PopHorror Let's Get Scared
You know what they say…you just can’t keep a good guy down. For decades, this sentiment has rang true for Chucky (Brad Dourif, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest 1975), everyone’s favorite Good Guy doll. But what about when, after countless soul switches, reincarnations and possessions, death is finally a very real possibility for this infamous little killer?
In October, the first four episodes of Chucky Season 3 aired on SYFY and USA, showing a rapidly-aging Chucky wreaking havoc on the President James Collins (Devon Sawa, Final Destination 2000)-led White House. His goal? Make a certain number of sacrifices to Damballa in order to spare his own life.
Due to the writers’ and SAG strikes last year, production had to pause halfway through. But as soon as they got the greenlight, cast and crew jetted back to Canada to film the final four episodes, with Chucky Season 3 Part 2 premiering on April 10.
Will Chucky be able to dodge death once again? Will Tiffany Valentine (Jennifer Tilly, Bound 1996) successfully utilize her voodoo dolls to escape prison? Will the golden trio of Jake Wheeler (Zackary Arthur, The 5th Wave 2016), Lexy Cross (Alyvia Alyn Lind, Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors 2015) and Devon Evans (Bjorgvin Arnarson, The Seventh Day 2021) follow the fate of their parents? What role does the human version of Chucky, which we see in the preview trailer, play in all of this? And will President Collins meet a brutal demise, making this the fourth time that Devon Sawa is murdered in the series?
Ahead of the Part 2 premiere, PopHorror chatted with creator Don Mancini and Sawa about the latter’s many killings at the hands of Chucky (including his bloody explosion as Father Bryce in Season 2), what it was like having Brad Dourif on set this time around, and, of course, whether or not Chucky will actually be heading to space in the near future.
Read on or watch below for the full interview!
PopHorror: Devon, I’d love to start with you. I feel like at this point, there has to be a Guinness World Record of a single actor who’s died the most in a single TV series.
Devon Sawa: We don’t know if I die yet on this season!
Don Mancini: Did you see the last four episodes?
PopHorror: I have, but just from the first two seasons! Not revealing your fate for this season, when you signed up initially, were you aware that you would be coming back year after year? Or did that just kind of happen?
Devon Sawa: I had no idea mostly through Season 1. It was one and done for me. I was enjoying the first season, I was enjoying dying in the first season, and I guess they loved killing me so much that they decided to bring me back, and it’s been an absolute blast. It’s amazing. It’s a good job. It’s a good gig.
PopHorror: Your death in Season 2 was particularly violent when you blew up as the priest. That was fun.
Devon Sawa: Don texted me at 3 in the morning, he sent me a video in the middle of the night sometime, of that actual death. He was so happy!
Don Mancini: Literally the very last shot of the season, literally the last shot we did on our very last day.
Devon Sawa: I flew home and they made a double of me.
Don Mancini: The dummy.
Devon Sawa: And they loaded it up with dynamite, blood packs and all sorts of stuff.
Don Mancini: He had to do it twice.
Devon Sawa: It was nice to see. It was nice to hear the applause in the background [laughs].
PopHorror: That’s amazing! Now Don, what was it like having Brad Dourif on set for such an extended period of time? It’s been a while.
Don Mancini: Yeah, it was awesome. It was the first time he’d been on set since Curse of Chucky 10 years ago. But he was around a lot more this time since he’s in three episodes. So it was a blast having him. Everyone loved having Chucky there. I think everyone was like, “Oh, we’ve gotta really up our game.” But he’s such a cool guy. He was hanging around even when he wasn’t working, he was hanging around with the puppeteers. He was just doing a lot of stuff that he honestly hadn’t had the opportunity to do in 35 years of doing this because usually, we’re recording with him before we shoot and then he doesn’t come to set.
So it was really great having him around and seeing him work with Fiona [Dourif, The Blacklist 2018] and with the Chucky doll. That was one of the reasons I wanted to do it, I was like, “I need to find some way of having Brad have scenes with Chucky.” So we accomplished that at the top of Episode 7, when he’s in the spirit realm. So it was a lot of fun.
Devon Sawa: For some of us, we had never experienced Brad like that. Don works with Brad a lot, he works with him on the voice, and Fiona obviously sees him a lot more than any of us. But I guess me and some of the younger actors, it was our first time experiencing Brad and I was extremely starstruck. It was like, he opens his mouth and he speaks, and you hear that tinge of Chucky coming out of him, and it’s iconic and nostalgic. And he’s a great dude. He was a lot of fun to have around.
PopHorror: Chucky has conquered the church and politics. Where would you want to see him go next?
Don Mancini: Well…
Devon Sawa: Space.
Don Mancini: Do you want him to go to space? I mean, it seems to me the fandom is pretty divided on that evenly. Some people go, “Absolutely,” and others, just as many, say, “Please don’t do that.”
PopHorror: I would love to see G.G. [Billy Boyd, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 2001] come back, so maybe incorporate them into it, I’d be down for the space plotline.
Don Mancini: For what it’s worth, I’ve already pitched an idea for Season 4 to the network. One thing I can say is that it is not Chucky in space. But it is a cool…
Devon Sawa: What?! My heart!
Don Mancini: I’m not opposed to doing that at some point, I just need to have more of a ground swell of support for that idea. Maybe it needs to cook a while longer, I’m not sure.
PopHorror: Maybe a movie down the line.
Devon Sawa: Chucky vs. The Predator.
Thank you for speaking with us, Don and Devon!
Chucky Season 3 Part 2 premieres on SYFY and USA on Wednesday, April 10, at 10 p.m. EST.
