become more

knowledgeable about taking care of burn patients,

I think it's one of the physician's

duties to keep the patient comfortable.

He allowed me to go home with the

training that he gave my mother for my,

I had slight open wounds all over, but small ones.

Because it was in-between where the

skin grafts were that hadn't quite healed yet.

He knew what I had been through, decided he

was okay with me going home on December 23rd.

I haven't seen Dr. Capozzi in 39 years.

Hey doc.

How are you?

I'm great, I'm great.

Been a long time.

Yes it has.

39 years.

Yeah.

This area was some of my worst, you can see.

It was really quite deep there.

I know, but it looks great.

That's the only bad part still.

A little tight, but if you can

get along with that, I mean that's fine.

I never really got to tell you thank you.

Because you saved my life, there's no,

I'm not trying to be dramatic 'cause

everybody knows I don't do that.

You saved my life and don't try

and be fucking humble about it please.

Because...

Strike that.

I would like to say thank you for everything you did.

You're very welcome.

I really appreciate that.

I went on to have a great life.

I think it's very interesting that I never

developed a fear of fire considering it

almost killed me and I understand

how terrifying it is to be on fire.

You would think the last thing I'd

ever wanna do is be on fire again,

but another friend of mine that

gave me a lot of good stunt jobs

named B.J. Davis, was doing a movie

in New Orleans called Avenging Force.

I had worked a little bit with him,

we had become friends, and he said

why don't you be one of the stunt guys

to come down for the entire shoot of the movie.

I was very happy to do that, hadn't done

much on location before.

So while I was in New Orleans, B.J. said,

I don't know how he knew that he

could ask me this, but he had a good

sense of my personality I guess, he said

we gotta do two full burns at the same time.

You wanna do one with me?

First I was like oh shit, I didn't

think anybody would ever ask me that, first of all.

Then I start thinking about it more

and I said you know what, he knows what I've

been through and he's confident in me doing it.

If he had said you probably don't

wanna do this, but there's a fire stunt,

but he didn't do it that way, I guess

he just did it the right way for me.

Just offer it to me without any hesitation.

If I don't wanna do it, fine, somebody else will do it.

But ultimately I did the stunt with him.

B.J. comes flying out of a window on fire,

and I come out of the doorway on fire.

It was a full burn that I did again

for the first time since my accident.

I loved it.

I felt very comfortable, I see how,

when you do the proper setup, how easy

it is to do that stunt really, and I came

to the conclusion that I love doing fire.

It's very very surprising that a

burn survivor could even go near a fire again.

Doing that first fire stunt again was huge,

a huge step forward in forgetting about the past.

I met Kane when he was working

on a pictures with Wes Craven.

Called The Hills Have Eyes II.

I had doubled a character called The Reaper.

Was a stunt double for him, I was falling

through a skylight and riding a motorcycle

and doing some stuff around some fire.

He was a wonderful and interesting guy.

Clearly he was a guy that didn't

seem to be afraid of anything.

And I ended up doing every one of

Sean Cunningham's movies for quite

a while after that one, all the House movies.

Everything he did really.

I did the original Friday back in 1979, '80.

I was around for Friday Two and Friday Three,

but I was anxious to move on and

do some other things, so the series

proceeded for a while without me and then

we decided to do Friday the 13th Part Nine.

Fortunately the person that was hired

to direct, Adam Marcus, was a fan of mine

as the character and immediately said

hey, I want him to play Jason again.

This is my third go around as Jason.

He just brought a certain kind of

consistency and flavor to the character

that the fans really responded to and I

would be mad if I were to think of replacing him.

The last shot of the movie, when I read

the script for the first time, it said

Jason's mask is laying on the ground

and Freddy's hand comes out of the ground

with the glove on and the sweater, and grabs

the hockey mask and pulls it into the ground

to set up for Freddy Versus Jason.

And I said okay, well I'll tell you

one thing right now, I'm gonna be

wearing that Freddy glove to do that shot.

Nobody else is gonna do it 'cause

Robert Englund is not gonna do it.

I did that shot, I was underneath the set,

pulled down the mask and pulled it into the set

thinking I was setting up for Freddy Versus Jason.

Back in 1983 I had a meeting with Wes Craven

and he said I'm developing a new character.

He's gonna have burn scars.

I'm thinking about using somebody with real burn scars.

And I said wow, that's great.

What kind of character, well he's

not a really nice guy, he's a pedophile.

I said okay, and with burn scars,

and his name is Fred Krueger.

Wes Craven was a friend of mine, I did

a series with Wes Craven and I know that,

I think there was a time when he was

really considering Kane to play Freddy.

Obviously we know where this is all headed,

I did not play the character because he

decided to go with a more established actor

with prosthetics instead of real burn scars.

I think Robert did an amazing job as that character,

and obviously one of my horror heroes is Robert Englund.

How different life could've been

for everybody had that happened,

but I know that West thought very highly of him.

Well Kane and I, we go way back.

Robert and I have been friends for a long time.

We do conventions together of course.

And we just hit it off because we both have to

go through a lot of the same off-screen fan stuff.

Give it up for Kane Hodder and

Robert Englund, ladies and gentlemen!

When I started in this business,

never anticipated ever signing an autograph.

You loved it the first time that goth girl

walked up to you and went sign me, Kane!

But we have worked together also

which was a lot of fun for me.

I had done a web series with Robert called Fear Clinic.

Well Fear Clinic's where Kane and I

got to do most of our work together.

That's really where we found our vibe

as actors together 'cause we were really,

we had a lot of scenes between us.

I'm taking you down before you kill anymore patients.

I'm not fond of this new attitude of yours.

Clearly you don't understand the

employee/employer relationship.

Now help him!

Yeah, blah blah blah, I know,

I got the body, you got the brains.

It was fun working together.

It's cool to have pictures of him

face to face arguing without makeups on.

Really Freddy versus Jason in a different way.

There was still this pressing,

my pressing need to go ahead with Freddy/Jason.

And still, because New Line and Robert Englund

and some other issues, we couldn't do that,

at least not yet, and so that's what led

us to Jason X, or Jason in Space.

It seemed like a really good idea and was

a really fun notion to try to figure

out how we would do all of that.

The sets were amazing and the

movie was pretty clever I thought.

There was a part of the film where

somebody created a virtual reality

to try and slow Jason down, and all of a

sudden Uber Jason was back at Camp Crystal Lake.

We're in space and we're looking for

all the kind of gags that we used

to do and that Jason's known for.

Basically this is just for the fans really,

the fans of the previous films.

I had a girl in a sleeping bag,

and I was slamming her against her

friend that was in her sleeping bag.

So killing them both with each other.

Redid the stunt that the fans so loved.

It was my idea to do one shot

to the tree just as a throwback.

It was just so silly.

My hands down favorite Jason kill

is the frozen head in Jason X where he

lifts it up and then just shatters it.

Freeze the head in liquid nitrogen and smash it.

Liquid nitrogen and smashed on the table.

And then smashed it and he brain rolls out.

I thought that was great.

No one was expecting that and it

was just so gory and so crazy, and just

the way he does it, just tosses

her aside, it's an awesome kill.

I got a call from an executive at New Line.

She wanted to have lunch with me.

She gave me a script called Freddy Versus Jason

and she said we're finally doing this movie.

And I said that is fantastic, I'm so happy to hear that.

I assumed at that time that meant I was doing the movie.

You're giving me the script and saying we're finally

doing this movie, pretty sure thing in my mind.

Then in the weeks that followed I started

getting a weird vibe from New Line.

Well I knew Kane.

I was told by the powers to be, for most

of that prep time it was always gonna be Kane.

Ultimately I was told that they had

hired somebody that played Jason before.

Then I found out it was Kirzinger.

I was like how is he having played the character before?

And then I remembered in Part Eight, 'cause they

didn't want me to take a chance of

getting hurt and not being able to work,

I was forced to allow Ken Kirzinger to do the

car hit where the cop car hits Jason in the alley.

Even though I've done that stunt many times,

they thought if you get a broken leg

or something we're in trouble.

It seems to me that someone, I don't think

it was him, I'm almost sure it wasn't him

because I've talked about it with him,

but someone had represented him

as having played the character also.

Based on that shot.

That was a done deal, he was already hired,

and I, to say the least I was devastated.

It's only a role, but it's something that

I had put my heart and soul into for 15 years,

four films in a row, and it seemed like...

None of that mattered.

I never in a million years would've

given them a reason to replace me.

By saying hey, I want this much money

and they just say oh can't afford that,

let's go somewhere else, then that's on me.

But I would never have given them any

kind of reason, I was never difficult

to work with, I was never late to the

set and undependable, nothing like that,

so I couldn't understand why I was replaced and

I don't think I'll ever know the real reason.

It was a very very low point of my career.

It was almost as low a point for me as getting burned.

Because I was never told any reason.

Took me a long time to get over that.

For almost 20 years he was Jason.

And in thousands of fans, upon millions

around the world, he is Jason, he always

will be Jason no matter if someone

else plays him more than once, or if he never

plays it again, he will always be the Jason

because he's the one that made him iconic.

That made him more than just a guy with a mask.

After the whole mess of not doing the

Freddy Versus Jason movie, I got contacted

by Adam Green about a new character

that he thought could be a franchise also.

Well my first project with Kane was the original Hatchet.

I was a huge fan of all the slashers.

Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger,

and the concept of possibly having

Kane Hodder be Victor Crowley was

always just a pipe dream, and then

John Buechler who was doing the effects,

when he first suggested well why don't

I show the script to Kane, I was just like really?

Seriously?

'Cause I didn't think he'd wanna do it

just because he's already done it.

And he had been a fan of my work as Jason

and wanted to talk about playing

a character called Victor Crowley.

With Jason, he came into that so late

in the game, and as much as he's the Jason

as far as anybody who knows what they're

talking about with Friday the 13th goes,

this was a great opportunity, especially because

it's a very different character and

he's not hidden behind an emotionless mask.

I was somewhat excited because it was

similar to Jason, it was a character in makeup

that didn't speak and killed everyone he could reach.

That movie was very surprising.

It was very over the top.

It started like a comedy at first and then

suddenly it switches gears and it

turns into the most horrendous over the

top makeup effects extravaganza.

I mean I love that.

I think Adam purposefully didn't reveal

everything in the first movie so he

could give some more information over

the second one and ultimately answer

everything left in the third one.

That's pretty confident for a guy

that was unknown at the time to

assume that you're gonna get the

chance to tell your whole story

over the course of three films.

Kane was really one of the only people

who I said what the next two movies

were gonna be because I feel like if you're

gonna do a slasher series, you have to have

an endgame and you have to have things planned out.

The idea of just making one, and then

all of a sudden it performed, so now

you're gonna make another one, you can start

to tell as a fan they're just finding

their way with this and they're just

either repeating the same movie over again,

or they're making shit up, but I had a plan.

There were a lot of similarities to Jason with Victor.

And I did not wanna do the same thing,

I wanted to do more of a grotesque guy.

We did a demo appliance and the

prosthetics on top of him, and I did it

in such a way that it was risky because

there was so much prosthetic on his face,

but I think it worked out pretty well.

Kane really gets into it and that's

why the characters he plays are memorable.

When you have a real actor behind these

prosthetics and makeup, it makes such a difference.

You can tell when it's somebody just going

through the motions and when it's a character.

There are a lot of actors that could have

simply thrown the makeup on and thrown

the prosthetics on and just getting

in front of the camera and going grrr like

Godzilla in a Godzilla suit or something like that.

He was, every night, in uncomfortable situations,

he was off taking it very very seriously,

so that when he came out and when he did

his performance, it had a lot of weight

behind it and it had a lot of realism.

I mean the character really seems

like a creature that's in pain.

And so the fact that he takes it so

seriously and does not want the

other actors to see him at all, so when

he's in the makeup he stays separate.

Whenever I'm playing a killer like

Jason or Victor or anyone really,

I like to fuck with the actors a little bit

for their performance being enhanced

and also just for my own entertainment.

The cast just didn't know anything

about him and never got to see him

or spend time with him, and I think

that made a huge difference because

that way what you see in the movie

when the cast sees Victor Crowley, that's their

first time seeing him and they were terrified.

What he'll do is as he's getting into

character you don't know where he is.

He's off in the woods somewhere and

you just hear him screaming or kicking trees

and just these bursts of rawr, rawr,

and the cast is terrified at that point.

So the cast is already convinced that

he's half crazy anyway, and by doing

things like that it just brings

so much more to their performance.

We would do some rehearsal sometimes without him.

B.J. McDonald would come out and say

so Kane's gonna come out from behind

the tree and when you see him squeeze off

a couple of shots, say your lines,

and run off in the other direction.

A lot of times the only time I saw Kane

on the set was when they would go action

and Victor Crowley would come out, be in frame,

scream something horrible at us,

and then I'd be running for my life.

And what was so funny about it is when

you don't do a lot of rehearsal with him,

he actually comes out of the pitch black,

out of the woods, and he scares the crap out of you.

Amanda!

There's an interesting connection about

having been through some violent acts

in my past and being able to recreate those on

film has to have helped somewhat because

that's what people say the most is when they

watch me kill somebody on film, it's so violent.

So it's like to become the ultimate badass.

I think it's a pretty interesting thing that

he picked up as a result of his background.

He got used to torment and agony and suffering,

and then he just started getting paid for it.

Good deal.

When it comes to your death scene, it's not gonna be easy.

I'm not gonna hurt you, but it's not

gonna be comfortable either because

I like a little bit of realism.

Without fail the actor will say

goddamn, that was a little rough.

Then they see it on screen and they love it.

And they're happy we did it that way.

I've known him for 33 years now.

I always wanted him to kill me and finally that was

the thing where he sawed me in half with a chainsaw.

And I told the guy that was behind me, Coulton,

I said Coulton, he's gonna take a chainsaw

and stick it between our legs and lift us up

in the air and we're gonna get sawed in half.

He goes yeah I know, I said bring a cup.

And he goes why, I said I know Kane, bring a cup.

So Kane comes out, we're standing there

and he goes waff, lifts us up in the air.

And as soon as we're done Coulton's

like this, he goes thank you.

So yeah, Kane plays hard.

You would think that would be enough,

but then there's the pranks which I'm just

as guilty off because I love doing it as well.

Adam and I decided that it might be fun to scare Mercedes.

Mercedes McNab, on the first Hatchet,

started to complain after a while.

Well everybody else has been pranked and Kane

scared them, but nobody's done anything to me.

I was like, we were already planning it,

but I'm like now you're just asking for it.

So in the full Victor Crowley getup Kane

snuck into her trailer and just stood

in the bathroom in the dark for a good

20, 25 minutes, and just waited for her.

Then Joel David Moore had a camera

that day on set where he was just

documenting his day, and so they go

into Mercedes' trailer and Joel's

interviewing her, and when he says so

what was your favorite Victor Crowley moment.

Kane just comes bursting out of the bathroom.

Goddammit!

I scared the absolute shit out of her.

It was very funny.

I think she called me some names that I had never

been called before, so that was pretty creative.

What he wouldn't want you to know though

is that the things that he wants, like in

his trailer, are peanut butter and jelly

and DVDs of Saturday Night Live.

We would use code and be like oh bring

another dead baby to Kane's trailer,

or another bottle of Jack or whatever, but it's

really just peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

He's a very simple guy when it comes to that.

My favorite Victor kill is one of the

goriest kills in the history of cinema where

he grabs the woman's mouth and rips it open.

Anybody can kill people with a gun,

but how many people can catch a woman

who's running away from them and put your

hands in her mouth and rip her head apart?

Now that's creative.

I like the more hands on creative things,

I mean that's my favorite kill that I've ever done.

Hysterical because when I started writing

Kane's biography, my aunt was like oh

who is this guy you're writing about,

so she decided to watch Hatchet, and she's

never watched a horror movie pretty much

in her life, and she saw that scene and

threw up three times, and Kane thinks it's

the greatest thing in the world that someone

threw up because of a kill he had in a film.

It's fun as hell to have an effect like that one somebody.

I mean for me, knowing that Kane is our

stunt coordinator, I know I don't have

to worry about getting hurt, so I always say

if Kane's coordinating I'm doing my own stunts.

Unless Kane says you can't do this Dee,

is the only time that I won't do it.

When Adam first talked to me about

playing Victor, I asked him if I

could do something as another character

and show some emotion because I wanted

to show people that I could do something

other than just violently kill them.

So that's when he came up with the idea of the

father, he said let's have you play Victor's father.

I already believed that Kane

could play Victor Crowley's father,

so it's funny, he approached that as

let me prove to you that I can do this.

He was already cast, and I don't know

if I should admit that, but I

already believed he could do it.

Just sat there for almost 10 years

before he finally died of a broken heart.

And I think he surprised himself a few times,

but I just love that he's up for the challenge.

I mean we all draw from our own life experiences

and they help us become who we are and how we

deal with things and how willing we are to open up.

He got to be himself and not be covered in makeup.

And he cried on camera for real for the first time.

He was so inspired and moved by that.

He got out of monster stuntman, gonna do what

I know how to do and I'm gonna

literally take the mask off and

I'm gonna be vulnerable, and that's

something that I think is really

hard for a lot of people, especially a man,

and someone like Kane, so when he did

the scene he got a taste of the bug.

They say when you get the bug it's like a drug.

So it worked out very well, that started

all the people thinking wait a second,

he can do something else, so let's try this.

That was the beginning of all of it.

Every time I see Kane at a convention,

of course we're always choking each other,

that's the first thing we do,

we just go over and choke each other.

He can really choke you.

He's like, Kane, we're just joking

around, you're like turning blue.

Kane definitely choked me one time,

he grabbed me, he's a tremendously powerful man

and his hands are large, so when he puts the grip

around your neck it's surprisingly tighter than

you think it's gonna be, so you're like

oh wow, that's fun, I can't breathe.

I'm known for choking people at conventions.

Anybody that's had me do it knows that I choke you for real.

I don't say it in a cavalier way,

it's just what I've become known for.

People love it and they love to bring

their friends who have never met me

because they can't wait to watch the reaction of

the person 'cause they've all been through it.

Watching people turn blue as he chokes them.

Yeah, they're a little unexpected.

I thought I was dying 'cause I was like I'm

fucking getting choked what's going on, holy shit.

Yeah, it does seem real, you can feel the

pressure of the hand grip around your neck.

It definitely felt real.

It felt real and it's awesome.

Does he ever choke you?

It hurts.

He choked me to death, I don't know.

I introduced Kane to my mom and

he's like come here, and he does it

and I'm just like that's my mom, Kane, stop!

She can't breathe!

I've been choked by Kane quite a few times.

It shocks you a little bit.

I guess that's the idea.

I was new to Kane's choking tricks.

Kane put his hands on mine and started

squeezing really hard and I realized

oh my God and there was nothing I could do

in terms of countering his power.

Kane was really choking and I panicked.

He'll grab someone, he'll grab them.

I mean you'll hear them go.

He really gets in there, I think he

enjoys actually scaring people for real.

He's the only one I've let choke me, so.

People love to get choked out by Kane Hodder.

I don't get it.

I don't understand.

It does nothing for me.

But I guess that's your chance to be

in a scene essentially with Jason.

Well my experiences with Kane are not

horror related, my experiences with

Kane are comedy related, and what a lot

of people don't know is that Kane is very funny.

He's a natural comic.

By the time we got to Holliston, I mean at

this point Kane doesn't even need to see

a script I don't think, I just say

oh hey, we're doing this, and he'll be like great.

He said he wanted me to play myself in it.

I thought that's interesting.

The idea of making fun of the whole

Kane losing the character of Jason

in Freddy Versus Jason thing and making

that a plot point and having him

own it and laugh at it and make

fun of it was huge, and for me

I was just like I hope he gets it.

And this was somewhat a touchy subject

not long before this, he said now I want

you to freak out and try to kill yourself

every time somebody says Freddy Versus Jason.

I was like wow, that is going into

an area that was once very sensitive to me,

but maybe it's time to make light of that.

That's exactly what we did.

Oh God.

Oh!

Hey.

He got it, and he realized hey, if I

do this, it goes away finally.

If I'm the one to stand here and

make jokes about it and be all pathetic

and try to kill myself anytime somebody says

Freddy Versus Jason, nobody can say anything anymore.

So I tried to make fun of it and

the fans responded to it, they respected

the fact that I could finally do that.

It was a fun thing to do.

I don't have any friends.

I'm not even Jason anymore.

Now I'm gonna get stuck doing shit

Friday the 13th ripoffs with wannabe young directors

that think they're making the next horror icon.

Nice ad-lib, dick.

You like that?

I've never had an acting class in my life.

I did do a stage production in high school.

I enjoyed performing, but I had never

been trained and still hadn't ever

had any formal acting training.

If I do in fact have any talent with acting it's

gotta be from watching quality actors work in person.

Did a movie called Monster with Charlize Theron.

I was the stunt coordinator on the movie.

I always say that was some of my best

acting training was watching her work.

I was on the set every day helping her through the

action stuff and watching her prepare and do scenes.

Then the director said you know, I think

I want you to play a cop in this movie.

I was like a cop, wow.

I'm always a bad guy, this is one of the

first times I've been asked to play a good guy.

I'm gonna be a cop, finally something good,

and she goes yeah, you're gonna

be undercover in a biker bar.

Oh, well there you go.

Same thing as always.

Two whiskeys, two beers for the lady.

I'm VG.

Come in here much?

Oh come on.

But it was very cool to do a scene

with someone who wins an Oscar for the character

that they're playing in the scene you're doing.

I was so proud of him for doing that

'cause it was such an amazing movie.

All of us get pigeonholed into certain things

and to break out of that has been amazing.

He made that transition from stuntman

to stunt coordinator to actor and really

did all three very effectively.

Personally I love seeing him without

the makeup because he is a good actor

and people are finally giving him

a chance to show his acting chops.

Another guy that I credit to helping me expand

my acting career in a big way was Mike Feifer.

I think that Kane was at a place in his career

where he was looking to do real roles,

to actually show that he could act.

I think, you can imagine you're behind

the mask for so long, nobody knows

who you are or what you look like.

Kane is an actor.

He called and said hey, I'm gonna do a

movie about Ed Gein, I want you to be in it.

It's based on the story.

I think you would be good in the role.

I was impressed that he had that confidence in me.

I specifically remember a moment where

he's sad and he's upset and he has

a picture of his mother and he drops

the picture and he hits the wall

and he slides down the wall crying.

And I was like wow, I mean there's somewhere he's reaching.

I tried to make him uncomfortable

all the time, just weird and creepy

'cause that's the impression I got

from reading books about Ed that he

wasn't really that terrifying, but everybody

was always like God, that guy's weird.

So I tried to make him just feel

uncomfortable all the time and it was

great playing a character like that.

He said I liked what you did in Ed Gein,

now I want you to play Dennis Rader,

who was a guy known as B.T.K., another real guy

who was a serial killer and I loved that role

because here's a character that an actor

would die for because he has to be really

likable in a lot of scenes because that's

what the history was with him.

People loved the guy.

He was a church president, he was a Boy Scout leader,

and then he was a murderous maniac.

That's right, girls.

Your father has been chosen to

take the church down a new path.

I think he really creepily enjoyed

playing that character, so it was fun

to watch Kane inhabit this role of this

straight guy who's really mean and nasty.

Kane and I are doing a movie together called Death House.

Directed by a guy named Harrison Smith.

What I love about Kane is that he

speaks exactly what's on his mind.

And it was a lot of fun working with Kane.

It's awesome, it's like The Expendables of horror.

It's got all kinds of horror stars in it.

Kane's the big bad guy in the script.

Kane's character Sieg has a very

unique ability to regenerate.

So he gets shot, bullet holes seal up, things like that.

The way out is not that way.

It's down.

To them.

With me.

To work with him as an actor, consummate professional.

He's really concerned about the quality of his performance.

Most of all, that imagination of his,

he brought, I mean he was the character.

That's what I loved about him, he took this

totally seriously, and after we were done shooting

Bill Moseley said, he goes this is Kane's movie.

Now Bill Moseley is also hyper intelligent,

so when you get Kane and Bill Moseley together,

I mean I just sit there and it's

like they're talking in.

It's like I have no idea what these

two guys are talking to each other about.

But they both have really bizarre sense

of humor, so it's always so much fun.

And Kane is especially smart, and I think he

prides himself on talking about his MENSA,

'cause a lot of times we play pretty

dumb, scary, one note characters.

I will fuck you in Hell.

It's been in the works for a while and

some of the best horror icons are involved.

I don't know what Kane's career would've

taken had he been cast in Freddy Versus Jason.

It didn't happen and Kane, being a survivor

that he is, and most of all transcending that

mask role, went off and forged another career.

Nobody handed it to him, he worked

his balls off to get back, and I mean

he worked and he worked and he worked

and it finally paid off, he got the

Jason, the Victor Crowley and things like that,

and honestly, just me, I'm proud of him

because I've known him for a long time.

I know where he came from, I know

the things that vexed him a little bit.

While the burns scarred him physically forever,

the worst effects from the burns were actually mental.

I was burned when I was a child on 35% of my body.

We have talked about that and discussed it,

and I think we felt a little bit of

comradery because of our burns and getting

through your life and trying to deal with that.

Most patients the recovery is difficult

because of posttraumatic stress.

As a little kid I had a really amazingly

hard time, and really all my life with it,

and to go through what he's gone through

I can't even imagine because it took me

my whole life to be able to deal with it.

I started getting the feelings of...

And it's been, I've been to many therapists

and stuff and it's been classified as

PTSD type thing from the accident,

everything I went through, slowly manifested

itself because since my parents and my

sisters were the only ones that saw me,

and I got a staph infection and almost

died as a result, that somehow I've come to the

conclusion within my brain, not consciously,

but that they had something to do with that.

So for some reason, years later, gradually I

started feeling that if my parents or my

sisters came to where I lived, then they

were bringing something bad with them.

It's almost the worst part of this whole ordeal.

Everyone that had anything to do with

him at that time was suddenly infected,

they were contaminated in a way.

Even his own mother, who was the one

who took care of him and stretched him

and did every single thing afterwards

when he came home, all the therapy with him,

if she wanted to see Kane she had

to go through what he calls a process.

I would have to have them, once they

arrived at the house, give me everything

they brought with them so I can put

it in the washing machine, they'd have

to go immediately into the shower and

get rid of whatever they brought

with them, that's how it felt to me.

If I washed all their clothes and they took

a shower, then I was fine with them being in the house.

It's ridiculous, I'm the first one

to admit that it's ridiculous, but it

was something I could not control.

I would either ask them to do that

or I wouldn't be able to have them

come to the house, so what's worse?

Now that my mom is gone, I've seem

to have lost touch with everyone.

It's a sad thing because I was always

very close to my family and obviously

it's basically, it's my fault that I don't.

He lost a lot of family members

because of it because they couldn't

understand the OCD that Kane had.

It's not something I'm proud of certainly.

I'm ashamed of it, but it's just the

one thing I was not able to beat.

And I have to live with that.

I don't give up on anything.

My wife and kids know that and they mean everything to me.

My wife Susan is very...

She's a therapist, she has a practice.

For many years helping people cope

with certain problems and stuff,

so she's very caring and empathetic.

And helps people get through some stuff, including me.

I'm probably her star client because

I've had so many issues that she's

helped me deal with and been very patient.

I think what was horrifying to me was

not so much the burn story, which is bad enough,

but then the recovery story was really

I think much longer and more tedious than it

could have been, or than it should have been.

Being in the hospital for six months

I think made him a much more sensitive person.

It made him a much more generous person.

I love hanging out with Kane and his family

because we were knuckleheads, we were young

knuckleheads for a long time and then we

both started families about the same time

and I knew him with Susan and his relationship

and their dynamic is great, they're so

different and yet they complement

each other and it's just so fun to watch.

When we first started dating I was

a set decorator, but I stopped because

it was exhausting and really hard and

having two people, I found, in a relationship

that are in the same field was really hard.

I think when Susan started seeing me

really start working, there had to be

an element of concern with her considering

I was doing dangerous stuff quite a bit.

Earlier in his career it's a little

nerveracking, and there was a few times

when he would be doing, like if he was

doing average things and car stunts,

those didn't worry me, but things

where he could get seriously hurt.

Perfect example was I doing a movie called House II.

I was testing a rope, there was a rope

hung from the permanence in the sound stage.

One of the characters had to swing

on the rope from the top of the set

on a long swing down into the set

and then up the other side and

then back to the top of the temple again.

I swung out, and as I was swinging back in

I hit part of the set and it knocked me

off the rope and I fell pretty close

to 25 feet to the stage floor and hit

really hard, and right at that moment

Susan arrived on the set to visit.

I just came down to visit, he was

really excited to be on the movie.

And one of the stunt guys I had there

for the day ran over to her and said

oh my God, we thought he was dead.

Oh my God, I thought he was dead, and I'm like...

What?

Wait, what do you mean?

What are you talking about you thought he was dead?

And then she found out I had fallen.

They showed me where he had fallen.

I think since that day, that was the

instance why I don't go to the set.

I think I've brought the kids and we've

visited the set, but I don't like to

watch him work and I think he's nervous.

I have two sons, Jace and Reed, and they're

very responsible, smart, well-adjusted kids.

He really is a wonderful dad and he's totally plugged in.

It's amazing that Kane is able to

keep two completely different lives.

He has this life of flying all over

the world and putting on makeup and

ripping heads off of people, and then he

goes home and sits on his couch and

watches a TV show with his family.

If you saw a shot of them sitting there you

would think they're no different

than any other family in the world.

It's really cool that he can keep up

the balance of both of those and not

let the two bleed into each other too much.

When he's home we still enjoy our

time together watching TV and movies

and stuff like that, finding one of

his movies every once in a while,

watching a little bit of that,

him realizing how old it is and

then switching to a new channel.

I think some of my favorite memories

are probably when we hang out together.

Most fathers and sons don't really

hang out that much together, but I

really enjoy hanging out with him

instead of going out with my friends at night.

Both of my sons, when they visited

when I was shooting Jason X, I was in full

costume and I have a picture with both of them.

That was one of my favorite sets to visit.

I was pretty young, and I mean seeing

all the people in their makeup,

seeing how futuristic everything looked.

It was a really unique experience

to be on the set of a movie with my dad

and seeing him in person acting was really cool.

The funny thing about Kane is he has

this intense presence about him, but he's

the nicest, kindest guy once you get to know him.

Most people wouldn't think of Kane as being

a nice, basically mellow, soft spoken guy.

I'm sure he has his moments, but I think

that would be very surprising to a lot of people.

Maybe he sews or does macrame or something,

I'd be curious what his hobbies are.

Kane is the entire horror community.

I can say that bar none.

Kane's body language, Kane's posture,

the hockey mask, the way he moves, his bulk,

all of that is the logo for the experience

of 30 odd years of Friday the 13th films.

He's a horror icon.

Me being into the horror genre and

loving horror movies, he is Jason.

He is the epitome of Jason, goddammit!

Know about it, motherfucker!

He's by far the best Jason.

He's known as Jason, that's, you can't

really take that away.

I have to think that of all of them,

and I've said this before, he is

the one, the only, and the best.

Nobody else can even compete with him.

As a leader, when you're an icon,

if you wind up playing a role that

becomes really important to people,

there's a responsibility that comes with that.

Kane's one of the few who really

takes that responsibility seriously.

Well I think my fans are the best.

There was a big outcry from the fans

when I was replaced as Jason, and that

made me feel good that I wasn't

the only one that was disappointed.

Let's face it, if we didn't have fans

we wouldn't be in the place that we are.

I have a reputation of being nice to the fans

and Kane has a reputation of really

being fun with the fans, they love it.

He makes everybody have their own special moment

to walk away with, he's definitely a fan's fan.

Fans are everything to Kane.

He goes above and beyond.

Fans are completely the life

blood of the horror community.

You see dozens of horror conventions

with people lined up who wait hours to meet

their favorite celebrity for a few seconds.

You might be doing a convention

every weekend for a year, or on tour

promoting something, but for this person

they're waiting all year for this

moment that you're coming to their town

and they have something they wanna tell you

or share with you, so you can't ever forget that.

It doesn't matter what else is going in your life,

everything could be going to shit, you could

have the worst day ever, you could be sick,

for those five, 10 minutes that this person's

gonna get to spend with you, that's everything.

Kane really gets that and that's why

the same fans will come see him all the time.

It doesn't matter that they already got

his autograph once, they just wanna see him.

That's huge.

Even a couple people in line ahead of me,

just how he was talking to them, they'd ask

questions I'm sure he's been asked 80 times a day

and he stills answers enthusiastically as much,

but he's still got that snarky asshole attitude

that you love about it, which makes it perfect.

The first photo we took, I was wearing my hockey mask.

I did what Kane does, I did the heavy

breathing where he lifts up his shoulder like.

And tilted my head a little.

He smiled at that, I think he thought that was cool.

He gets it, okay, just like a few of us get it.

That the fans are the ones that are

really important in this whole scenario.

We're just guys doing our job.

The fans are the ones that make it all happen.

They're the driving force.

Whenever I'm with him in public,

and he gets recognized by someone,

he's always happy to take a picture.

They're really important to him and that's why he

does so many conventions to meet all of his fans.

People come to see Kane Hodder for a reason,

over and over, I mean his line never ends.

I was very envious of him 'cause he had a line

going clear out the door and I had nobody at my table.

He's so appreciative and so good with the fans.

I don't think you could have a

better ambassador for a franchise.

That whole segment of fandom didn't get the respect.

Now I think everybody realizes that

the horror movie, like the science fiction

film or the fantasy film, is a go to

popcorn ingredient in the soul of Hollywood.

Horror fans, they tend to be very

fervent for some reason, I'm not sure why.

You don't have people tattooing Adam Sandler on their body.

I'm not sure why, maybe that would be a good tattoo,

but Kane Hodder, I'm sure he's on a lot

of bodies as a tattoo, the classic face.

I do have this Kane tattoo right here.

I have Jason from Part Seven.

I had gotten this tattoo, it was the

first one I had on this arm, and he comes

over me, he's like you're a huge

fucking fan, but you got the wrong

Jason on your arm, and then he socked me one

and I was like all right, this is how

the relationship is gonna go from now on.

Now he has a whole new fan base of

a younger generation who grew up

watching the Hatchet series and those

kids' parents grew up watching the Jason series,

so it's changed and gave him a whole

new rebirth in his career and now he's

doing almost 20 movies a year because

people wanna see him do stuff.

I think Kane is relentless when it

comes to anything that he's passionate about.

He overcame a lot of things, and that's

by his own volition by a force of will.

Some people just don't have that in them

anymore, they give up, they roll over and die.

Those are words I cannot use to describe Kane Hodder.

Whether you wanna draw an analogy to Jason

who never dies, maybe Kane never dies.

I'm blown away by his history and

what he's gone through and just how he's a

triumph and he's the coolest man walking really.

A man with that much fortitude, desire, and ambition

to go through what he went through is amazing.

To go from what happened to him to being

one of the best in the business as a burn guy

I think pretty much tells you all you need to know

about Kane, the guy's got balls of freakin' steel.

A lot of people would've just been well

I had my time and that was my thing and

I'm just gonna be put out to pasture

and do the conventions, but he was

smart enough and still hungry enough

when Hatchet got put in front of him

to say I'm gonna go at this with

everything I have, and I'm gonna

keep going and I'm gonna keep showing