Stan Helsing - Interview with Kenan Thompson and Desi Lydic
Stan Helsing - Interview with Kenan Thompson and Desi Lydic
The actors talk about the jokey horror spoof
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It's the end of a long day of press when Kenan Thompson and Desi Lydic walk into one of the conference rooms at the Renaissance Hotel in the heart of Hollywood. It's no secret that the movie they're promoting, Stan Helsing, hasn't gotten rave reviews, but "the show must go on" and so here they are.
And here's me and another journalist, Fred Topel, asking the basic questions about how the actors came into their roles, what they liked about the comedic aspects, what's their favorite horror movie and so on. It's not easy to muster the energy — especially this month, what with so many scary movies being released — but clearly the four of us generally like people and we soon find an easy convo flow.
Kenan, a regular on Saturday Night Live, keeps his wits and covert class clown sense of humor about him: even though it's just Fred and me, and his costar, Kenan jokingly leans down and into the tiny tape recorder to answer the kick-off question as if he were doing this "press junket thing" for the very first time. It's endearing. He's making an effort. Desi is fighting a cold so she doesn't shake hands — but I think there was a spreading of germs anyway, after she high-fived Kenan and then he high-fived me — but she is warm, open and friendly. (And I must add, that while I didn't much care for the film, the acting was good.)
Kenan and Desi aren't trying to hide the fact that Stan Helsing is just a big, silly spoof. It's not going to be garnering any golden statuettes at the next Oscars ceremony. Stan Helsing, such as it is, is about a young man (played by the conspicuously absent Steve Howey) who finds out that he's imbued with inborn powers to defeat evil. The evil in this case are the 80s slasher icons, such as Chucky and Michael Myers. Desi likes this. "We had an incredible makeup artist," she says. "His name is Todd Masters, and he did a lot of the horror masks. Pletherface has a fake Louis Vuitton bag as his face and Pinhead, instead of the needles, he's got darts and thumbtacks with post-its in it, like 'Pick Up Bread!' It's pretty funny."
Kenan agrees, "It's a fun thing. I like doing comedies a lot, and I was proud to do this one because I was a fan of the Scary Movie [franchise, and our writer/director Bo Zenga worked on those]. We improved a little, but not too much. I thought the script was really strong, and we were all on board with it. I 'got' the title right away, I knew it was going to be a crazy parody. But it's not necessarily a parody of the slasher films, it has its own thing to it. Not as much with the popular culture [as the Scary Movies]."
Desi says, "Bo wrote the script with Kenan in mind," and she revealed that although most of the movie sticks to script, "I did write the line [when I'm trying on different outfits in one scene] 'Does my vagina make me look fat?' I mean, everyone likes a good fart joke or dick jokes. Vagina jokes. My mother would be very proud to know I wrote that! I just said that in a private room reading, and Bo insisted it stay in the film."
Desi goes on to say that costar Leslie Neilson brought a fart machine on set, and she believes "He's the stamp of approval [for movies like these]. Not only do we have him in the film, but in drag!" Kenan reveals that rather than comparing comedic chops, he talked to Leslie about life experience, and how the veteran actor had a career in drama before he did Airplane!.
When it comes to the 80s horror monsters so celebrated in Stan Helsing, Kenan says his own favorites are Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees. He goes on to say he was always interested in the eternal battle between the two at the box office back in the day, but when I ask him if he saw Newline's mash-up Freddy Vs. Jason, he grimaces and replies, "Naw… I couldn't stand the thought… but I did watch the end, just to see who'd win."
Stan Helsing is out now in limited theatrical release, and will soon be available on DVD and Blu-ray.
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