With the news that Terrifier 3 chainsawed its way to box-office supremacy this weekend, there’s even more excitement about what’s next to come in writer-director Damien Leone‘s gory franchise starring Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton). In a new interview, Thornton—who delivers another remarkably expressive performance, a feat that’s always impressive since Art doesn’t speak and is coated in stage make-up—weighs in on his delightfully murderous character’s past while looking ahead at what’s to come in (the not-yet-announced-but-inevitably-coming) Terrifier 4.
Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Thornton called Art “the anti-clown,” explaining “clowns are supposed to bring joy and amusement to other people, but he is here to bring pain and misery to other people for his own joy and amusement.” As for how he got that way—well, Thornton is appreciative that Leone is being very careful with puzzling through Art’s backstory.
“I do like the idea that we’ve been slowly revealing his origins,” the actor told THR. “We have a line or two early on in this film that hint at his origins, and I thought that was really clever. I also don’t want to ruin the surprise too early and spoil things, because, a lot of times, when you find out why or who the villain is, the mystery is gone and you’ve lost a lot of the fun that was behind that character. They didn’t really reveal who Freddy Krueger truly was until five films into the [Nightmare on Elm Street] franchise, and I feel like we’re kind of taking that route …Yeah, we might show how he became Art [in a future film or films], but we might not necessarily say who he actually was before that. So that little bit of mystery just makes him more interesting that way.”
Thornton is very excited to put that black-and-white costume back on (probably without Terrifier 3‘s Santa embellishments, though who can say?) for Art’s next round of dainty finger waves and gruesome violence. “I was very happy with the ending to Terrifier 3 when I read the first draft of the script … I love where it leaves the characters at the end of the film. It is almost like an Empire Strikes Back-type ending, and I love that. So I am very excited to see where this character is going to go moving forward because he’s in such a different state than he’s ever been in before, and I’m excited to see what avenues we can explore with him that way. So I’m very happy with the ending and we’ll see where it goes … I’m very anxious to get back into it on Terrifier 4.”
The full THR interview is well worth reading; Thornton talks about the short-sighted advice his agent gave him before the first Terrifier—and reveals which set piece in Terrifier 3 turned his stomach the most. One word: RATS! Terrifier 3 is now playing in theaters.
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