chiller blog

Posted Apr 5, 10 03:52 PM

Gage This

"It starts with the parents. They're the ones who read that script. They're going to make that judgment call...

Why suppress it? That's what the child wants to do. He wants to be an actor. With Miko, they were so cool about it. When certain scenes were shot, Miko was not on that set. And that's what you do."

- Fern Champion, Casting Director for Pet Sematary (1989)

"That's cool," replies Miko Hughes on the other end of our phone interview. The multi-Young Artist Award-winning actor is, of course, a post-adolescent 23 and therefore no longer eligible for THOSE statuettes. He's also jet-lagged, having returned home to the High Desert from a horror film festival in Germany. After all, in addition to commanding the screen opposite Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, Chevy Chase, Jack Palance, Gary Sinise, et al, he's widely memory-stamped with lightning rod roles in a pair of genre hits (Pet Sematary, Wes Craven's New Nightmare).

Somehow, Miko never made that jump to java (And on this particular afternoon, I'm already IV-ing cup #3). But these days, he's spinning CDs and cueing MP3s while DJ-ing the Art Directors Guild gala. Mom Mary Ruth runs cable. "She's my roadie," he chuckles. He and I lament on how over-editing destroys the tone of modern horror. We discuss the underemployment of stuntmen and mechanical puppetry in lieu of saturating CGI, share first-curse-as-kids stories, yak about comic book sleeves, then compare theme park Halloween horror mazes.

And we interview...

CHILLER: Most actors remember their first break. That's probably not you unless you have a reeeeeeeeeally good memory. What was your first job?

Miko: The story goes (from what I hear of it) my parents tried to get me into acting. My Mom tried desperately to get an agent for nine months, walking all over LA, knocking on doors. No one was really interested. And then the secretary at one of the agencies got promoted. She remembered me coming in all the time and hanging out in the waiting room - being real precocious - so she gave me a chance. I booked the first three things I went out on: A PSA, a lawnmower commercial...at that point, I was able to meet the top agent who said, "Where have you been?" And my Mom told her, "Knocking on your door for nine months."

CHILLER: I recently interviewed casting director Fern Champion. She LOVES you and speaks highly of you and your Mom on, around, and off set - very much at peace, very real. Never "pushed in from the stage wing". Having grown up on so many sets, what was the key to keeping yourself grounded?

Miko: It's nice of you to assume I was kept grounded -

CHILLER: That's what Fern said.

Miko: I spent enough time off set to stay grounded. I think I was spoiled, but not in a way that would have jaded me or given me false perceptions of the world. I'm sure, since I started acting so young, that it wasn't until I was probably a bit older before I realized it wasn't as normal to be in the business, acting. That's kind of a tough question...

CHILLER: Hmm. Maybe it didn't seem like a struggle to stay grounded. You were who you were. You shared the poster with Bruce Willis in Mercury Rising - and he doesn't share the poster with anybody. You were the young Tom Hanks in Apollo 13. What's your non-horror highlight?

Miko: Freddy 7 is my highlight overall. I think Mercury Rising for the sheer scope - perhaps the largest budget I worked on. I was a little older, so I remember it more vividly. We were in Chicago for 4 1/2 - 5 months, then back in LA for another month.

If I had to go with a TV show, Full House was really fun, too, even though I wasn't a regular. It was like a family reunion because I knew everyone. Every six months or so, I'd go back to do another episode. It was like, "Oh! I get to hang with these friends again."

CHILLER: Gotta ask. Do you have any specific memories of Jack Palance?

Miko: In Cops and Robbersons, he smoked a lot on set. He could take a full-lit cigarette, hide it in his mouth, and bring it back out without burning his lips. It was crazy.

CHILLER: Sources say you were three years old when you played Gage, the doe-faced little boy resurrected as a doe-faced dead killer in Pet Sematary. Really, do you remember any of the experience?

Miko: Random things. A doorway. The makeup chair - because they had to do the scar on me when I was in zombie mode. I remember it was cold. At that time, we traveled cross-country to the location (New Hampshire) in a motor home.

CHILLER: (laughing) Uh, do you remember...cutting Fred Gwynne's Achilles tendon?

Miko: I think that actually wasn't even my hand! They made a cast of my head and then my hand, and the hand was supposed to be for the rocks when I was climbing out of the grave. But I think they used my hand more for the scalpel cutting the ankle, 'cuz you don't actually see me under the bed.

CHILLER: And the big trouble is that the union very closely monitors child actors on set. It depends what your age is - how many hours you can work per day. So the production has to have everything planned out.

Miko: It was probably one of those things where it's, "We don't have to use him for this. We can just use the hand model".

CHILLER: "Hand model?" Like Seinfeld?

Miko: (laughter) "Demon baby hand model." I remember, too, where I bit Fred Gwynne's neck. At the time, it was pretty extreme, but they just cut it down to where you see me bite him. But when we filmed it, there was a prosthetic neck around his real neck that had a chunk cut out. And they had me take a bite out of it and then sit up so it would be all bloody and gooey...and I'd have a big chunk hanging out of my mouth. They ended up cutting THAT.

I went back to New Hampshire when I was filming something else. We visited the old (Pet Sematary) set. It was surreal. I could tell you where things were. Everything looked smaller. We went to the house used in the filming, and the people that lived there were kind enough to let us tour. Then, the field next door with the truck scene where I got run over. It was deja vu - like I'd been there, but hadn't.

It's like going to a relative's house for the holidays. You remember growing up and playing in a certain room. The room seems so big. Then you go back and everything is scaled down.

CHILLER: What's it like to watch the movie now? Do you ever forget that it's you?

Miko: I never completely disassociate and forget that it's me. But I definitely step back and enjoy the film for the film. Especially on the younger roles, it's easier to stop critiquing myself and just watch...every three or four years (I won't go out of my way). I space it out so I don't remember everything, to keep it fresh. I'll mainly watch it once after it's done to see how it turned out - then I won't watch it again for as long as I can.

CHILLER: This was the first film Stephen King self-adapted. Word is, he was adamant about sticking to his script. Clearly, you were very close to his vision.

Miko: That's quite the compliment. He gave me a signed hardcover copy of the book -

CHILLER: I'm curious to know what he wrote to you. But I'll respect if it's personal -

Miko: Oh, no. I wouldn't imagine it to be.

CHILLER: (laughter) Imagine if it's something like, "Miko, I know I can tell you. BOSCO." (laughter) Sorry, I keep going back to Seinfeld.

(Miko and his Mom rummage for and produce the signed copy)

Miko: (reading) "To Miko, Thanks for making such a great Gage Creed in the movie. Much love, Stephen King." Nothing too creepy!

Mary Ruth: He underlined "great" twice.

Miko: (laughter) You hear my Mom?

Mary Ruth: (reading) "Thanks for making such a great Gage Creed - "

Miko: He dated it 8/23/88...I honestly don't remember meeting him specifically - that's a memory that escaped me. But, of course, it has much more significance now.

CHILLER: That was a period when he started to get much more involved with his film adaptations. Especially after Stanley Kubrick and The Shining, so much so that King wanted -

Miko: More creative control?

CHILLER: Something he pushed for and got. Now, some critics - conveniently forgetting the pedigree of Bad Seed-inspired movies - thought pet Sematary went too far: Depicting a child character as a murderer. How do you - or do you - respond to this thinking?

Miko: Good question. Maybe, at the time, it had not been done before (to the degree), so it was pushing the limits. I think it may have been forgivable in the sense that it was not a straightforward killer - it was a zombie and, with that, age does not matter. What's that movie now - Orphan?

CHILLER: I've seen it five times.

Miko: Hers was a tough role for someone that age. She carried the film. I'm not even sure it's my place to say on the extreme of being a kid and a killer. I suppose that's up to other people to judge.

CHILLER: And that can be puritanical. Films, books, plays that really go into new territory - the deep end of the pool - are the ones that survive the test of time.

Miko: It's really going to be hit or miss. Condemned for crossing a line or it breaks a bubble of people's perceptions. I think the movie does it in a good way.

CHILLER: Yeah, I'm not a big believer in film taboos.

Miko: It's all interpretation.

CHILLER: And how filmmakers handle any kind of material. W.C. Fields even used kids as punchlines. So long as he was funny, have at it. The Pet Sematary sequel came out a year before The Good Son.

Miko: MacCauley Culkin?

CHILLER: And Elijah Wood. A little patchy, but the movie's got guts and goes for it. And a year after that, along came another horror title, Wes Craven's New Nightmare. Very well reviewed. It was even up for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature. How was the experience of working alongside Wes Craven and Robert Englund?

Miko: All in all, my favorite film. Wes played a big part of that in creating such a great environment. He uses a lot of the same people. He gets a tight knit family that works well together, and he keeps it on the level. I've been on plenty of good sets and plenty of bad sets, and to have a nice working atmosphere makes all the difference. A lot of times you'll see trickledown from stress and arguments from the top of the structure to the crew to the actors. And I never remember feeling any of that on Wes Craven's New Nightmare. It was such a well-oiled machine.

Robert Englund is freaking awesome. It's a shame he's fell into the character of Freddy. It's his blessing and curse in that it's all people see him as. Typecast. Not that he doesn't do plenty of other work, but he'll be forever known as Freddy. I still get Christmas cards from him almost every year.

Being seven, I'd never seen any Freddy Kruger movies. But I knew who Freddy was. And I remember when the call came to audition, I was super excited. The house set at the end of the movie - for a seven/eight year old - was like a jungle gym. Like Chuck E. Cheese. The scary gross stuff they had constructed for it was just great to run around and hang out in during lunch. And the playground set was the biggest memorabilia I've ever hung on to.

CHILLER: Surely, there are days when you're not on set when explicit scenes were filmed. But you're also in scenes involving violent content. Did being around this leave any impression - nightmares, a taste or distaste for horror?

Miko: Not at all. I love horror movies. I may be not as scared of them now as I was when I was younger. But then a lot of the new ones are crap. I liked Orphan - that was more thriller than anything.

CHILLER: Did I mention that I've seen it five times? (laughter) So you're all grown up: happy, very independent, working. What's next for Miko Hughes - and does it involve a return to horror?

Miko: Honestly, I don't know if it involves a return to horror. I would love to. I keep hearing they are working on a Pet Sematary remake. I would love to audition - even for a cameo. Or for Pascow. He haunts Dale Midkiff's (my dad's) character –

CHILLER: Oh, the ghost who keeps coming back in various stages of decay –

Miko: Yeah. That would be a fun twist to be involved in that capacity. There's a really cool script a guy gave me about an Italian family - it's got about 80/90% of the money. I was really attracted to it because it wasn't horror - not that I have anything against horror. But usually, when it comes to, you know, "do you want to be in my movie? It's low budget, horror, independent..." that's usually a turnoff because there are so many crappy horror scripts out there. It seems like the genre is cursed to have an abundance of crap that's trying to get off the ground. I want it to be a good script if it's going to be horror.

I've enjoyed my anonymity the last few years, but next year, I'll try to get an apartment (in LA) for a while. I've been DJing...I'd like to start producing my own tracks. You have to, to stand out at this point. They just came out with DJ Hero, which may flood the market with newbies. But I still want to play it.

I do weddings, corporate stuff. More recently, I joined the Victorville Chamber of Commerce and unintentionally fell into working the club scene. The next step is The Drive - I'm really between two cities. It's either Vegas or LA. I didn't want to push DJ-ing too hard until I could bring it. I like to get out and make people dance.