By WILLIAM J. WRIGHT
Ray Wise is one of the most versatile actors of all time. From his role as the heroic Dr. Alec Holland in Wes Craven’s 1982 adaptation of Swamp Thing to his brilliantly unhinged performance as Leland Palmer in David Lynch’s cult hit series Twin Peaks to his sinister turn as the devil himself in the CW’s dark comedy Reaper, Wise has never shied away from a challenge. Having appeared in blockbusters such as 1987’s Robocop and hit television shows including ABC’s critically acclaimed hit comedy Fresh Off the Boat, the veteran actor has repeatedly proven his versatility. Wise can do anything, and with a career spanning over five decades, he would certainly be justified in resting on his well-deserved laurels.
However at 74, he shows no signs of stopping. Success and maturity have allowed Wise to indulge his penchant for projects that other actors of his caliber and experience might dismiss. Simply, Ray Wise takes chances because of his love of his craft and his eye for interesting, off-beat roles. Rue Morgue recently caught up with Ray Wise to talk about his small but memorable role as the legendary sorcerer Merlin in Richard Bates Jr.’s (Tone, Deaf, Excision) fantasy-satire KING KNIGHT. As always, he was full of surprises.
Mr. Wise, thanks for taking the time to speak with Rue Morgue today.
Call me Ray! I love the name of your magazine by the way!
Thank you so much! “Ray” it is. How did you get involved in this crazy movie, KING KNIGHT?
(laughs) Well, [director] Ricky Bates. I’ve done just about all of Ricky’s movies. I started out in Excision and went on to Suburban Gothic. I missed Trash Fire, but I did Tone Deaf. So when he called me about [KING KNIGHT] and said that I was going to play Merlin, I thought, “Well, that’s a no-brainer.” I love working with him. I just really admire him as a filmmaker. So I was onboard!
With your long and impressive list of credits, you can do virtually anything you want at this point in your career. What keeps you coming back to small indie pictures like KING KNIGHT?
You know, I just really enjoy doing them. I really do … It’s kind of like guerilla filmmaking. You really have to extend yourself and really concentrate and focus to get the work done. I enjoy the whole process. And I find that a lot of the scripts are really well-written and the characters are so diverse. So when I find a character that I think that I can do something with and the writing is good, it doesn’t matter to me how big the budget is or any of that.
How did you approach playing Merlin, a character who is really more or less a hallucination?
(laughs) I know! Well, it finally came down to putting on the costume. When I put on the costume, I looked a bit like the sorcerer in the Mickey Mouse “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment of Fantasia. Once I got that outfit on, well, by God, I felt like Merlin!
Were you able to channel a little bit of that old Leland Palmer-David Lynch madness into him?
Yes. Of course! That’s always going to be with me because that’s an ingrained part of me. And I channeled a little bit of the devil from Reaper also. Those little bits and pieces of all those characters came out in Merlin.
Speaking of those roles, what keeps you coming back to such fantastic material — whether it’s something like Twin Peaks or Reaper or The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina or horror movies like Dead End?
There’s something about horror-fantasy that really, really appeals to me. In the first place, I love horror films. I love to be frightened. I love to be scared in the safety of my living room or in a theater. When you add fantasy to the mix, it becomes something otherworldly to me. It just takes me out of my own existence and places me in another. I just really enjoy that feeling.
You’ve played some very sinister characters, including, as you mentioned, the devil himself. However, I understand that here’s one classic monster from literature and film that means quite a bit to you …
Monster? Do you mean Swamp Thing?
No, I’m talking about Dracula.
Oh, Dracula! God, yes! Dracula! I am afficanado of the whole Dracula legend. I was given a first edition [of Dracula] from 1897 when I was about 12-years-old. I read that book religiously and fell in love with the whole mythos. I have since read Dracula the Un-dead which is the sequel written by Bram Stoker’s great grandnephew, Dacre Stoker. I just finished reading Dracul, which is also by Dacre Stoker. It’s a prequel to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It has Bram as a character, and you see why he eventually writes Dracula.
I just get lost in that whole world. That was one of my dreams — one day to play that character the way Bram Stoker envisioned it. I know that Christopher Lee felt the same way. He did do a version of it that he felt was truer to the book (1970’s Count Dracula directed by Jesús Franco). Usually, the [film] versions that are done are kind of romantic versions of the book. The definitive one has never really been done as far as I’m concerned. Although, people like Louis Jourdan and Jack Palance and Frank Langella have made very good Dracula films. Frank Langella was in a very romantic Dracula with Sir Laurence Olivier as Van Helsing — How do you beat that? The whole Dracula mythology is part of my soul.
Are you any closer to realizing your dream of playing Dracula?
Well, I don’t know. I’d better do it soon! I’m getting a little long in the tooth. (laughs) He starts out older. The Gary Oldman one that Coppola did wasn’t too bad. I sort of liked that. They sort of romanticized the Vlad Tepes character a little bit too much.
Here’s the secret, okay: The first hundred pages of Bram Stoker’s book disappeared. They were eliminated, and they are not in any of the published editions — not in the U.K. editions or the American editions. That first 100 pages are not there. There’s a little note in which Bram Stoker says, “This really happened … “ [Dacre Stoker] feels that it was a warning. (laughs) Maybe it really did happen!
Finally, what do you hope that audiences take away from KING KNIGHT and especially your portrayal of Merlin?
I want them to enjoy the hell out of it is what I want! I want them to have about 85 minutes of nothing but a good time and going to another place and enjoying the fantasy, the lightness, and the humor of it. I think it’s a film to be enjoyed. And don’t think too much!
It definitely seems to have its heart in the right place.
It does. And that’s the thing about Ricky’s filmmaking, too. He has his heart in the right place in all of his movies. There’s a tone there that’s inside all of the characters that makes you like them in spite, sometimes, of what they do.
KING KNIGHT is now playing in select theaters and available on digital and on-demand from XYZ Films.
