Killing Him Softly

The name Tom Savini is synonymous with blood and guts. That's what happens when you're regarded as one of the masters of motion picture make-up effects, responsible for the ingenious and disturbingly authentic gore in modern horror classics such as The Burning, Friday The 13thand George Romero's original Dawn Of The Dead. But there's another artistic side to Savini, one that predates his career as a make-up artist – he's been an actor ever since he was a kid, and his CV of acting credits is almost as long as his resume as an effects guy.

A fair few of his roles have seen him doing double-duty. For instance, in addition to coming up with the gruesome make-up for the disturbing 1980 slasher movie Maniac, he also played the bit part of Disco Boy, who came to a very messy end thanks to a blast from the title character's shotgun. But nowadays Savini is concentrating primarily on acting, with the occasional directorial gig on the side. “I tried to play a part in every film I did make-up effects for, which led to more parts, and now parts is all I do,” he says. “I don't do make-up effects for a living anymore.”

What's more, he's working with some pretty cool filmmakers (Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez among them), and sometimes on projects where nary a drop of blood is spilled. Take the teen drama The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, for example. Written and directed by Stephen Chbosky, who adapted his own novel for the screen, it's a coming-of-age story revolving around the introverted Charlie (Logan Lerman) and how his friendship with Sam (Emma Watson) and Patrick (Ezra Miller) helps bring him out of his shell.

Savini was surprised when he was asked to audition for the role of high-school teacher Mr Callahan in the film, which was shot in Pittsburgh, hometown to both Savini and Chbosky. “Lots of movies are shot in Pittsburgh – The Dark Knight Rises was filmed there – but by the time they arrive in town they have everyone they need, and they'll usually just use local people if they need extras,” says Savini. “But Stephen was from Pittsburgh, he was a fan of mine when he was growing up, and he asked me to audition, so I did, and I got the part. I only just saw it for the first time a few nights ago and it's so powerful and emotional. I burst into tears at one point and I'm really not the kind of guy who does that!”

Nor is Savini traditionally viewed as the kind of guy who takes on relatively normal roles (this is a guy who's played characters with names such as The Demon Slayer, Osiris Amanpour and Sex Machine), but he enjoyed the experience and he enjoyed defying people's expectations. “People don't expect to see me in something like Wallflower – they say things like, 'You're so soft',” he laughs. “Normally they see me running around with a Russian shotgun, blowing people away like I did as Osiris in Machete, but here I'm this high-school teacher and I think it surprised a few people.”

However, fans of Savini's harder side can rest assured that he'll be playing some larger-than-life characters again in the not too distant future. He'll be reprising his role as killer-for-hire Osiris in Machete Kills, Robert Rodriguez's sequel to his grindhouse tribute Machete (“They did kill me in Machete – it took two days to shoot my death scene with this elaborate effect – but Robert didn't put it in the movie because he wanted to bring me back!”), and playing one of Leonardo DiCaprio's “slave trackers” in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained.

“What was so great for me was in the script my character's name was Tracker Stu but when I got there Quentin had changed the name to Tracker Chaney because he knew of my absolute love for Lon Chaney,” smiles Savini, referring to the silent-movie star known as The Man Of A Thousand Faces due to his pioneering make-up work. “Chaney's the reason I started doing what I do, so that was a really nice thing Quentin did for me.”