Interview With James Duval, Star Of ‘Tales From The Other Side’

I love movies that are set on Halloween. I can smell the crisp fall air and pumpkin scented everything. I can hear the crunch of fallen leaves underneath the feet of trick-or-treaters. I can taste apple cider and those tiny little bite size candy bars that taste just a little bit different when wrappers are decorated with ghosts and witches and black cats. That’s one of the things that drew me to the new anthology, Tales from the Other Side.

Synopsis:

Three kids sought out to have the most legendary Halloween night ever. Their Trick-or-Treat adventure brings them to the home of the local town legend, Scary Mary. Legends say that she is a woman of pure evil, but one thing is for certain: She knows just the right spooky tales to give these three kids the scare of their lives.

To celebrate the release of the film, I chatted with star James Duval about his role in the film, why he loves horror, what’s up next, and more!

PopHorror: I really enjoyed Tales from the Other Side. Your segment, “Either/Or,” was very intense, and I thought you were phenomenal.

James Duval: Oh, wow! Thank you, Tiffany. I haven’t seen it yet, so I’m very excited to hear this, and I’m very excited to be talking about it with you.

PopHorror: What was it that intrigued you about the film and your segment?

James Duval: First, I know the directors very, very well. So that was the first thing. Kern, who I had worked with on Sushi Girl, Kern Saxton. He sent me this script, and of course, I’m going to read anything he sends me. I try to read anything anyone sends me, but definitely what he sends me. He sent me a script that he was directing with Lucas Heyne. We’d done this movie, Mope, which I thought was really, really great. It’s this story about these two guys who try to do porn to get famous. It’s pretty funny. And I really loved working on Sushi Girl, so that kind of really made it easy for me. But I have to say, once I read the script, which was written by… I know the writer’s son, James Cullen Bressack, and I have to say that I love James, and his father is kind of a legend, you know? So I was excited to be reading this little piece. I had been aware—not of the content of it—but what I was reading, that it was going to be weird and far out. The kind of stuff that I’ve always been drawn to since I’m a little weird myself.

PopHorror: That’s why we love you.

James Duval: I loved the insanity aspect of it. This idea of this character that everyone is going to meet—without spoiling it—you just don’t know if he’s really insane or not. Sort of blurs the line between reality and fantasy and the way it was written. And in such a short period of time—because they’re such short segments—how it kind of gets to the meat of it. I was very, very attracted to that sort of arc. From where it went to where it goes. I’m trying to say it without spoiling it.

PopHorror: I get it. And I appreciate shorter segments in anthologies. I like getting to the meat of it quicker.

James Duval: Oh, that’s great. I really enjoy them too. Sometimes I don’t watch my stuff, or a lot of times, I don’t watch my stuff. But I don’t know. There’s something kind of liberating about the short ones because even if you’re starring in a piece, it’s not just you. It’s all these other stories as well. And I kind of rather enjoy that myself as an audience member. I’ve done another anthology series, Tales of Halloween [PopHorror review], and that was quite fun. And another one called American Nightmares and that was quite fun. Kind of dip in and do something weird and then dip on out. Leave the people wondering. But this one was a lot of fun. I really love the filmmakers and all the actors that were in it. I got to work with some pretty great people in this. I was very excited. And the idea—without spoiling it—that you meet my character in an insane asylum. And there’s always that idea whenever you meet a character in an insane asylum… are they really the crazy ones or is it everybody else?

PopHorror: With your character being in an insane asylum and this whole segment being so intense, how did you prepare for your role?

James Duval: You know, I’d been going through quite a bit, I think. I think when we filmed it we had already been in lockdown for over a year, on and off. It was probably about a year and half into the pandemic, so the end of last summer really. And right before the Omicron surge hit and Delta was just winding down, so we had already been kind of cut off. People were already losing the plot before that, but once we went into lockdown, you saw it globally. We’re still seeing it in a lot of ways. The strangest thing is, for a character to be crazy in their mind, I was drawing all my inspiration from real world events, from everything around me.

PopHorror: We can laugh about it now, but at the time, we were all like, “Oh, this is sad.”

James Duval: It was! Still sometimes, I don’t even want to see things. I want to take a break because people are losing the plot left and right. We’re living in the largest psychiatric ward I’ve ever been in. You can drive through to another city and you’re still in it, you know? So it was kind of that idea, and then just bringing it into a smaller realm, into the hospital. But for me, what really worked was the idea that if you are in a certain mental state, it doesn’t matter if you’re in that room or where they take you, because the entire world’s going to appear that way to you. It was, in a strange way, easy to draw from and to create this artificial mindset for my character, which came from a real world event. Just pretend to be crazy because the real world is much crazier than even I think this character is.

PopHorror: What we’ve all gone through definitely makes it easier to act crazy.

James Duval: Yeah, laughing to be vulnerable, to see… There’s always been so much going on in the world, but when things come to a head on so many levels in culture and all across the board, and there’s a big battle going on, and it’s a battle I thought we were all past on a lot of this stuff. So to kind of come back has been really difficult and heart wrenching. We’re all literally fighting just for the right to be who we are. I don’t know how we drew back 40, 50 years but… So I incorporated a lot of that, too, into the film, like why my character really does think that the world is nuts. There’s still a lot of beautiful things, but we don’t really explore that in this movie, in our segment, as much.

PopHorror: You’re no stranger to the horror genre. What is it that draws you back to horror?

James Duval: It’s kind of cool. When I was growing up in the ’80s, horror, sci-fi, and fantasy… those weren’t really mainstream. They were considered subcultures. For me, it was actually really amazing to watch all of that come to the forefront. I know a lot of people hate the Marvel and DC stuff, but to see all the superhero movies come out… I loved those when I was a kid. It’s fascinating to me to see the things that were very much a subcultural, come popular culture, in that sense.

PopHorror: We have come a long way with horror, that’s for sure.

James Duval: Yeah! And another thing, because of that—horror, sci-fi, and fantasy—keep pushing the boundaries, and I like that very much. I’m attached to another horror movie that I will be shooting in August if everything doesn’t fall apart. I’m looking forward to that.

PopHorror: Oh!

James Duval: Yeah! I keep coming back to it, because maybe half of it—which I’m not going to lie—I’m really attracted by a lot of the talent in that genre. So the opportunity to get to work with some of the people I get to work with is—for me, probably more than anything—the draw. I can get a script, and I may not even love the script sometimes, but if I love the character and I love the actors involved, then I’m going to jump on, because I think we can do something with it. I’ve done movies where I’ve been able to walk away and go, well, I didn’t really think it was going to be this, but that turned out to be wow. And it was just because you go in and you commit yourself, as we should with any job we do. If you agree to do it, you’ve got to go all the way. You can’t do it halfway. So it’s that idea that once you commit yourself, you find these things that you’ve attached yourself to that your heart was stimulated by. So I want to fulfill that stimulation, and it’s only going to be done by working, and it’s only going to be done by exploring this character. Sometimes, more often than not, I’m still attracted to characters that are a little… My first impression is, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to play that. Aw man, Jimmy, you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to do it. You’ve got to challenge yourself, because you’ve already played these other characters. 

PopHorror: I love that so much. We have come a long way from more mainstream horror. 

James Duval: I’m just happy they keep casting me, in all honesty. I’m not going to lie. If they keep casting me, I’ll keep coming back.

PopHorror: What would be your weapon of choice in a zombie apocalypse? 

James Duval: Wow, that’s a good one. I don’t know. I’ve thought about that, but there’s so many zombie movies and genres of film… I think a Samurai sword and be extremely efficient. 

PopHorror: I like the length of the sword so you don’t have to get too close, but you can still do what you need to with it and still use it for other things like getting food and building stuff.

James Duval: What’s that zombie movie with Bill Murray and he’s a cop with Adam Driver? And Tilda Swinton’s got that Samurai sword where she’s like whacking everyone? The Dead Don’t Die! Tilda is just brilliant with that sword. She’s just so calm. Okay, of all the people, I would want to be like Tilda Swinton in The Dead Don’t Die. That would make me feel not nervous in a zombie apocalypse. 

PopHorror:  What’s one piece of advice that you wish someone had given to you when you first started?

James Duval: I think they gave it to me, but I don’t know that I followed it when I first started. It was, “Work as much as you can. Don’t say no. Don’t say no to opportunities in your life because those are learning opportunities, opportunities to learn and to grow. Every job you take, even if you don’t like and even if you don’t love it…” It’s not our job to love everything we get, but it’s our job to perform at our best with everything we get. So therefore, the way to learn to do that, which is where acting class is very important I believe, is through training over and over and over and over. So I had been asked a question recently if I was still studying, and I would be if I wasn’t working so much. But fortunately. I work so much that I don’t have time to commit myself to class. I need to commit myself to the actual job. What that does is the job keeps me working all the time, so that’s where class comes in. It’s extremely important. If you’re not working all the time, them you’re working your acting muscle all the time. It’s the same with musicians. You don’t go out and play for a couple years. You have to go out and rehearse and get that band back together. You’ve got to be tight again, because you’re going to go out on that stage, and you need to be ready. If you make a mistake, everyone’s going to hear it.

PopHorror: Wow, that’s some really great advice! You never stop learning.

James Duval: You never stop learning! I enjoy what I do now much more than I did when I was younger. I loved it when I was younger, but I love it much more now. And more appreciative of it now than I have ever been.

PopHorror: You mentioned that you’re making a horror movie in August. Is there anything else that you’re currently working on?

James Duval: There’s a few projects. Like I said, I’ve been lucky that I don’t say, “No,” often. I do say, “No,” but if I’m not busy and there’s something interesting happening, I’ll say, “Yes,” to challenge myself. But I starred in a movie last year called The First Circle with Chris Browning, Natasha Henstridge, and Michael Madsen. It’s this descent into Hell. The first circle, the first plane in hell, of the nine planes… These characters are going through Hell, and they don’t know it until they get to the end. I’m excited to finish this. We stopped because of the Omicron surge, so we had to put everything on hold. I’m really happy about finishing that.

I’ve been fortunate, because I know I have three movies playing right now, plus the Boy Harsher short movie for their album, The Runner, which is playing on Shudder. I love them. I’m so flattered to be working with them, because I am a huge fan. I did the video and then I did “Either/Or” a couple weeks later. It’s about 30 minutes. It’s the length of the album. It’s the soundtrack to The Runner, but it’s a movie as well. So, it’s a movie with the soundtrack of Boy Harsher. It’s super, super cool.

PopHorror: I am so excited to check that out! I’m slowly getting familiar with their discography.

James Duval: The movie is super cool, and it’s dark,. It’s everything we love about Boy Harsher.

PopHorror: I was just recently introduced to them, so I don’t know all of their work, but I’m working on it.

James Duval: If you like it, all of their stuff is incredible. 

PopHorror: I just have one last question for you today, James. What is your favorite scary movie?

James Duval: Ooh, that’s a tough one. Maybe because it’s where I was when I saw it, but I remember Alien when it came out in 79, and that still to me is one of the most horrific things I have ever seen.

Thank you so much, James, for taking the time to speak with us. Be sure to catch Tales from the Other Side on digital and DVD.