Devon Sawa Called the Chucky Doll the Most ‘High-Maintenance Actor I’ve Ever Worked With’
Actor Devon Sawa had a fun but educational experience working with the Chucky doll. Collaborating with the pint-sized serial killer was more work than he thought it would be.
Devon Sawa described what it was like acting with the Chucky doll
Working with a doll wasn’t as simple as it appeared on screen. For one thing, Sawa learned on set that he wasn’t just going to be working with one Chucky.
“What you don’t know—or what I didn’t know—is that you have to do each bit and there’s a different Chucky for everything,” Sawa once told E News. “There’s Chucky with legs, there’s Chucky with arms, there’s mad Chucky, happy Chucky.”
Not only that, but Sawa didn’t have the easiest time acting alongside Chucky in the beginning.
“We had to do this drunk scene line by line, moment for moment, and it was frustrating at first. Then you get used to it. You start learning the process and now it’s just like, ‘OK, we’re doing stuff with Chucky today. This is how I have to prepare, this is how we have to do it.’ It’s a little bit different than just working with a regular actor.”
The amount of work required to get the Chucky doll right might’ve given him a new perspective on his lifeless co-star.
“Chucky the doll is by far the most high-maintenance actor I’ve ever worked with,” Sawa said in an interview with Us Weekly.
Devon Sawa ranked Chucky right up there with two other iconic horror villains
Sawa’s team at the time might’ve been unaware, or underestimated the actor’s passion for the series. According to the Final Destination star, they seemed unsure whether he would’ve wanted to be a part of the Child’s Play legacy.
“I think my agents were…they didn’t really know what I would think when they handed me the Chucky TV series, but I was all in from the moment I got them [scripts], and I did this elaborate audition tape where I explained how I would play these two twins and it’s just been so much fun going to work on that thing,” Sawa told Popternative. “Jennifer Tilly, Fiona [Dourif], and all the kids and everybody, Don Mancini. I’m hoping to go do season 3 and play another character. We’ll see what happens.”
He also credited Mancini for creating a horror villain who was just as memorable as other iconic slashers.
“It’s chemistry—he made the right doll and added the right voice and gave it the right attitude,” he said. “That’s why it’s worked so well and that’s why it fits in with the rest of the horror icons like Jason and Freddie.”
Devon Sawa’s kids weren’t having the ‘Chucky’ series
Sawa shares two children with wife Dawni Sahanovitch. He’s given both his son and daughter glimpses into his Hollywood career. But when he showed them projects like Casper, they didn’t take to it very much.
“It was weird. I put on Casper for my son to watch and you know, I come down the stairs and I kiss Christina Ricci and say, ‘Can I keep you?’ And he looked – he was 5 at the time – and he looked so confused,” Sawa said in a separate interview with Us Weekly. “I mean, here I am, you know, 12 years old or 13 years old, and, like, he looked confused. I haven’t put a lot of stuff on for them now. I think they’ve got to understand it a little bit more.”
Both his children had a similar reaction when Sawa showed them his Chucky series.
“I will say that I showed them the Chucky trailer and they’re not having it,” he added. “I gave it a shot! They weren’t having the Chucky show, so I don’t think there’ll be watching that either.”
