In many ways, Jackie Earle Haley's new status as a fanboy icon is as unlikely as the actor's comeback itself. After success as a child actor and then a long hiatus from the industry, Haley was enticed back into work through two stately dramas, All the King's Men and Little Children. Still, it's his work in Watchmen, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and the TV series Human Target -- not to mention that variable voice -- that have quickly given Haley his bona fides in the Comic-Con community.
Haley rang up Movieline this week to talk about that evolution, what he thinks of the newly announced Elm Street sequel, and what recent film gave him a "nerdgasm."
So, congratulations on last weekend's box office. Were you invested in how much the movie would make, or were you trying not to think about it?
How can you not think about that? You always hope it does well. It was a super exciting weekend. You want to wait a little while to hear the results, but you're always curious.
And then earlier this week, producers announced that there'd be a sequel shot in 3D. Had you been privy to any of that talk before the announcement was made?
I wasn't even privy to the announcement!
So this is one of the first times your hearing about it?
Yeah! I've kind of seen it on the web. I don't know how official it is.
Jackie! Shouldn't they be telling you this?
I don't even know if it's been announced. I guess maybe I should call the producers, huh? [Laughs] I have no idea what they have in mind. There's no real story, we haven't sat and chatted. I haven't thought that far ahead.
Is your excitement for the sequel dampened at all by the knowledge you now have of what the makeup process will be like?
There's definitely a love/hate there. It's very, very arduous, and it's tough to get into that makeup and stay in it all day. It's really easy to sit here and complain about it and tell you how arduous and tough it was, but it was also well worth it. It was a great experience.
You're shot in shadow so much of the time. Couldn't you appeal to the producers and say, "Look this is a really shadowy shot. Can't you give me the lighter version of the Freddy makeup?"
[Laughs] Yeah. You never know how much you want to bite into that shadow, though! Those decisions come later. You don't want to find yourself in the editing room at some point, saying, "Hey, let's break that up," and there ain't nothing there.
It's interesting how quickly you've become an object of intense fanboy interest after just Watchmen and Nightmare on Elm St. Do you feel that energy, that now you're suddenly a very boldfaced name on Ain't it Cool News?
Man, it's a big, huge warm fuzzy. It's really cool. I think the whole genre world, the comic books and sci-fi and horror, it's so incredible how passionate they are. There's a sense of propriety to the properties that they love, and that can be good and bad. [Laughs] At the end of the day, though, it's the passion that's wonderful. I've continued to understand that a bit more as time goes on, and by that, I can appreciate it more and more.
By that, I mean that when I started into Watchmen, I didn't really get the comic-book world because I was never a comics fan, but through the process of making that movie, I became a Watchmen fan. I mean, what an incredible work! I could really understand how this audience that's followed Watchmen for twenty-some years could have that sense of ownership. I've definitely felt a lot of that with Nightmare on Elm Street, and that sense of "geekism" or whatever you call it, it's set in very strong with me. I really felt like I was understanding it, finding it, digging it.
Are there moments now where you feel that "geekism" yourself?
When I saw [the remake of] Star Trek and damn near had a nerdgasm near the end of it...wow! Now I really got it. First off, it was a good movie and good on its own, but the way it lit up the franchise...I'm not a Trekkie, per se, but I've been a fan of Star Trek. I especially liked the first TV series and those movies, so to see those characters when they were young, and the way they paid homage to the original in subtle ways...man, it was a real nerdgasm experience. It was awesome.
You've been to Comic-Con twice now?
I think three times.
I mean, talk about confronting that fanboy audience head-on. Last year, there were tons of people dressed in Watchmen costumes, too -- especially as your character, Rorshach. What is that like for you?
Aw, it was incredible. When I went there last year, it was actually sort of mind-boggling, because I was being handed from department to department. I did a movie day for Nightmare on Elm Street, and then the next day we did a television day for Human Target, which is comic-book-based, and then in the evening, Zack held a screening of the director's cut of Watchmen where everyone was linked up on video for the Blu-ray. It was cool as s**t.
You said there's a drawback to how proprietary fans can be. How often did you feel that on Watchmen and Elm Street?
Hmm. Wow, man. In both cases, there's a sense of excitement and so much trepidation. It's exciting to work on a character and a property that's so beloved by many, but it's daunting. No matter what you do as an actor, you don't want to be stuck with something people hate, especially if they're all madly in love with the characters. It's a scary thing, but at the end of the day you have to stop and tell yourself, "You're an actor. Let it go." A futility starts to kick in at a certain point. There's a healthy pause for thought and then there's unhealthy worries, so you try to ride that balance. All worthless worry does is gnaw at your guts.
I saw some scenes in the trailer that I didn't see in the final cut, like a pool party sequence that I heard was supposed to open the movie. Were there a lot of reshoots?
We did do some reshoots. One of those was for the opening sequence, and they placed it in a diner [during reshoots]. I think it played a lot better.
After having done Rorshach and Freddy, do you feel like you're flexing a different set of acting muscles to compensate for the fact that your face is so obscured?
Not really. Rorshach mad a mask over his head so the face was completely obscured, and it took me a while to realize, "Just do the work as an actor. Do the work internally, and the outside will take care of itself. The I would go look at the monitor, and about one percent of the time, I'd go, "Wow, what I'm doing isn't coming through," and I would animate the suit a little bit, you know what I mean? For Freddy, the makeup was actually very articulate.
Were there any limitations to those Elm Street prosthetics? Any time where you felt there was a wall you hit?
Yeah, drinking, or biting into things. Like, if I had a burger, I'd have to cut it up into bite-sized pieces and use a fork. Everything I drank had to be through a straw. If the makeup guys would catch me sipping something not through a straw, I'd get in trouble. They'd send me into the boiler room, and they wouldn't let me come out until somebody fell asleep. [Laughs]
It's interesting, your very first role was a voice role on the cartoon Wait Til Your Father Gets Home. Did that teach you something about how to use your voice so well?
It is an odd coincidence. The first work I ever did was voice-over, and then the first on-camera work I did was on a Jonathan Winters special. I was a 10-year-old boy, and I was playing the sheriff in this cowboy town full of kids, but Jonathan was doing all the voices. We were all lip-synching.
What have you heard about Human Target coming back?
No -- it's about time, though. I think we're gonna hear something within the next couple weeks. I'm curiously awaiting that, because that's going to dictate my schedule.
You've been working virtually nonstop over the past few years. Are you happy to have some t
ime off between projects again, or do you feel anxious?
It's actually really nice. Literally, sometimes you go months without being home. It's just nice to be home.
[Lead Photo Credit: Jordan Strauss/WireImage]