JENNIFER TILLY
AB: You've done Tiffany's voice for two movies now. What is it like to play a doll?
JT: You know what? When I did Tiffany in Bride of Chucky, it was my very first time doing voice-overs, and, um, it was actually really easy because they - and this is very unusual, 'cause I've done a lot of voice-overs since - but, when we did Bride of Chucky, they had me and Brad Dourif in a room together and they set it up that we could overlap, talk at the same time, ad lib, and we were facing each other when we were doing it, and Brad really is a brilliant actor, he's been nominated for Emmy and Academy awards, and he really, he doesn't condescend to the material, like he's really into playing Chucky. And so we were - it was like doing a radio play, it was so much fun, and there was this part in Bride of Chucky where Tiffany dies and I was crying and I looked over and he had tears rolling down his cheeks too because he felt it so strongly. So, it wasn't too much of a jump to play Tiffany. The first one, Bride of Chucky, was really fun because I got to play Tiffany as a person and then she turns into a doll. And I gave it a lot of thought. Obviously you can't apply the methods when you're playing a little plastic doll but I thought when she's a person she'll have more of a person's voice and then when she's a doll her soul goes into a little tiny thing, so I thought I'd make her voice more doll-like, 'cause I thought, well, she just has those tiny plastic lungs. So I did a delineation between Tiffany as a person and as a doll. In Seed Of Chucky, Tiffany sort of has a metamorphosis in that in the first one she is very bloodthirsty and in this movie because she's a mother now, she decides that killing is wrong, and bad, and she's trying to - she's struggling with her addiction to killing. So, um, when I saw the movie actually - I play, in the movie I play myself, Jennifer Tilly, and then I play Tiffany, the doll, and I saw the movie and I thought Tiffany was more dimensional than myself, the actress. 'Cause it's hard to play yourself, and the studio was very concerned with Jennifer Tilly being likeable, but with the doll, she's like - a killer. So I didn't have to pull back, or make her likeable, and she has so much more going on in that she had a rocky relationship with her boyfriend, she's struggling with addiction, she has a son that's gender-confused, so basically her life is like As The World Turns, whereas Jennifer Tilly has one thing going on and I watched and I was like, Oh my god, all I do is scream and jiggle my breasts. And get knocked out - I scream, and I get knocked out. And so basically, I enjoy playing Tiffany, I think, better than I enjoy playing myself, but I had lots of fun playing both characters.
AB: What originally appealed to you about playing Tiffany?
JT: Basically, when they came to me, I was not familiar with the Chucky franchise, and so I had some sort of idea that it was - I don't know, some sort of idea that it was a comedown to do a horror movie, and that was all before the horror movie chic, the era of the horror movie chic was ushered in, you know when they started making all the movies like Scream, and you know, where everybody started doing the horror movies, but when I got offered Chucky, that was kind of a B picture thing to do so I was really resisting it. But then I read the script, and I thought the script was very funny, and clever, and appealing. And Ronny Yu was directing, and I'm familiar with his work from the Hong Kong films he made, most notably The Bride With White Hair, and I thought Wow, they're really, you know, trying to do an interesting thing here. And I met with Dave Kirschner and Don Mancini and they were so passionate about their movie I decided to do it. It's funny because out of all the films that I've done, and I've done many, many films, the one people recognize me from most is Bride of Chucky. I'd say eight out of ten times when people come up to me on the street, they recognize me from Bride of Chucky.
AB: I've noticed that horror movie sequels, and especially the Chucky movies, tend to turn more to comedy than horror eventually.
JT: Well, I think the thing with Chucky is that Seed of Chucky is the fifth movie. And even Brad Dourif who does the voice of Chucky said it, he said, you know, he was really happy when he did - after he finished doing the voice for the last one, I mean for Bride of Chucky, he said, I'm so happy I have a girlfriend. And in the last one he said, It's so nice to have a wife and a family. He said it was getting a little old. He says, All I do is scream and kill people and then die, and scream, and in the next one I would get resurrected. And the thing is that horror movie audiences and horror film aficionados, they're more sophisticated and they don't want to see the same thing every time and I think Don was very clever in that Chucky kind of transmogrified from being a screaming one note banshee into somebody that you can kind of relate to. You know, he�s got problems, he's got a wife and he's got a son that's a little bit on the girly side and so I think that he became familiar so it's hard for him to be scary anymore. So I think, yes, in this version of Chucky it's not so scary but scary comes from the unknown. Now people know that Chucky is the doll that kills people. So I think that part of the fun of the Chucky movies is the -- part of the fun; the good clean fun! -- seeing how people die, you know, and usually...well, a lot of people in this movie that die, you kind of want to see them get it, you know? So I think that it's shifted a little that you identify more with Chucky and Tiffany than you do with the victims. I think when you see the first movie it's more from the victims' point of view, and when you see this movie it's more from Chucky's. I think Chucky and Tiffany are more sympathetic than the people that they kill. Including Jennifer Tilly, who doesn't get killed but I think Jennifer Tilly in this movie is more one-dimensional than Chucky and Tiffany because it's really their story.
AB: Why did you agree to play Jennifer Tilly?
JT: Because when Don came to me when he had the idea, I thought it was very funny. And I've only played myself once before, which was in the Albert Brooks movie The Muse, and I think that you really can't go to that well too often. I got offered to play myself a bunch of other times and I knew I was going to be playing myself in the Chucky movie so I said no. But I just thought it was a really good opportunity to sort of poke fun at myself, playing a bitch, you know, be satirical about what it's like to be an actress in Hollywood and you know, and just have fun with it as much as I can.
AB: Is it true that you wrote the fat jokes yourself?
JT: Yes I did. But I wrote a couple and then Don just went to town with it. Like Don added the part where I'm sneaking candy bars all over the set and everything, yeah. But a lot of the stuff which were my - attitudes that I have, he would expand on them. OK, they just stuck their heads in the door. I'm on a super tight schedule, so they're making that 'wrap it up' sign.
AB: Well let me just ask you real quick if you would do another Child's Play movie.
JT: You know what? If I like the script and if Don Mancini writes the script, and he wrote me in it, for sure I would, because I love working with Don and I think he's very clever. But it depends if it was interesting to me. Like I don't like to do the same thing over and over again. If they came up with a clever or an interesting way for me to be in the next film I would certainly do it, but it depends.