This past weekend I attended my first Horror convention as a blogger, Monsteramacon. Monsters, movies, and mayhem filled the atmosphere in the dealer rooms.
Amongst all of the high fashion jewelry and horror merchandise were a few classic actors and amazing people you may recognize from classic horror and pop culture films, including Caroline Munro (Hammer Girl, Crying Wolf), and Zach Galligan (Gremlins, Waxwork, Hatchet III), who was gracious enough to sit down for a one on one interview with the Mysterious One herself (Me).
I opened up the platform to my readers to ask questions, and this is what you guys came up with.
Me: What are your favorite memories from filming Gremlins?
Zach: What are my favorite memories form taping Gremlins? Hmmm… I have a lot of them. Certainly arriving in California for the first time, seeing what that was like. I think going into the Universal Lot for the first time and seeing, being in the backstage of a real you know, real Hollywood place and seeing sets that you recognize from other films that you saw growing up and realizing, you know, that you are going to be acting in those same environments is pretty mindblowing. Getting a tour of the creature shop and seeing the creatures for the first time, I mean, I was only 19 years old, it’s a lot for a 19 year old to take. Those would be three of my, you know, most vivid memories.
Me: That’s awesome. You know, I personally had 250 Gremlins at one point and I’m sure you’ve seen some crazy collections and things like that, what kind of things do you collect?
Zach: You know, I don’t really collect anything, I’m not really a collector I’m trying to think if I have anything that I collect, but I really don’t. what I do collect, I suppose, is experiences in my mind, so I try to watch 2 or 3 movies a week, if not more, and I would guess at my age I’m somewhere, you know, between 20,000 and 30,000 movies I’ve actually seen in my lifetime, although I don’t really know, I think of it being just an estimate. So I guess that’s what I do – I collect information.
Me: That’s the way I am, I’m more of a one on one type of thing, like this, than a physical item.
Zach: Yeah.
Me: Who has been your favorite celebrity encounter?
Zach: Favorite Celebrity Encounter… Well I have been very fortunate to meet a large number of people over the years, I have been doing this for 35 years, I don’t know if I can pick a favorite celebrity encounter. But I think the one that probably sticks with me the most would be my first celebrity encounter. I was 7 and I was in Manhattan where I grew up and I was on Riverside drive at 86th Street, it was 1971 and I saw Clarence Williams III who played Link in the Mod Squad, and he was wearing like this cool suede jacket and the super cool afro, just like he had on the show, and kinda tinted sunglasses, and he just looked kind alike he did on the show, he looked really, really cool. I was with my friend, cause I’m six, and my friends mom, basically Mommie was out watching the two seven year olds out in the park, so I asked her if she had like a pen and some paper so I could get his autograph, and she did. Because back then, people has little pads and paper, and for all I know, maybe it was a lipstick or an eyebrow pencil or something like that, so I went up to him and asked him for his autograph, and then I can close my eyes and still see it like it happened yesterday even though it was 45 years ago.
Me: I’ve had a couple of people I’ve met like that where it’s just like I’ll look at a picture or something and it’s still unbelievable it happened. What has been your strangest fan encounter?
Zach: Wow, you know, I’ll say this for fans, they can really push the envelope. I think there was a guy in Salt Lake City, pretty sure it was there, he asked me to sign his arm. So I signed his arm and they next day he came back and showed me that he had had my signature tattooed on his arm, so I don’t know why he would want my signature tattooed on his arm, but the gentleman has it now for as long as he wants it, I assume he can get it taken off when he wants to as well.
Me: That’s actually kinda cool. I thought about doing that one time, I just thought it would be too creepy. I’ve got a tattoo from a movie her e*shows him my tattoo*, Dead 7, I was going to get one of the stars to sign under it and get it tattooed but I thought that would be kind of creepy.
Zach: *Laughs* Well it’s definitely, like I said, pushing the envelope.
Me: *Laughs* That’s why I just went the image of it. What direction do you hope to take the new Gremlins? If a reboot, or a continuation?
Zach: The way it’s posted on IMDB, it’s clearly a sequel, it’s even listed as a sequel, so I guess we have to take them at their word.
Me: Right. Would you ever consider doing Dancing With the Stars?
Zach: I can’t really dance, so I would say probably not.
Me: Aww, I’d love to see you on there.
Zach: I wouldn’t be any good on there, I would only be a disappointment for you.
Me: You would be surprised; some of the worst one actually end up being really good once they are actually trained. If you could interview one person, dead or alive, who would it be?
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Zach: If you could interview one person, dead or alive, who would it be… Nicola Tessla.
Me: Sounds familiar.
Zach: Alternating Current?
Me: Oh yeah!
Zach: Tessla, we’ve named a rock band after him and a car after him?
Me: *Laughs* Oh yeah.
Zach: He went to war with Thomas Edison over whether there was going to be AC, alternating current, or DC, direct current, and Edison wanted direct current, and Teela wanted alternating current, and as you can see, what happened we ended up with both. Which is where we get the expression “Is is an AC outlet or a DC outlet?”. That’s actually where the rock band AC DC gets its name. And that’s why their first album is called high voltage.
Me: That’s neat.
Zach: There you go!
Me: What was your favorite part about working on Hatchet III?
Zach: When the sequence in the swamp was over… because we were, all of the cast and crew were being mauled by mosquitoes because we were in the Bayou in June, and you can’t really pick a worst time to shoot in the Bayou, maybe July, maybe, but I don’t know, it seemed like it was mosquito hatching season to me, and it was both the best of times and the worst of times cause the people were so fantastic and the experience, and the whole movie theme was fantastic, but the conditions we had to work in were very tough.
Me: Have you ever wanted a pet Gremlin? If so, which one?
Zach: *Picks up the small Gizmo sitting on his table and starts tapping him* Have I ever wanted one?
Me: Well, a real one *Laughs*
Zach: *Taps Gizmo a couple more times on the table* I have the real one, I have Gizmo, this is just a visual guide, I just bring this with me to remind people of Gizmo, but Gizmo is back at home in my closet where it’s nice and dry, and dark.
Me: And you don’t feed him after midnight, right?
Zach: Of course not, I give him supervised feedings all of the time.
Me: Do you ever get tired of answering questions about Gremlins?
Zach: Not particularly.
Me: Any upcoming projects we should be expecting from you?
Zach: Well, I actually have a project called The Chair that is showing in about 10 days here in Atlanta at the AMC Phipps something or other that is right around here. If you go on Tugg.com and look up The Chair screening, if you look that up, you’ll see we’re having a range of independent screenings all over the country, starting in the next 10 days. It’s a very cool movie with Naomi Grossman (American Horror Story: Freakshow), and the late Rowdy Roddy Piper (They Live), it’s his last movie, Noah Hathaway (The Never Ending Story), and myself. And it’s kind of a very trippy, very weird, very intense prison horror movie, and I hope people will like it. There was one review where a woman saw it and she was like “What the (self censored) did I just see?”, and I always think those movies are kinda cool movies cause you’re kinda like, at least you’re not like knew exactly what was going to happen the entire time. it’s more like, wait, what’s happening, this is happened, and what, was this real, did that happen, and what did I just see? Now you have to go back and sift through your brain, what you just saw and whether or not you liked it or didn’t like it, whether it moved you or didn’t’ move you, or horrified you or freaked you out, or who knows what. So, we’ll see, my guess is the response to it, like most kind of strange controversial movies will be all over the map, but anyway with some people, some people will really like it and find it really interesting, and some people will not like it at all. But you know what? There are a lot of directors and actors, probably the actors too, who would rather move you in one direction, positive or negative, then have your watch a movie and then go like this, “What’cha think?” “Eh… It was I don’t know.” And you shrug. You know, I mean, Alfred Hitchcock famously said the following sentence, and I’ll leave you with this: “Always make sure that the audience suffers as much as possible.”
Me: That’s awesome. Thank you so much for sitting with me, I really appreciate it and it means a lot to me and Mysterious Ramblings.
Zach: Sure.
Thank you so much Zach and all the folks over at Monsterama for making this interview possible.
Hope to see you guys there next year!
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Totally cool!! I loved watching the Grimlin movies with my dad when I was younger! I really enjoyed reading this!