Article Courtasy of Amazing Kats Halloween Homepage

    Michael Myers is not the easiest killer to play.  He does not have the winning personality (unless you count the ghoulish nonface he presents to the world) or the way with words of a Freddy Krueger.  He's not as light on his feet as Jason.  And he's certainly not a picture of sartorial splendor like Leatherface.
    Michael Myers, pure and simple, is a blue-collar kind of guy, a nine-to-five lunchbox-toting horror hardhat who believes in administering an honest day's gruel for an honest day's pay.  He's stalk 'n; slash's man of a single face and no words.
    Just who plays this guy with the one-slash mind? People on the way up? People and the way down? People on their way to selling real estate? Winos who need $1.98 for a jug of Nigh Train Express?
    The guys who don the Myers mask are a pretty solid bunch of working stiffs.  To a man, they're still in the movie business (and that includes Tommy Lee Wallace and the handful of obscures who have played the Shape in second hand unit cameos) and take their celebrity with a grain of salt.
    The roll call begins.  These are the guys who have essayed this most difficult of roles in Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and, most recently, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.  So cozy up to the fire and listen to their memories of the night their alter ego came home.

Michael 1: The Perfect Puppet

    Nick Castle is currently a hotshot multicredited director, noted for Tap, The Boy Who Could Fly, and The Last Starfighter, but it wasn't always that way.  Before he went mainstream, a fellow named Michael Myers had entered his life.
    "John Carpenter and I had gone to film school together and had become real close friends," recalls Castle. "I was in the process of putting my first film together and learning the filmmaking ropes.  John had already done a couple of films and was getting ready to start Halloween, so I asked him if I could hang out on the set and take in what he was doing.  John said, 'Since you're going to be hanging around anyway, why don't you play the killer'?
    "The idea of a low-budget horror movie sounded like fun," continues Castle, "but I was thinking to myself, 'Why does he want me to play this killer?' John said it was because he liked the way I walked."
    Being the first in what would become a long line of maniacs didn't offer Castle a deep well history to consult for the part.  Background had nothing to do with playing the infamous Shape.
    "There was no inspiration involved at all," chuckles Castle.  "I know I sure didn't get a whole lot of ideas from the director.  I would go up to John and say, 'How should I play this?' and he would say. 'Just walk.' The mask itself was doing more acting then I was.  Playing Michael was more or less a situation where I would pop in and out of the scenes, and John would tell me to do this or do that.  He pretty much puppeteered me through the whole film."
    The biggest piece of acting Castle did in Halloween comes at the beginning of the film, in the sequence where an unmasked Michael jumps on a car during an early morning rain-drenched scene.  "It was 4:00a.m, and it was real cold.  Here they were, drenching me with water," he winces.  "By that film's standards, that was a major bit of acting for me.  Most of the time, I was just another John Carpenter tool, just a bit of furniture."
    The walking couch did manage some minor bits of subtlety that, in the telling, will probably have you running out to rent the video.  "The scenes in which I carried the woman around were a real challenge," chronicles the actor-cum-director.  "I wouldn't look like I was struggling, but I really was.  In the scene where I stab that guy in the kitchen, John suggested that I add that little cock of my head so that it would look as if Michael was an artist admiring his work.  I tried to add little notions every once in a while, but with a character like Michael Myers, there really is not a whole lot you can do.  I was kind of like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors."
    Castle recalls little socializing with Donald Pleasence on the Halloween set.  "We had very few scenes together, and when he wasn't on the set, he was elsewhere," Castle recounts.  "I did hang out with Jamie Lee Curtis and found her to be a delightful person with a great sense of humor.
    "It was a fun film to do, and I was learning a lot about filmmaking by just being on the set.  Halloween ended up putting the whole directing experience in a more realistic perspective for me."
    This enlightenment carried over to his reaction the first time he saw Halloween in a theater with paying customers.  "It confirmed my suspicions that Halloween would turn out as a well-done movie,"  he assesses.  "I knew when Michael was going to be popping out, so I wasn't particularly afraid of anything, but I was amazed to discover people actually being scared by the film."
    While Nick Castle went on to coscript Escape from New York with Carpenter and to pursue other directing and writing chores, he did keep track of the Halloween series.  "I had no idea Halloween would go on to become what it has become," he marvels.  "I felt John had done a very good one-shot film, and that would be it.  I really didn't think that Halloween II was as successful.  It wasn't as scary, and my image of Michael Myers as a long and lean character played more to the tone of the films than the chunky actor who played him in Halloween II."
    Despite his interest in the second installment, Castle had no desire to repeat his Michael Myers role.  Nor was he interested in parlaying his success into another slasher character.  "No, nobody came up to me after that film and asked me to play Jason or Leatherface," laughs Castle.  "I think they realize that all I amounted to was the manipulation of the director and the cameraman.  They knew I was just the guy under the mask.

Michael 2: Scare a Secretary

    Dick Warlock did not start out with the idea that he'd play Michael Myers in Halloween II.  But hey, this is Hollywood, land of opportunity!
    "I was applying for the job of stunt coordinator on Halloween II," remembers the veteran stuntman whose genre credits include The Thing, and The Abyss.  "One day I was taking a meeting with director Rick Rosenthal, and I spotted the Michael Myers mask sitting on a table in a room.  Just for a laugh I put the mask on, walked down a hall, growled a little and just about scared a secretary to death.  Then I thought, 'Hey, if I'm this good, maybe I ought to try out for the part.' So I tried out and got it."
    Soon the prop department gave Warlock a Michael Myers element that God had neglected to issue the stuntman at birth.  "I'm only 5-foot-9," explains Warlock, "and Michael has always been pictured as this big 6-footer or better.  So they out fitted me with lifts in my boots to get the extra height."
    Warlock entered Halloween II wearing two hats, that of a stunt coordinator and main shape.  Warlock remembers having to adjust his thinking accordingly.  "One minute I was menacing everybody, and the next I was thinking like a stunt coordinator, trying to be careful of the people I was working with," Warlock explains.
    Two sequences in particular required Warlock to do a juggling act to keep everybody happy, not to mention alive.  "You remember that scene where I dunk the girl in the Jacuzzi full of boiling water?  Well, we worked out a real subtle series of signals with the actress so, if she needed air or was feeling panicky underwater, she could let me know," he specifies.  "The final death scene, where Michael and Loomis burn, was a tricky one.  There was a lot of preparation for that scene, and then the fire did not turn out like the director wanted, so we had to shoot it again.  Mentally, I wasn't playing the character of Michael at that point."
    Still, he does recall undergoing a definite Michaelish personality change when the mask was firmly in place.  "It wasn't something that I felt as much as it was in the vibes I gave off to others," he testifies.  "My wife began to sense a real bizarre strange feeling when she was around me during the making of that movie.  I couldn't put a finger on it, but it was something that people who knew me saw and felt."
    Warlock describes the kills in Halloween II as fairly standard.  "The needle in the girl's temple and the hammer in the guard's head outside the hospital were done with dummy heads," he reveals.  "Rick Rosenthal was good on the effects scenes.  He never pushed the scenes or the actors to the point where there was a chance of anybody getting hurt."
    Still, Warlock recalls that, creatively, something was hurting on the Halloween II set - a growing difference of opinion between Rosenthal and John Carpenter.  "There was definitely a personality conflict between Rick and John," admits Warlock.  "Some of the crew had complained privately that Rick had made some mistakes and that John was only attempting to save the film.  If there was a controversy, I would say that it was a relatively minor one.  What did happen is that John came in at one point and shot three days of second unit work.  One of the scenes John shot was the sequence where the little boy playing in the cowboy hat bumps right into Michael.  What most people don't know about that scene is that the little boy was my youngest son."
    Warlock goes on to detail another Halloween II sequence that literally allowed the stuntman to play two characters in the same scene.  "It was at the beginning of the film, when the phony Shape walks away and is hit by a police car.  I drove the police car and another stuntman played Michael in that one scene.  I don't remember why the scene was shot that way, but I ended up getting two credits in the film because of it," he chuckles.
    Warlock is not a real horror fan, but he has seen and worked on enough of them to know what makes them work, so it should come as no surprise that the problem he sensed while filming Halloween II was confirmed when he saw the completed film.
    "The anticipation of seeing things is what makes movies like Halloween work," decides Warlock, "and from the moment the film began, I knew the audience was seeing too much of Michael.  I felt if you had seen a bit less of the Shape, the film would have worked a lot better.
    "But I had a real good time playing Michael," he continues, "so much so that I was disappointed when they hired George Wilbur to play him in Halloween 4.  I would love to play Michael Myers again."
    But the end of Halloween II did not end Warlock's ties to the series.  The stuntman went on to do a bit in the Shapeless Halloween III: Season of the Witch.  Later, while out on location for Mark Lester's Firestarter, he discovered first-hand the long memories Halloween fans have.  "I was sitting in my trailer," recalls Warlock, "when all of the sudden there was a knock on the door.  These two local kids happened to be wandering the set, spotted my name on the trailer and immediately recognized it as the guy who played Michael Myers in Halloween II.
    "These kids were so excited that they insisted I come over to their house, meet their parents and watch videos with them.  Now, I know that wasn't the first night Michael Myers came home," laughs Warlock, "but I'll bet it was the first time he's ever been invited."

Michael 3: Babe in the Woods

    George Wilbur's memories of Michael are only a year old.  But this mild-mannered stuntman's tour of duty in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers has already started to pay celebrity dividends.
    "I signed some autographs," explains Wilbur, whose career contains such genre highlights as Blacula, Planet of the Apes and Poltergeist.  "My daughter was all excited and kept telling me how famous I was going to be."
    Wilbur comes across too nice to commit the round of killings he had to perform in Halloween 4, and it was an out-of-character stint that had him more than a little bit concerned.  "Playing Michael was an acting role, a matter of creating an illusion," He clarifies.  "Michael hasn't gotten into my personality, but looking back on all the evil things I've done in that film, I was worried what my friends and family would think when they saw it."
    Wilbur landed the coveted Shape assignment because "I was big and coordinated," he claims.  "Michael gets hit, shot, rolls off a truck and falls down a well, so they needed to have somebody who could do a lot of different things."
    Specifically, they meant doing things to people.  Once you get past the head-bashing, neck-ripping, shotgun-impaling, there was the constant menace of Michael directed toward Jamie, who is played by 12-year-old Danielle Harris.
    "I took particular care when I was working with the little girl," explains Wilbur.  "With all the scenes where I'm chasing her and terrorizing her, I was real concerned about whether she was going to bed with Michael Myers on her mind.  So I would always laugh and joke with her before any heavy scenes, to let her know that it was only me and that what we were doing was only make-believe.  I made sure she knew that I was not going to hurt her."
    In a bit of self-examination, Wilbur concedes that he enjoyed his stalker shtick.  "I got a big kick out of being this mean guy," he confesses.  "The things we did in Halloween 4 were so over the top and extreme that they were actually fun to do.  I mean, Michael doesn't just get hit by a truck once but three times in the same scene, and he just keeps coming back for more.  The character is not just killing people, he's ripping them to pieces.  Playing somebody so indestructible and unstoppable was a challenge."
    Having fun did not get in the way of Wilbur's looking to his stunt side when a scene called for Michael to menace two stunt doubles on a rooftop.  "There's a certain amount of danger built into any high-fall stunt," explains Wilbur, "so I was out there real early, positioning myself and checking cables with the stunt coordinator.  I made sure I would not end up missing a cue and forcing the stunt to be repeated.  I really did not want to mess it up."
    While Wilbur did not botch his drop, a miscalculation on just how gory Halloween 4 should be resulted in his returning to the crime scene a few weeks after completion of an additional day of shooting that added some blood and guts to the film.
    "I was surprised when they called me back," shrugs Wilbur.  "I thought I was finished with Michael, but it was another day's work and I sure enjoyed the paycheck."
    Though he didn't don the mask for Halloween 5, Wilbur wouldn't mind re-enlisting for a future sequel stint.
    "If I play Michael again, I think my reaction to the job will be the same as it was this time," he reasons.  "I'll put on the mask, look in the mirror and see Michael Myers."

Michael 4: This Year's Shape

    Don Shanks is a man of few words, which would seem to make him the ideal Shape in Halloween 5.  "Just because Michael does not say anything doesn't mean playing Michael was not an acting challenge for me," stipulates Shanks.  "I may be wearing a mask, but all sorts of things go on inside my head."
    The reason for Shanks' getting internal is that the veteran actor/stuntman/director, through the luck of plot development, has been handed the most multifaceted Michael Myers to date.
    "This Michael is definitely the most animated of the series," opines Shanks, who lists the movies The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams and the controversial Silent Night, Deadly Night on his resume.  "It's not just the physical side of Michael.  There's definitely a character with personality, and he gets to show it, especially in the scenes with the little girl.  There are one or two tender moments in Halloween 5 and because of that, I found myself having to go back and forth emotionally.  The scene where Michael takes off his mask and sheds a tear was probably the most emotionally charged moment of the film for me.  Fortunately, I was out of the mask at the time."
    Even beneath the false face, he was doing his fair share of acting.  "I've got a background in Greek theater, where a lot of the acting was done is masks," Shanks discloses.  "I also know pantomime, which helps me give a sense of movement to Michael.  Even though you get the feeling that Michael does little more than hulk around, I'm really adding some subtle things - or at least trying to." Shanks calls the not-so-subtle moments on this Halloween jaunt  "a lot of throwing people though walls and windows."
    "It's definitely a physical film, and Michael gets whacked around quite a bit," states Shanks, who has only seen the original Halloween and thus refuses to get specific regarding how he feels his Michael stacks up against those who came before.  "I do recognize that people who play the killers in these films tend to develop a certain amount of celebrity status.  That's something I think I can deal with.  I'm still recognized for Grizzly Adams, so I guess I can live with having played Michael."
    Shanks reports quite a bit of clowning around on the set, but he says that changed at the moment Michael clocked into work.  "I was pretty much myself until the moment I put on the mask," he describes.  "When the mask went on, I just sort of clicked into the Myers personality.  That's when you've got a mask on and a knife in your hand, things just stop being funny."