In this spooky episode of pop Culture Weekly, It's Halloween.
I talk with Michael Myers himself, Nick.
Castle, end Ray herself from the Galaxy Far Far Away, Daisy Ridley.
Let's go.
Welcome to pop Culture Weekly with Kyle McMahon from iHeartRadio your pop culture news, views, reviews and celebrity interviews on all the movies, TV, music and pop culture UKRABE Weekly. Here's Kyle McMahon, Nan Nana no.
Hello, and welcome to pop Culture Weekly with Kyle McMahon. I of course am Kyle McMahon, and it is another October episode that means Halloween.
You know, that's my.
Favorite day of the year. It's my favorite time of the year. I love horror, I love spooky season, and this month I feel like we've been bringing all the great you know, spooky people out, spooky content, horror movies, thrillers, just you know, getting it all up. Last episode we had Bruce Campbell, who's so amazing. We talked about Hysteria
and Teacut, which is this terrifying series on Peacock. It's just been oh and Kado Lake, the m Night Shyamalan produced film that I talk with Dylan O'Brien and Eliza Scanley such just such great content, and this episode is no different. I talk with the Shape himself, the original OG Michael Myers. Yes, I talk with Nick Cassel all about Halloween, which is out in theaters right now, with a couple of the sequels as well. And then I
talk with Ray Daisy Ridley. Yes, Daisy Ridley, I talk about her brand new film called Magpie, which is really really really creepy and really really really good.
You're gonna love it. But we'll talk about that in a moment.
First up, let's get right into my interview with the one and only Nick Castle, who gives us a very cool exclusive on the future of the Halloween franchise. Here he is Nick Castle. So, is this like your busy time of the year. I mean, obviously you're busy all year, but is this like an insane time for you?
Well, you know, I'm not busy all year. I'm a retired motion picture director writer and having a wonderful time in retirement. But nonetheless, what I do do is go do a lot of horror conventions, fan conventions, and especially this time of year is very popular. Over the last eight weeks, I've gone to six different cities just to talk to the fans, and they have a blast with this character, signing autographs and masks and knives and all
times of stuff. So I have the pleasure and the privilege of being an ambassador for John's movie and for a lot of the other a lot of the other films that have been spawned by this character.
Yeah, I mean, Halloween is such an iconic film, the franchise. You know, I'm a huge horror fan. I'm a huge Halloween fan. Halloween is my favorite. It's the og for me. What is it like to be you know, I mean, you are the shape Michael Myers. What is it like to be that character in a film that has just through decades endured.
Well, you know, it's pretty funny. Actually, I find it ironic because you know, what I'll be remembered for is this movie after having done a dozen movies or writing of another three or four. But it's so much fun because you get to meet the fans at these conventions, and that's how I know how beloved in its own strange way, this character is meeting people that actually are affected by this that their first movie was Halloween, or
their first horror movie. They sat down with their parents and watched it, and they remember it fondly for that, so it's almost like a family affair. And of course it happens every year. It was brilliantly, you know, titled Halloween. So every year around this time, you're reminded not only of the season, but of this little movie that was done so well that you don't mind going back to it over and over again.
Yeah, and for you, you know, over these decades, when you look back nineteen seventy seven, nineteen seventy eight, did you ever think that this was going to you know, that you'd be talking about at forty some years later.
Absolutely not. You know, at the time, this was a little film that you hoped would get you know, decent distribution and that you hope John would get another job.
From right.
And within the year it was the largest grossing independent film of all time, and especially for the budget was was was a crazy reality. And so h no no idea.
And you've talked about you know, you've talked about the film so much. Uh, is there anything that you know is little known about you know, a little known fact about the film that you haven't maybe been asked about or haven't discussed.
Oh dear, you know, yes, I've Folks like you have mined pretty much everything out of this brain. The one thing I like to remind people of is the UH as a partnership that John had with Deborah Hill, the producer and writer of the picture, was no small part in making this thing a reality and making it so good. She she helped work with the young actresses on the set UH and like I said, co wrote it with
him and was a tremendous talent. Died too young and didn't get to have as much as the fun of these last decades of how how the movie has grown in in fan base exponentially, it seems almost year after year. So I tribute just a reminder to folks that there was a woman involved with this this show, that that had a lot to do with its success.
I love that so much.
And you know, Halloween is playing right now and what nearly eight hundred theaters across the country. It's not every movie that gets that gets a re release, you know, like that, especially decades later, is you know for you you also did the thing that I love about, you know, a franchise like Halloween. Is that then you have different takes on it. You know, Rob Zombie did a take on it, and and then the recent trilogy from from David Gordon Green, which which you were in. Do you
enjoy seeing the different you know? And then there's there's books and games and comic books and all that. Do you enjoy seeing the different kind of you know, creative takes on the franchise?
Oh? Yes, I mean, in fact, I wouldn't mind seeing more of them. I'd love to see a film do an episode each from a great filmmaker to do their own Michael Myers like Rob just did, and David Gordon Green, you know, he came up with the concepts of doing a forty years later one and how they approach it. I thought that was magnificently done. And then talking about artistic endeavors, there are even books now of people that have done artwork that include the movie or the character
that are just spectaculars that are beautifully done. So the movie has inspired a lot of artists and you can see it in and when I go, especially when I go to these conventions where people will bring posters of things that people have made out of, you know, from their homes. You know, there's just spectacular work and it's it's it's it's really quite remarkable.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And do you happen to have any any idea where you know, is there talk of.
Bringing another film out?
Oh? Yeah, I spoke to Malika cod who is the uh, the owner of the franchise. Oh. They're busy trying to figure out the next next, the next iteration. And of course I think he's talked about having a relationship with Mery Max and they're thinking maybe TV might be the next step. I don't know what that means exactly, but that might be the next time you see the Halloween world pop out.
I love that. And originally wasn't.
John's original idea was to do like each year would be It wouldn't be necessarily Michael Myers, but it would be a different story taking place on Halloween.
Is that true?
That was true? You know. In fact, the third iteration of Halloween that John did with Halloween three Season of the Witch, which didn't have Michael Myers, had a great story.
At the time, it didn't work for the audience because the promotion of it didn't really explain that this wasn't Michael Myers, so everyone was disappointed when they went to see it, or many people were, and now years and years and years later, having you know that behind him, that movie directed by Tommy Lee Wallace is a big
fan favorite. So yeah, I think if you promoted it right, an anthology series about using John as the mastermind of the series and promoting it and shaping it would be a great way of telling the stories.
Again, Yeah, for sure.
Maybe that ties in with, you know, a television type thing and then you have Michael Myers whatever each season finale or something.
Hey, there you go. We may steal that idea from it.
It's yours.
I just want more Halloween content, Nick, You you know you've done so much work. August Rush is a personal favorite. I love that film. It's such a meditation for me. I believe in music and film and familial familial familial ties. Do you find you know you've done such varied work. Do you find that as an artist that's kind of you know, what kept you going for so long that you were able to do a Halloween and then an August Rush and a Mister Wrong and that sort of thing.
Well, sometimes you make your career and sometimes your career makes you for John, for instance, he was very clear about producing a John Carpenter movie for me, it was like, you know, it wasn't as easy as not that it was easy, but it didn't fall that way. It was like who had the best script, what studio wanted to hire me, things of that nature, so that you know, you you get this kind of eclectic you know, career
that that I've had a ball. So it's it's not formed into, you know that the kind of world that John was able to create, but it's a world that I've enjoyed every minute of and and had some great luck with doing films that I generated from my own little brain to motion pictures that were handed to me that I just love the idea. So I've been lucky, and now in retirement I can look back and just promote my friends' movies like this.
I love that so much. Nick, Thank you so much.
People can go to Halloweenportal dot com and get all of the information and they can go like me and go see Halloween and a few of the sequels as well in theaters on the big screen. Thank you so much, Nick, I really appreciate it.
Thank you. Unhappy Halloween. See the folks there.
Thank you.
Sarah you as well. Nick Castle. I can't believe I talked to Michael Myers. This has been like a dream this month. Bruce Campbell, last episode, Michael Myers. You know, Nick Castle, this episode just so awesome. I'm like living my dream and you guys make it happy and I appreciate that and love that from you and for you and for me.
Thank you.
It's awesome because he directed also like The Last Starfighter, which is such a great movie, and Dennis the Menace, which was hilarious that came out in What ninety three and it had Walter Mathow and Christopher Lloyd in it. Like what a cast, Natasha Leone, Lea Thompson. So anyway, all right, we're gonna take a super short break, so hang out here. So hang out here with me and support our sponsors who make this show happen.
I will see you in sixty all right.
Thank you for hanging out with me and supporting our sponsors who make this show happen every single week and bring you amazing interviews like Nick Castle, Michael Freakin Myers and this next interview, who I am so excited about my next guest has captivated audiences around the globe with
her incredible talent and charisma. She has empowered people, especially women and girls, around the galaxy with her breakout role as Ray in the blockbuster Star Wars sequel trilogy, and she's proven herself to be a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood and beyond. And her new film, Magpie is an incredible twisty, turny, hitchcocky and thriller that she conceived of herself and now stars in. Let's talk with Daisy Ridley. So, first of all, Daisy, thank you so
much for speaking with me. I really appreciate it. Magpie is so good. I love it.
Thank you, of course.
So tell me about you. Know, from my understanding, this film came from you. The idea for it came while you were filming something else, which I think is so meta, especially with the film itself.
How did that come about for you?
So the actual original idea was a little different to where Tom ended up taking it. The original idea was if an actress is away from home and destabilized by something and does not have the solidity of sort of the bedrock of something keeping her feeling calm, I mean being away filming anyway, even with all of those things, and the stability can be very strange and very isolating
and offering you're away from home. So the original concept was what would an actress do if she became so in love with the child that was playing her child
she tried to infiltrate that family. So that was the original idea, And when Tom started working on it, he just said he felt really more drawn to the woman at home, who is the person who isn't able to go and have this amazing experience on set where these intimate bonds are formed incredibly quickly and everything feels exciting and fresh, and who is she and how is she coping with the feeling of being the other woman in terms of her child And then of course, coupled with that,
her husband has a wondering eye.
Yeah, and so you know, this kind of incubates with you and you decide, you know, there's something here that I want to do with it. So you took it to a producer friend of yours and it kind of blossomed from there, right.
Yeah, So me and Tom had already started spitballing and he had actually written, I mean he wrote incredibly quickly because we were so excited about the idea, and particularly when he started working on it, and I knew his writing anyway, I've read a lot of his other scripts which were beautiful. So we pitched it to Kate, who I produced the movie with, and she was very interested.
And then in a way we went, so things you know, shifted as we went, but certainly the idea was there, and then we knew we wanted a killer ending, and then Tom really sculpted that because we had there had to be enough layers between everyone, and you had to believe those relationships and you had to care about these people and what happened in order for us to pull that off.
So all of that was built by him.
I love that And part of what I love is it so in its own way hitchcocky and almost And I'm a huge Hitchcock fan.
Are you? Are you a Hitchcock fan?
And does that kind of play into when you're doing, you know, different projects, especially when you're producing and you're you're so involved in the development of is that something like you know conscious for you, like, you know, I want to kind of do something in this vein or that vein.
Well, we had inspirations from the beginning.
One was Tully. This amazing film was Charlie's. Then we had seen Homecoming, the show with Julia Roberts with that very claustrophobic zoom, so there had been references anyway, and we really, me and Tom really wanted to make the sort of film and we all love all sorts of films, but something that we would really want to see. So the genre feeling and that noir feeling was something we
always wanted. But we were also incredibly lucky to have Sam Yer to come on board as director and Laura Bellingham come on as dop and we had talked about Hitchcock, and Sam's big inspiration was John Demi and a big reference with Silus of the Lambs, And so when you have amazing people who you trust and there are productions outre Amanda mccarth's just phenomenal. So because we had this amazing crew, I was able to sit back and then be blown away by the work that they were doing.
And of course we were all involved in those conversations, but the minute they started spitballing their ideas together and they did the shot list and how they were going to capture it, it was just brilliant and even on set watching scenes come together before they're edited, before anything.
The way Laura was capturing everything was so.
Gorgeous and gives that feeling of what is going on. We're seeing things that we shouldn't be seeing, and we're not seeing things that we should be seeing. Where's that line and where's the line between what's real and what's not?
But really, yeah, so much of that is down to Laura.
And for you, you know, I'm not sure.
You know, often for those watching or listening, films and projects are filmed out of order, and I'm trying to be as.
Spoiler free as possible. Is it hard for you?
And I would assume that's a little bit easier for you since you were involved since the beginning, But is it hard for you as you're filming, when you're doing sequences out of order to kind of be like, Okay is in this space for this scene, and then she's in that space for that scene.
Know what I'm saying.
Yes, certainly we did.
The first chunk of the shoot was all in the house, but we did it as chronologically as possible, so even within the hatch, she has an emotional journey of that real claustrophobic feeling feeling at the beginning and then the end of the movie where she's a lot more calm and she is holding the cards at that point. So there were moments where I can't remember what scene we did. A big leap we did. We went from seeing them
I've seen fifty to scene ninety. But also again to Sam's credit, I mean we talked before every scene about where Anette was. And having a director you really trust is fantastic because I also wasn't watching the dailies of myself. I was only watching the other people do scenes because that was something I felt would be too difficult.
So when you trust, people are like, is this coming cross? Is this the right thing?
Yeah, so there was one time where it was a bit of a leief and I thought, oh, okay, and that it is slightly different here.
But the amazing thing is too she is never broken.
She's really beaten and really bruised emotionally, but she's never broken and the strength and we meet her and Ben in a difficult time. We never see them as they were. We come into their relationship mid difficulty, so we had already established that and from there, I mean, things get worse for a net before they get better. But she always maintains that she has her kids to think about
and they're really the motivation for her drive. And because as well they have these beautiful kids to film with. The hip particular who plays Matilda, she her little face was such a drive for me too that that kept me centered in it all as well.
I love that.
And finally, you know, and I've asked Robert Pattinson this, and I've asked Daniel Radcliffe this, When you do you know, when you do such an icon of character and a giant franchise like Ray, and then you go and do these projects that are on the opposite kind of scale, is.
That super fulfilled? Like, like, I feel like as.
A creator, you know, obviously I'm not an actor, but I feel like as a creator, it kind of like checks all these marks and the fact that like I can go and do this giant project and then that affords me to go and do kind of anything I want.
Do you find that true.
For you in terms of being afforded the privilege?
Absolutely, because I also know without the bigger films, it would be more difficult to make the smaller films, which is just the truth of it. But It's interesting in terms of approach, I feel the same in approaching every role, and it's certainly different going from shooting one hundred and forty days to shooting for twenty three days. But I feel really genuinely blessed with the people that I've got
to work with. And ultimately, art is art, whether it's your big movie that's going to be seen on an Imax or a smaller movie that you hope will connect with people. Either way, you know, you hope that the emotional story will connect. Either way, you hope that the vista of it all will connect, so that in terms
of approach it doesn't change. But my hope always is I mean that I've become a better actor each time, to be honest, but also that each film, even if it means something to one person, whether it means something to one hundred people or one person, that one person is as important. So the hope would always be that whatever it is I'm making connects in some way.
I love that so much, Daisy, it connected with me.
I can't wait till it comes out so I can talk about it with people. Magpie exclusively coming out in theaters.
I can't wait for everybody to see it. Thank you, Daisy, Thank you so much. Have a great.
Thanks, Daisy Ridley. I cannot believe that I talked with Ray, Daisy Ridley, Ray, Star Wars, The Force Awakens, Star Wars, The Last Jedi, Star Wars, The Rise of Skywalker. I mean, I Daisy Ridley, people, Daisy freaking Ridley. I'm like pinching myself and this episode. I also talked with Nick Castle, Michael Myers himself, like what is going on in my life? I love you guys for being with me and supporting me.
You know, watch the videos if you want. The video version of the interviews are up on the website and Facebook and all that good stuff. Keep tuned in with the podcast. Obviously, we're gonna be doing some cool giveaways coming up soon, just in time for the holidays, and so much more coming to you all because of you, and I love you for that, all right, I will see you next week.
I love you.
We are Thank you for listening to pop Culture Weekly. Here all the latest at pop cultureweekly dot com.