Bill Johnson
Bill Johnson
has soft hair, like a bunny. Oh yeah, and he let me do this
swell little interview with him at Cinema Wasteland, all hail
the second, and the most cuddly, Leatherface.
-Aine
If I were to give you a large bag
of feathers and a jar of rubber cement, and left you alone for
twenty minutes, what would I find upon my return?
My absence. Or you might see, I don’t know,
a sculpture of the Eiffel Tower in chicken feathers. It’s
all in the cement. I say the Eiffel Tower because I miss Paris
so much and long to be return.
Or I might sculpt the image of a chicken with
its feathers out of proper numerical order.
So
you live in Austin?
Yeah, I live in Austin Texas. It’s serious
allergy season there, the pollen count is twice what it’s
ever been. It’s 8000 particles per million or whatever
the measure is; it’s been a tough spring. But I’d
rather have that than snow.
Other than the allergens Austin is a far out place
to live. I guess that’s why the population keeps exploding.
(Ed Neal stops in and says goodbye
to Bill, saying “see you on the set.” Being naturally
inquisitive, I ask what he’s talking about.)
We work together sometimes in Austin doing voice
work and commercials. We did a Twilight Zone, it was a screenplay,
and it was written so well it worked for radio, so we did that.
We did some sort of fractured fairy tales stuff together. Ed
does a zillion voices, especially the Japanese animation market
is strong in his career path at this time.
He doesn’t look anything like
he did in TCM.
He’s not acting, but if he got back into
character he’d start to look like that hitchhiker character
again. Ed’s a really intense actor. We acted together
at the University of Texas when we were in school together.
He was a graduate student at the time that I was an undergrad,
and we did a couple of shows together. We did A Midsummer Night’s
Dream; we had a director in from Harvard, Jerome Kilty, I believe.
Jerome wrote a play based on some of the correspondence of George
Bernard Shaw, called “DEAR LIAR”.
Jerome directed a reproduction of Peter Brooks’
version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, done in this big
white room. It was a huge three-walled set, very tall and thick
walls and all stark white. At the top of the walls were catwalks
where actors could walk up above. There were escape stairs upstage
and backstage, and a huge white rug and costumes for the royalty
were incredibly rich colors, and huge swirling garments. The
rude mechanicals were like white coveralls. We were the characters
known as the Rude Mechanicals, we were hysterical. He was the
lead rude mechanical, and I played the wall. As I recall Bill
Vail (also in TCM) was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with
us. Also in that production was another well known film actor
Bruce McGill who played Bottom the Weaver. Bruce was just in
“Runaway Jury” and “Matchstick Men”
And actress Valerie Mahaffee ( I think.she played
Hermia in MND) who you’ve seen on Broadway and lots of
TV shows such as Northern Exposure and the West Wing and most
recently in Sea Biscuit.
Was it embarrassing for you when you
had to that chainsaw humping scene with Caroline Williams in
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2?
Bill the actor didn’t experience any embarrassment;
I was in character so all seemed appropriate. For Bubba, it
was a new experience for him, so in the way that I think you
mean embarrassing it was somewhat that way for Bubba, espeically
since he was so enamored of Stretch. His first crush, a SuperCrush,
and clueless.
And Caroline Williams was so generous and courageous
there. That had to be some pretty unsavory, semi-nightmarish,
tough spot for a young actress, let alone the character and
Caroline was fully present with absolutely no qualms or demands
for special treatment or proviso.
I recall looking into her eyes during that scene
and I got the message that she was giving me full permission
to participate as Bubba without reservation ( except of course
not cause her any injury). So I felt I could explore very dangerous
unexplored, territory with her with a certain daring gusto.
Do you know where Caroline Williams is?
I have no idea. I hope she’s well wherever
she is, and happy. She was in The Grinch who stole Christmas,
and last year “ Recipe for Disaster” as the young
boy Jason’s Mom.
Have you seen all of the Chainsaw
movies, or just yours?
I’ve seen one, two, and three.
So you haven’t seen the remake?
No. I missed the theatrical run I’ve been
waiting for the DVD and the leisure time in my schedule to check
it out.
Well, I was going to ask what you
thought of it, but I guess that’s out.
Oh, well, since I haven’t seen it I can’t
say.
Well, you were a great Leatherface.
How much of that was just you and how much of it was Tobe Hooper?
Thank you very much Aine. Any kind of collective
creative enterprise, including film, is collaborative. So definitely
it’s a little bit of everybody who’s participating.
If you’re saying am I really like Leatherface in my real
life, then no; I wouldn’t be able to be here. Or I could
be here but you’d probably be in serious jeopardy.
I got very specific direction from Tobe for which
I’m glad because I could provide him what he needed. Like
he knew the kind of lens on the camera and how and what it could
see so Tobe could tell me range of movement and what kinds of
physicality to undertake, to isolate and accentuate and I also
put my spin on all that as I do it.
Also I conferred with Bill Moseley too talking
about the script, characters, technique etc. Bill was a wealth
of support and input too. I was pretty isoloated from everyone
except Moseley : a) I went home to my house in Austin and everyone
else went to the hotel and b) I went to and stayed in my trailer
by myself or when playing cards with Bill M. I saw Jim everynow
and then. He was very busy, but we chatted a few time and asked
for his insights and he was generous with his sharing.
Tobe would also provide or lead the way into the
particular kind of insane qualities dwelling and pervading within
the Special world of the Sawyer family.
Non verbal insights of vocal intonational attack
which I could translate into the other senses and movement and
gestures, the varying tempo/rhythms of exchanges within the
scene and the slant on the particular absurdity he spins in
that crazy world.
For example Tobe directed me to grab a suspended
birdcage and bonk my head against it. Visual puns, Jungian shadows,
cinematic rebus tying back into former cinematic events. I am
pretty certain a similar birdcage was in the first TCM. Fascinating
processes.
You seem pretty capable.
Thank you, I’ll be here all week; Whoa…wait
…I have been here all week actually.
How did you enjoy Jim Siedow’s
“Big slurpy booty” line?
I don’t seem to recall that line, since
I didn’t have any. Was I in that scene?
Yes you were.
Was I on camera when he said it, with him? Ok,
well, I probably didn’t hear him since he was talking
away from me. Oh yes, as Bubba I was predominantly focused in
Caroline’s character Stretch and I didn’t want to
hear anything about hurting her, never mind killing her, draining
her blood and feeding Grampaw.
Well, it was funny.
That’s a funny line, it is a funny line..
and there were a lot of funny lines. There were a lot of funny
lines that never got put in the movie.
I want to know these lines, what were
these lines?
Mostly it was Tobe trying to come up with dialogue,
so watching him improvise and act out things that he likes was
pretty far out. Yeah,”poodle left!” and…
Poodle?!
Yeah, poodle, exactly; he would just invent these
words and give them a new verb form, and it was always entertaining.
I know more will come to me later but it’s the end of
the weekend and my brain is fairly fried at the moment.
Tobe was industriously creative. He and Kit Carson had been
doing a rehearsal, and they wanted something else for the scene
so they just started improvising, like Bill(Moseley). All three
of them would confabulate and come up with something. It was
pretty far out to watch them work together.
So what was it like having Choptop
for a brother?
Oh, it was really swell. Bill had been hired on
the strength of a short film he wrote and acted in “Texas
Chainsaw Manicure” and sent it to Tobe, and Tobe brought
him aboard.
We hit it off right away or I should say I enjoyed his company
from the first and found it fun and easy to perform with him;
we just definitely had a simpatico there that I was really glad
for it. He’s just very intelligent, creative, funny, and
artistically courageous. We played a lot of Gin Rummy and had
a lot of laughs. There will be a new photo on my website from
those days where Bill and I are playing Gin Rummy with Jim.
We’re in costume and its pretty funny.
Are you really friends with Bill Moseley?
I am friends with Bill Moseley. Yeah, Bill is
awesome.
How awesome?
Well, what’s the scale you measure by?
Between rabid monkey and laughing
hyena.
Which would be the high end of the scale?
Rabid monkey would be the high end.
Rabid monkey then; he’s a full out rabid
monkey, tossing King Kong off the Empire State Building, and
wildly dancing the Monkey with Fay Wray, as he grabs one of
those propeller airplanes and using the propellers to clean
his teeth getting ready for that good night smooch with Fay.
Wait… that sounds strangely familiar somehow…
