Original-Cin interview: Julian Richings talks about his face, why he loves horror and why horror loves him
By Jim Slotek
One of the busiest actors in the horror genre, Julian Richings was aware of the “sense of impending doom” under which he and the cleverly shocking movie Anything for Jackson were operating.
But though the Devil was key to the plot, COVID-19 was the monster they were trying to outrun. In the end, principal photography finished in Barrie two hours before filming was banned in Ontario. And a wrap was successfully called on this story about an elderly bereaved Satanist couple (Richings and Sheila McCarthy) who try to implant the soul of their dead grandson in an unborn child via “reverse exorcism.”
Sheila McCarthy and Julian Richings as Satanist grandparents in Anything for Jackson.
“At the end, it was ‘Which scenes can we get through? What are we going to be left with? How are we going to do this?’” Richings recalls of the movie which is now streaming on Super Channel.
“I find horror films are the most even-keeled sets. Everybody is working on the same page, they’re generally trying to get a gag to work or to build the rhythm on a series of scares. I actually enjoy horror film sets more than any other.”
Which is good, because Richings will be the first to admit he has a face for horror, being cast as an alien in TV’s War of the Worlds almost immediately after moving to Canada from England, and seldom being cast as anything less than weird (fans of the long-running series Supernatural may remember him as Death).
“As an actor you’re given certain features, certain characteristics, you have to go with it” Richings says. “You obviously don’t want to be typecast. But I found that with my specific features, I began to be cast as the outcast, the outlier, the alien, the strange doctor, the extreme characters.
“So, I began to enjoy going in those directions. As I began to get offered more and more of these types of parts, I began to embrace it, I didn’t fight it too much.”
PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN
What’s important to him is the reality he brings to surreality. Anything for Jackson is as much a story about grief shared by a senior couple as it is about demonic possession.
“I thought it was a great script for that reason, I could see it right off the bat. Sheila and I were intuitively drawn to the script for the same reasons – these elements of care and grieving and humour. It makes it much easier to play this relationship that’s teetering on the edge of disaster.
“It was fun, because all the decisions Sheila and I had to make as characters were double decisions. As with any long-term couples – I’ve been married for 36 years, and my wife will finish sentences for me – we always included the other person, and that made it a fun dance.”
I mention a story I’d read about Boris Karloff, talking about how his wife’s friends would ask, “How can you be married to that monster?” He laughs heartily, and sympathizes.
“My wife gets a very similar thing, ‘Your husband’s so weird!’” Richings says. “I’m actually very boring. It’s the parts that are interesting.
“I’m just sort of a neutral entity lacking any particular character. That’s my self-deprecation talking. But I enjoy being inhabited by personas and being given permission to be outrageous in them. Because they are pretty extreme and out there.”
In a non-genre turn, audiences can currently see Richings in the negatively-reviewed Stardust, playing David Bowie’s erstwhile manager, the still-living Tony Defries. “I had no contact with (Defries), he’s difficult to track down,” Richings says.
“I took an essence of an impresario, and a few clips of him on YouTube appearing at launches and photo exhibits and things. I mean, I looked at it. But this is not a movie that is a slice of life or a jukebox musical. It’s about a young artist finding his voice.
“And Johnny Flynn plays Bowie exactly the same way. And as a result, a lot of Bowie fans are outraged. Because he’s performing the essence of an artist, he’s not doing a Bowie impersonation.
“For Defries, it was just important to portray an impresario who was smart enough to know that Bowie needed to establish himself in the U.S. before he really broke out.”
After a frankly difficult few months dealing with the lockdown, Richings recently returned from Halifax, where he shot the series Chapelwaite, with leads Emily Hampshire (Schitt's Creek) and Adrien Brody. The series, set in the 1850s, is based on a Stephen King short story, Jerusalem’s Lot.
“I just got back from the Atlantic Bubble a week ago,” Richings says. “I was fortunate to get that gig. It gave me a sense of purpose again.
“It was hard, I stopped working. And I define myself by working. I guess my canvas is people. And I find it very difficult not to be around people, not to be telling stories about people, and not to be able to inhabit people in the telling of those stories. I find it very difficult to be isolated.
“I can’t write my masterpiece and paint or bake bread. That’s not really my energy. So, for the first three or four months, it was extremely difficult. I got out and walked at discreet times. And for me, Skype and Zoom calls don’t really do it. I’m not very technically proficient anyway. I’m a bit of a Luddite, I guess.”
In recent years, as you’d expect from someone with credits on Supernatural, Percy Jackson & the Olympians and Man of Steel (where he played the Kryptonian leader Lor-Em), Richings’ social itch has also led him to more than a few fan conventions.
“It started with Supernatural, which has a massive fanbase, very knowledgeable and anxious to take it further. It’s a real community.”
Of course, he is recognized as Death. And Percy Jackson fans know him as the Ferryman, leading them to Hades. Death follows him everywhere, I suggest.
“It certainly does,” he says with a laugh. “That’s what cheekbones and a British accent will get you.”
I point out that the Internet Movie Database’s description of him is, “skeletal appearance and an aquiline nose.”
“Well, aquiline nose is very flattering,” he says with a laugh.
“I hope they mentioned my massive head. People think, because I have a thin face, that my head must be small. But it’s huge. I’ll get on a set and they’ll say, ‘Oh, you’d look great in a top hat!’
“And they present me with a top hat and it’s like a pimple on a monument. There’s no way it belongs on my head.”