Leprechaun (1992)

This is the Lionsgate logo. I was waiting for the Trimark logo. This is Mark Jones. I'm the writer-director of the first Leprechaun, which I think we're watching. And next to me is... Gabe Barteles. I did the special makeup effects on Leprechaun. And he did a great job, and you're going to see his work, or at least part of his work, through the shadows. Do you remember where this... piece was? I do, I do. We kind of shot this after the fact because we wanted to sort of do an interesting opening and it was sort of the lead in to the movie. And we actually, that's not a special effects, that's a real light. And see the nice glistening on the helmet with the iridescence in the outfit. Yes, I think we sprinkled stuff. Yes. I tried to convince people that I was the mark and try mark, but it didn't work. There you go. Look, they kept my name on it. Actually, there's a story to this limousine. It originally was white, and they wanted to, the studio did say, let's change it to black and reshoot this part because they thought black was scarier. and just start the ominous early. Well, yeah, I'm not so sure I agreed with that, but it's okay. Of course, nowadays, we would have just digitally changed it. Now it's, he since, I believe, has passed away. I think that's Shea Duffin. That's the sad part about watching ...movies after 20 years, and some of the people are not with us anymore. And others have moved up the ladder to different things. Yes, and some of us have moved down the ladder, like me. I think these colors, Mark, are a fun introduction... ...to the comic feel that you talked about early on. Yeah, actually, I always sort of wanted to make... ...a Scooby-Doo live-action horror movie... ...and I used to write Scooby-Doos. This is sort of my homage to it, but if you notice, there's a lot of bold colors that probably somewhat are cartoony colors, especially when we get into the house, and that was by design. And I did have a terrific DP, Levi Isaac, who obviously gets credit for shooting this and making it look like a great movie. That's Cole, our stunt supervisor, right? That was. That was Cole McKay, who was our stunt coordinator. Sneaking a cameo in as the limo driver. Yes, yes. He made him buy me a drink for this. Yeah, Shea Duffin. What's going on here is we're rich. Did you have fun during the casting process for all these characters? Yeah, I tell you, I... Lisa London and Catherine Stroud were my casting ladies and they brought me great people and I sort of wanted to cast this thing and sort of get different looks and especially when the kids who are painting and Jennifer, I think they all sort of have a unique look. I like everybody to be ID'd immediately when you see them. I don't like three people with dark hair or three people with blonde. That's probably from my cartoon days. And there was our lightning, which I, for some reason, every picture I do, I put lightning in, and you always think it's going to be great, but then you realize... You have to match it on the coverage, and you have to make sure that the lightning hits at the same time, and then in editing. But flashing light and a little bit of thunder, and it does work. Oh, and this was shot, by the way, Little House on the Prairie, Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley. The exterior, that was some of the exteriors we used. There's Mark Amin, who was the head of Trimark, who greenlit the picture. And here I think you can see the colors that are a little bit... over the top. I think it's nice. I think though they're vibrant, the palette is terrific. Yeah, I had a great production designer, Naomi Slotky, who really designed the sets, and she was very good, and I think she was somewhat new. I know she's off doing great things now, but a lot of people have gone on to do better stuff. Not that this wasn't the best, but... And it's funny, I look at, there's Levi, Levi Isaacs, who really, this is my first directing ever. I had written and produced a lot of television, but this is my, you know, my intro into directing, and Levi was terrific because your DP, as everyone knows, is your right-hand person. And he was, he taught me a lot, actually. Ah, that was our... Stunt girl going down the stairs. I think it's always good when you kill a sweet old lady in the first three minutes. Exactly, yes. There's Naomi. And there's our crane. They gave me a crane that day. This is all a set in a soundstage. And they let me go right up. And if you notice, his ears move mechanically, I guess. Right, right. We had a rig that we would bring out sometimes that was attached to a skull cap and two servos. would make the tips wiggle and the sides rotate. We only use it a few times, which is actually smart. It builds the character that way. Yes. I'm giving a shout-out to Christopher Roth, who did a terrific job at editing. And, of course, Gabe next to me, who really designed the whole look of Leprechaun and was terrific and has carried on through six pictures. Carrying the torch, Mark. Well, you're doing a great job. And that was dry ice. And it really, it kind of works. Everybody has to forgive me. It's been a while since I've seen this. There was our casting, Lisa London. These are fun shots how the characters introduced. You're getting glimpses and silhouettes and wise ass. Yes. And as you can see, I really didn't want to take ourselves too serious. I really wanted to have not a straight-ahead horror movie, which my first draft of the script that Trimark bought, that was very horrific and no personality in a leprechaun. He was just kind of a killing... There's Gabe's credit. He was just a killing machine that became a monster, and then through rewrites and prepping this thing, uh uh kind of brought personality which i think is why the movie has held up yeah and luckily it was warwick davis playing it which gave us gave the character the room to expand yes and kevin kiner who his credit just passed did the music he did the music for a show i worked on superboy a live action syndicated show and At a party, after a few drinks, I told him I'm gonna direct a movie and you're gonna do the music and he said, sure, how many times have I heard that? And by next year, I made the movie and I called Kevin and I think his music is terrific and he still works and does great stuff. And those gunshots were not CGI as we do now. Well, there's Michael Prescott, my producing partner who came with me with the script and David Price. who I'm still friends with, who directed Children of the Corn 2. And matter of fact, I'm gonna have a barbecue at his house tonight. Excellent. And there's, I know that guy. I know that guy as well. So what I was gonna say, we actually did practical gunshots with blanks, and the last movie I did, we don't do that anymore. It's all CGI. So I miss being able to really shoot a blank. on a movie set. That volume wakes everybody up. Yes. I always liked the sequence before where he puppeteers the dead woman's head is pretty psychotic and almost hints to the ventriloquist film later on for you. Yes, that's right, that's right, triloquist. Yes, I always have a thing about creepy, weird things. Now that's not gasoline, believe it or not, that's water. I'm sure everybody was going, that's kind of dangerous next to that actress. Like how he's torturing him. Yes. Now that actually was a pull back that we reverse printed to get a push in. Because you never know when you get into editing, we wanted to push in and all we had is camera pulling back, so. That was the tricks. This, of course, was shot in 35 millimeter film, which I miss because I think, unfortunately, it's gone away, even though the new digital does look great. But I do kind of miss the old 35 millimeter. This is a great example where using 35, the gold standard, no pun intended, really helps the film. It's an amazing way to complement all the colors you're playing with, the textures. Yes. Listen, digital is not better than film. It's getting almost as good, but there are advantages to shooting digitally. I must say the last movie I did was the first movie I shot digitally with the Alexa cameras, which were terrific. Yeah, they're great. These were Panavision cameras, by the way, which as a first-time director as a kid, I used to see American Cinematography Magazine, and we'd... We'd see Panavision cameras, and then I got to use one, so I was very thrilled. You knew you arrived. Yes. Now, this is a helicopter shot that I refused to go in, so this was done by a second unit because I was not going to go in a helicopter. These are the roads up to 14, right? I think possibly or near Malibu. Near Malibu, okay. Maybe near, that's, I think, Calabasas or something. It's hard to say. We actually had a whole sequence right after this where we had a talk. We had a camera in the Jeep with Jennifer Aniston and her father. And it was cut out. It just slowed down. I'm actually a director who likes to cut a lot. My pictures sometimes get short because I want to throw everything away. And I guess that's from my days of being a writer where you cut, cut, cut, and don't hand a script in longer than 110 pages. Mm-hmm. But again, this was Simi Valley, Little House on the Prairie sets. We had a crane. I remember this was a beautiful intro shot. I remember Isaac up there on the crane. It was excellent. And there's Jennifer, who's adorable and was wonderful to work with. And again, I always have to apologize for putting her in this movie. I'm sorry, Jennifer. Forgive me. But it was her first movie, my first movie, and we had a lot of fun. Yeah, she's great. For some reason, this blue dress you're going to see is one of my favorites. She has blue shoes. Holly Davis, who was terrific, was our wardrobe girl. I just think that was a nice outfit for her, and we should have kept her in that dress. She has beautiful legs. Yeah, cute. Notice I put mushrooms there in front, our production design. That's a colorful little mushroom, plastic mushroom. Again, trying to kind of get a... cartoony look. I remember what was fun for all of us is this exterior hadn't changed much since Little House on the Prairie. No, this was it. It was pretty much exactly it, exactly. So I think we all had a kick out of that. Yes. And there was the spider who we were very gentle with because I'm an animal lover and we don't hurt any animals, but we had to do that a few times to get the timing right. And this, again, is back in the soundstage in an actual basement that... We built, designed and built. You remember what stage this was, where this was? It was up in Santa Clarita, I believe. Oh, you're right, you're right. Santa Clarita. And again, I put a big, you know, an orange shirt on him and pretty blue dress on Jennifer. It's nice, you know where to look. Yes. So what year are we in, Mark? Do you remember the shooting year? Yes, it was the end of 91. It was November. It was like October, November of 91. And the picture really took a year before it was released in the early in January of 93. Excuse me. I knew I would start coughing the minute I did this because they were going to go direct to video. It was basically under a million dollar movie, which I think looks terrific for what money we had. And they ended up testing it, and it tested really well as a theatrical, and they couldn't believe it, so they tested it again, and they said, you know, we might do some business if we go theatrical. And they did, and then they said it was Trimark's biggest release theatrically at that time. They came out in 93. That's great. I also remember that the hold of not putting it out instantly actually helped because they started doing advertising. then they stopped, regrouped, and it became one of those models that you see now. Advertising starts a year before, and it gets to all spectrums of the audience, and people are ready for it. Yeah, we started it. That was my plan. I was going to say something, if people care about this. His beard, we had to put on him, and I'll tell you, he's a very good actor, and he came in, and he had a beard, and I was looking for... That father to have a beard, sort of an older guy. And when he showed up the first day, he was cleanly shaven. And I told him, why did you shave your beard? I told you I wanted the beard. But for some reason, he thought he looked better without the beard. So we actually had to put a fake beard on him. So when I look at a close-up, I don't want the audience to not think that I don't notice what they notice. But John was his name. But he was great. He was a great guy to work with. And that's Ken Olent, who later became a super cop or something, those syndicated half-hour shows like Swamp Thing and Superboy and when they were doing those live action. He was a lot of fun. Yeah, they made a great couple. They played off each other really well, and I think they instantly knew what you were after, that equation. Yeah, they did. They did. Oh, this is funny. She goes, this is the 90s. I have to laugh, you know. I think that's one of the wonderful things about all films is they become time capsules for us. Well, the viewers also, you know, if a film resonates with you, it's fun to think about when it affected you. Working on films, there's so much that's precious to this because we're there. A film like this, we're out of frame, we're right on the edge, we're underneath the car. It's really fun to remember. Every setup has its own specific texture and feeling to us. Right. I was just happy that we used a cell phone because if we hadn't, we'd have really looked like an older picture. But it's a flip phone, as you notice. Excuse me. Right on the cusp of technology at that point. Yes, but we did have cell phones, so we didn't have like in the 80s where they went to phone booths. We actually had some nice, this is Mark Holton by the way, everybody who might know him as Francis who stole Pee Wee's bicycle in Pee Wee's Big Adventure. And I actually worked with him on Superboy and I thought he'd be perfect for Ozzy and as I was writing the script I was thinking of him. Mark was great. He always kept it light. He was really funny. And Robert Gorman was the kid who's not a kid anymore, but he wanted to wear the San Francisco hat, and he asked me if he could do it because it was his favorite team, and I said he could, and that was how he got the hat in the picture. That's great. I remember Robert was amazingly ahead of his years even then. He was. He was. You see the paintbrushes on Ozzy's shirt, which was made, I think, again, our wardrobe, Holly Davis. And they were specially made. Hi, I'm Alex. Nice to meet you. This is my friend Ozzy. How you doing, Ozzy? Hi. So, you boys need any help out here? I remember Mark would, every now and then, when we were on the sound stages, much to the horror of production, when he was bored, he would just yell out, cut! And everyone would start packing their gear and the ADs would be running around, we're not cut, Mark, please stop it. It was hilarious. Yes, yes. No, he had a great sense of humor. Mm-hmm. He actually, I think he played Ted Bundy in a movie many years later and played a very dark, not Ted Bundy, the guy who dressed as a clown who killed people and buried him under the house. That must have been a strange jump for him. Yeah, well, he's a very good actor, very good actor. Mm-hmm. There we have the shoes, and the reason there's so many close-ups of shoes is I did not get paid by L.A. Gear. I wish I had, but it had to do with leprechauns, our shoemakers, and later on there's a scene where they use the shoes to get away from the leprechaun. One of my favorite scenes, actually. Which I said earlier in an interview that they wanted me to cut out, of course. They'll never remember it, but I remember everything as I was there. This is a... Interesting because for, and it was only in Leprechaun 1, in designing the makeup, the prosthetics go through architectural changes. In the beginning, he's more passive. He's calm. The brow was sculpted with curvatures that arched like rainbows, and it was non-aggressive. And as the film went on, if you broke it down by act, by act two, the pieces got more aggressive, and by three, it's full on. As the Leprechaun films went on, those nuances began to go away, which is I also think why one stands above the others, that those tiny details that seem to be pesky distractions really do pile up to a film that hits you at all levels. And the prosthetics was something we did. nurture that care in the beginning. So here Warwick Davis is wearing the stage one prosthetics where the nose is not as hooked. It's actually button nose. The chin does not protrude yet like the punch doll it becomes later. Yes, I agree. And actually the one thing I had a big, I was a big stickler for him having high shoes as heels. I wanted high heels. It was creepy to me. And I think later on they decided to make his shoes not as high. on some of the later leprechauns. But yeah, I have a thing about shoes, obviously. And there you go. That was a nice location and it was actually fun to shoot. There's our colors again. This location where when we get to the night shoots was really amazing how when it was lit up, it was pretty spectacular. Yeah, we had, I mean, I'll give Trimark credit because they did give us, you know, they gave us enough to make a pretty good movie with a 24-day schedule, which is a good schedule for these low-budget direct-to-video movies. And, you know, I think as we went along, they started to get somewhat happy with the picture. I don't think... Of course, they were always, I've said this before, they were always threatening if they didn't like dailies two days in a row, they were going to remove me. And so my producing partner, Michael Prescott, would run to the telephone at the soundstage and he'd give me a thumbs up if they liked dailies that morning and a thumbs down if they didn't. And as long as I got, you know, one thumb up, one thumb down, or two thumbs up, I was fine. But if I got two thumbs down, I'd have been removed. But then later they... They backed off the fear factor? Never completely. But Mark Amin, I think, and to his credit, you know, I think there were... You know, people always want to, you know, remove directors at times. It's always talking about should we really let this guy finish, but... Mark Amin said, I think I see something in the picture. Yeah, I think as the footage rolled in, it became clear there was a vision behind it. And I think we felt that as each day went on. Every setup is a decision you're making, Mark. And we quickly, you could feel everyone getting on board, understanding this world, which it really is its own world, which is also what makes it fun. It's totally out of time and space, like a cartoon. And... It worked so well like that. Yeah, I was, I mean, again, I'd said I was a writer and a producer in television for a lot of years, but I'd never directed. And I thought I thought I would be easier. But the first day on a set as a new director, boy, you get you get baptism by fire. But, you know, I had a lot of good people and a lot and a great crew. And and Warwick was terrific. And there's eating the bug. And I love that. It was nice. I was actually, after the fact, I was very impressed that I actually got through it, and it actually looked pretty good. There's the shoes. See, again, nice lighting by Levy with the light through the window, and, you know, the set looks good. Yeah, it's a very nice scene to introduce him in contemporary times. Yes. Here you go. It's funny, I had not seen a lot of Warwick's films before this, and Warwick thought that was a little funny, but the neat thing was as we began to spend huge amounts of time together between the makeup process in and out and the shooting day, my respect for him grew very organically from watching his chops and watching him respond to your direction. And so there was nothing... There were no laurels for him to fall back on. Everything was being built from this experience, and it became monumental for me. Like, wow, this guy's amazing. He was terrific. He got into it. He understood it. He brought his own personality to it, and I think that's the reason all the leprechauns work so well is it's Warwick. It's the character. Yeah. And that's why, you know, I'm disappointed they're not using Warwick in the new reboot of Leprechaun, but... You know, I think that's what the fans like, but let's see what happens. Where are you going? If it'll make you feel any better, Ozzy, we'll all go down to the basement and check it out. Don't go in there, don't go in there, don't go in there. Okay, just in case. I better go with you. This is pretty early in the shoot, too. That's right. Some of it was done in sequence, in order. Wait for me, I'm coming. There's that. I don't think the stick's going to be big enough. I think it's a little parody on Jaws. We need a bigger boat, okay? So I steal from the best. Yeah, this was the first week outside. We did the first six days in the soundstage, which is this. This was the first week. And then the second week we went outside. So this was actually shot a week before what you just saw outside. That's the magic of movie making. I just love passing posts in front of the camera. He's a first-time director, so we like our dolly shots. It's good, though. All the things you've been writing for and the hits and misses, you were able to put all the positive stuff into your first picture. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I really did have a lot of fun. It's interesting that it's still... It still is out there. I was saying I get 8-year-old kids who watch it and they catch it on cable and DVDs and downloads. It's still got a fan base with kids that weren't born 20 years ago. So I think it did hit that little spot where I think younger kids found it accessible. It was like a horror movie, but they could still watch it without being... you know, traumatized. I mean, that's what it was. And I think a lot of it also might have been the height factor of Warwick. There was something that psychologically they could directly relate to. This is not an adult in five, six feet height. It's somebody they could look eye to eye to. And maybe there was something more consumable about it that way for them. Absolutely. That's a very good point to bring up. I'm sure that had something to do with it. Well, Ozzie, I think we found your leprechaun. No, no, no. You don't understand. He was bigger than that. All right, all right. I think we've solved this mystery now. Can we just get out of here? How much pre-production was there? At what point, like, did you do the casting? How many months out or weeks out? We had a pretty good pre-production, probably about eight weeks. We cast right away. But, you know, eight weeks, we thought, you know, in retrospect, is a long time. But at the time, it was never long enough. You know, it all comes together. It's amazing. You'd think, you know, we've got three more days we're going to shoot, and it does come together. I'm noticing Tori, which is Jennifer's short jeans, which, again, she hated, and you'll probably never forgive me for putting her in those. But remember, it was 91. You should see what I'm wearing in the behind-the-scenes photos. I look back, and I'm going, really? But, you know, it's funny to watch this. It still holds up because I think it's, you know. It's super fun. Yeah. Do you remember the conversations leading up to the casting of Warwick Davis? Yes, I do. I do. It was at some point somebody suggested the guy who did Willow, and I said it was terrific. I saw Willow and Ron Howard, and I figured I wasn't even sure he'd want to do it. And we ended up sending the script to him. And he at one point read it and actually had a very tragic thing. He had lost a child, which he has talked about in his book. And he felt getting out of England and coming here and working and burying himself in work might be somewhat therapeutic. And he and his wife, Sam, was terrific. And they came out together. And they were just really sweet. Warwick was so good and just he never complained and he had to go in three hours in makeup or whatever hours it took and so I was very lucky to get him. It's great I remember once he was cast about almost a week later he came to the States and we did the head mold hand mold measurements and then he went back to England before filming. And we took that preparation time to sculpt and mold and fabricate all the pieces with prosthetic makeup. At the end of the day, those prosthetics go into trash. So we figured out how many days the Leprechaun character performed. I think it was like 19, maybe. Probably, yeah. So... We needed a set, a fresh set of prosthetics, 19, and maybe we made one or two sets extra. So we had our work cut out for us working backwards from the shooting day so that the pieces were ready. Yes, I remember. I remember that. Thank goodness we didn't go over our schedule. We'd have been in real trouble. I always thought this was a... Oh, it's funny. I was going through some... Trimark memos, and one of the memos, who I'm now going to give it away, but they wanted me to take out the scene about fixing his brain, which is coming up, which I thought was so adorable. And they go, no, it's making fun of people who have mental problems. I think it's coming up now. And fix your brain. and have them operate and fix your brain. But look how sweet that is. Yeah, totally. If you're going to address an issue like that, you've got to do it better. But that was one of the script notes at one point, and I did fight a little bit with Trimark, but some of the stuff I won and some I didn't, but that's the way it always goes. Maybe when this is released, it could have a sticker that's handicap-friendly. Yes, exactly. And that's a very nice shot. I think we had sort of a... nice golden time of day. Yeah, I think the shooting schedule allowed for everyone had to be extremely focused, but there was time to get it right. And if a setup meant bringing a crane in, knowing the shot's going to begin static and rise, huge things like that opened the film up. Yes, and that was one of the things, because it does end up getting dark and we stay at night, and I always said I want to open it up and I want to keep it bright in the beginning and not be claustrophobic. But... Yeah, no, we actually, you know, in looking back, we had a good schedule, and we had enough money to do what we wanted. I hate those jeans, by the way. I'm looking at her jeans, and they really... Why did I allow that? I have to take responsibility. Here's a shot I loved as a first-time film director. I'm going, look, and we're going right down to the bottom of the truck, and, you know... Forgive me, I'm getting excited watching my stuff all over again. Actually, that was a cut we made. We actually had the camera move up like this in one shot, but pacing, we had to do certain cutting. Nathan, come on, what are you doing? But I think Tori, or Jennifer, looks adorable, and I don't know, she was so cute and really did have a presence on the set and sort of a charisma, I'm sure, gave you... You can acknowledge that. Absolutely. She was charming. And it's interesting watching this as they brought a spark that popped a little higher than the normal emulsion of film, which I think also keeps that slightly heightened, super saturated cartoon feel. They were perfect for that. They brought, they amped it up slightly without feeling overboard. They landed in the perfect place for it. I think so. I mean, you know, it all worked. I remember I just thought of something, and I think it's cute to say now, but I remember like the third week Jennifer came to me because she was due $40 in overtime or meal penalty. They promised it would be on her next check, and it didn't. And two weeks later, she got her third check, and she just said, Mark, is there anything you can do? Because, I mean, they owe me $40. They said they'd pay, and it never showed up, and I don't really want to make a stink about $40. But, you know, she was a... you know, a new actress, and I just think it's a funny story that Jennifer Aniston asked if I could call the accounting office and make sure that the $40 overtime she was due was on her check. And we paid her just basically scale. So I don't think she'll be embarrassed by that because I think she gets more than $40 in overtime now. Now, this is interesting coming up because there's a... gag that was cut out. By the way, three guys that paint is the reason it's there. They said, what should be on the side of the truck? I couldn't think of something. They needed it immediately, so I said three guys that paint. Besides that, what's coming up is the car is going to take away right here and then we cut to this. Warwick was supposed to come up after the car ran over and he had tire tracks all up and down him. I remember we did that at the end of a day. And we actually painted the zigzag of tire tread on his face, buried him. Buried him and had him come up. And it was an elaborate gag and it took us like four hours. And it was very funny, like the truck ran over him. And for some reason, the executives at Trimark said, no, that's too cartoony. Oh, really? Let's cut it out. And of course, now I think these are the things that we should go do the director's cut and put back in. But it was in one of my first cuts. But yeah. There were a few things like that. Yeah, I remember he was patient. We actually put him underground, put a board on him and put all the earth in a tube for breathing. Yeah, you gave him a tube and he was a trooper. And by the way, this guy is the Bob Newhart had a show with the brothers Daryl and Daryl. He's one of the guys, if anybody remembers Bob Newhart. Sure. Just passed away two years ago, right? Him? Bob Newhart. No, he's still around. Oh, no, no, he did pass away. Yeah, he just passed away. Yes, I see him on Big Bang, right? Mm-hmm. Yes. I think he did, yes. So we always do that, and then we go IMDb or Wikipedia. He's still alive. Yeah. This was in a soundstage, the coin store. Hmm.

Okay, we'll come back tomorrow. It'd be interesting to know what the price of gold was then in 1992. Yeah, that would be. We'll have to re-edit the picture if we're wrong. Now, my Hitchcock cameo, I wouldn't even call it a cameo, might be coming up after this, but it's going to be a while. I forgot about this scene. This was one where, did we heighten the death with the pogo? Yes, actually what we did is we did the insert shots in the Saugus Cafe, which is coming up. We did it, we laid the guy in the ground and did his... In the back room or something, right? Yeah, no, I think it was right in the restaurant after we had shot the restaurant scene. Oh, and when he does come out, which is happening with the pogo stick shortly, our stunt double couldn't pogo. So we ended up having to slow it down optically so it looked like he was going a long distance because it could only get like three pogos and you'll see why we coming up why he kind of built it in editorial and slow-mo and yes and and by the way we cut this on 35 millimeter on a moviola I didn't even have a cam I had a moviola and Christopher Roth and I just sat there and with tape and cut it right on on a tiny little moviola excellent Now, of course, video editing, I think, is much better. I guess they wanted, we were trying to play this for suspense. Where's the leprechaun going to come out of? Oh, it couldn't be the safe, could it?

There you go. I think it's funny how you see us contending with the height of the hat a lot. Yes. And the crate in here. Yes, you're right. This was a fake leg insert we did, a urethane leg with a blood tube, and we had dug out the section, placed it back, and Warwick knew where it was and was able to rip it right off. And at this point, then, we jumped to a prosthetic that the actor wore. That's right. You worked very hard on this. I forgot how hard. We should have paid you more. We had a good time. It was fun to know that we're making a title creature, too. There's the slow-mo. There's the slow-mo, yeah. Was that deep-roaring? I think so. I think so. Right, and these were the inserts done up at Saugus, yeah? Yes, Saugus Cafe, yes. There's some of the facial prosthetics with the dressed blood, and, you know, that scene tends to affect a lot of people. It's really creepy, and I mean, it's so demented. And then you get a punchline like this, let's clean up those shoes. Yes, I wanted to keep that alive, and there is a point when they, if I have mentioned it, I know I've mentioned it before, where they get away. with him polishing the shoes, and not everybody wanted me to do that. Now, I remember that him driving the little car got such a great response that when they did Leprechaun 2, they put him in a little race car. Here's the Saugus Cafe. Now, here is coming up, that's me in the hat, and that's David Price. David Price is sitting next to me, who is a co-producer, who is a very good guy, and actually a good director. David's great. You put the cast in all over the place. The wardrobe ladies were serving and to the table to the left I'm wearing the baseball cap and Warwick is there with his wife Samantha. and a friend who was visiting from England. That's his ponytail in the background. That's right. And actually, the girl who brought the food as the camera followed her was my assistant, Mary Bannon, I believe, who I found her in a restaurant, and she wanted to get into the business, and she wanted to be my assistant. So we put everybody in because I think it was free at the time, but maybe we shouldn't say that if SAG is going to listen to this. There we go. Oh, wow. I forgot about this. Yep. Yep. This is a sequence that Trimark wanted a little more after some testing, I think, or wanted a little more action. So there was an extra half a night that was shot of the leprechaun chasing this cop into the woods and jumping down and snapping his neck. Right. I remember it was very specific that it should be a night forest chase. Yes, and it was. And actually, David Price took care of that second unit stuff and directed it and did a really good job. Back to feet, back to shoes. See, I was trying to keep a, you know, sort of a, what's it called? Kind of a subliminal theme. Yes, theme, thank you, of feet. We a little young to be out this late. It's great because you're totally squared up to Warwick's height sitting when you end the shot. Yes. Okay, smartass. Yes, they... This is the... I think Warwick says I'm over 600 years old. So I'm now... And I just made that up so now people know the lore. So now you're a leprechaun. Over 600 years old is how old leprechauns are. Now this is where originally... He didn't take the gun, he just dropped the guy. But now this is the second unit chase thing. Or it's coming up after this. You sure you don't want anything? No. I mean, yes, I do want something. Saugus Diner is still there. Yes, it is. Saugus Cafe. All I have is cheap whiskey. I think we had our whole crew. sitting there as uh yeah to the right is michael prescott yeah there's michael there's michael now on 16x9 you can see him on the old television you couldn't uh this was shot in malibu which everybody shoots at these trees it's right off of las virginas before i guess yeah it's malibu I remember we used, we didn't cast the actor's face for this. We had generic, actually here you can see the leprechaun prosthetics getting more souped up, more angular and vicious. And we used foam prosthetics with gashes in them on the policeman's face and then dressed it with blood so that his, we knew he'd have a lot of emotion screaming so that he could act through these pieces. They're super flexible. Yeah. This looks like nice stuff. Yes. There he is. Boy, did Warwick, he did a lot of his own stunts and running and jumping and, you know. Yeah, I know, I think Warwick probably early in his career became very aware that his whole physiognomy was very specific to him. So if you tried to double him, it didn't always look right. So probably out of him, you know, the pride in his work, he also wanted it to match, and he would do a lot of the hand inserts, and he would do the silhouette shots and the running. Yeah, he was real specific about that. I think it lended itself to the film. You can't just swap out his body type with a snap. No, no, it's not easy. It's great, iconic. Yes, and I wanted to make sure it buckles on that hat. Mm-hmm.

Well, that actor was happy. He got called back for another day. It's funny. Throughout all the leprechauns, there's very few shots where the leprechaun is not wearing the iconic hat. We began to realize that the things like the boots and the tails and the hat were very important to the entire aesthetic of the look. It's as playful as it is without the hat. You'll see as things move forward, there isn't a lot without them with the hat. It's all part of the look. That's right, yes, yes. Only work. Such a strange combination of playful and vicious. It lands in a really fun place. Yes.

I think we also ran into some time problems. We didn't want too short of a movie. Again, it goes back to I love to cut things, so this sequence did give us a couple of minutes of time. It's funny, when I look at it, I'm always wanting to recut everything and rewrite everything. I hear dialogue, I'm going, wow, why did I write that dialogue? It's such a nice shot of the forest. It's great. Sorry. Now just a little trivia. I've noticed, I watch this on Sci-Fi Channel because they play Leprechaun all the time and they took out the head turn. They took out the head break or the neck break. They actually edited it out or just the sound design? No, they edited it out because I guess this is in our picture. which actually, and I don't know if I mentioned early on, I mentioned it somewhere, that we had to actually, we got a PG-13 by the ratings board when we, the final cut, or one of the cuts, and we had to go in and add two more fucks for Jennifer actually said, leave us the fuck alone or something, and that gave us the R because the picture was really, you know, wasn't, you know, edgy enough or violent enough to get the R, so they had to add that and a couple of F words to get that R rating, because the kids, they like R-rated movies, they don't want to go to a PG-13 movie because they think it's too soft. I think, oh, we almost got a glimpse of Samantha. Right, Samantha's in the booth to the left. Okay, this is a very interesting thing that there's a rumor on the internet that we had to reshoot this because he came in and takes a box of Lucky Charms and spits them out. And then we showed it. There it is, Lucky Clovers. This is the only thing we ever shot. This was always shot this way, but there's a rumor that somehow Kellogg or whoever does Lucky Charms saw him take a bite and spit it out and said, we don't like that. And we don't like the movie, so you have to reshoot it and put a different cereal. And at the end of the movie, when the kid says, fuck you, Lucky Charms, and gets him with a slingshot, that was my way of getting back at the cereal company. And none of that is true. We always had Lucky Clovers for copyright problems. And we always shot this. And this is the only thing we shot. And the Fuck You Lucky Charms at the end was written in a draft in 1988. My very first draft of this was actually written in 1988, and it's in there. I just checked. So that rumor I've dispelled now. I thought this was funny. Oh, there's also another. Here he is with the shoes. We had him make a Dagwood sandwich, which is a big, tall sandwich for younger people. And he poured motor oil on it and all kinds of mustard and nails and everything. And some of that was cut out. I had a lot more comedy that I think Trimark said, let's pull out a little bit of the comedy and keep it, you know, a little more horror. But in retrospect, I think we should have put that comedy back in. But hopefully, maybe someday a director's cut. And there's our set of colors, and this was all built in a soundstage. And... It'd be a pretty strange sight to come home to. Yes. Thrashed, but organized. I think something got in here. No shit, Sherlock. You better watch your mouth and go wash it out with soap right now, boy. Sure. Sure. Mark, what brought you to the leprechaun originally? Is that a meth you were always interested in? Well, you know what, and I guess it's too late to sue me, but the Lucky Charms commercials were always playing, and I said, you know, they've done trolls and... Goonies and gremlins and all this stuff or whatever, you know, Friday the 13th and all the holidays. Nobody did St. Paddy's Day and no one did a leprechaun. Mm-hmm. And I said, everybody knows about leprechauns from the television commercial. So I wrote this script and I said, this maybe will work. We'll release it on St. Paddy's Day and we'll have that holiday. Fill the gap. Of course, Trimark released it on January 8th. You know, but that's another story. Mm-hmm. Actually, I need to say this. When they did a retrospective of great horror movies at the Academy Awards about four years ago, five years ago, they put a clip of Leprechaun in. And we were in with the great Dracula and Frankenstein and Rosemary's Baby and all these movies, and there's a clip of Leprechaun that they actually put in for a retrospective horror movie. So I think I'm going to give credit to everybody who worked on the movie and the movie itself and that they actually used a clip on it. That was exciting. Yes, you remember that. Mm-hmm. I paid somebody off at the academy to get it in there, but I might as well be honest now. That's not true. Now, there's a sequence coming up with this bell that I never was happy with, and I'll explain it as it happens, but I think it's not here yet. Now me, give me a .357 Magnum, press it to the little green critter's temple, and bam! Brains and guts and oozing. See, if we had a drink, if we were having a drink, I think we'd be, you know, we'd have many more stories to tell. So this, you know, but... What's fun for me is when the prosthetics weren't in play... we would wander over to the set and watch other stuff going on. So it was fun to watch the film come together, and obviously them being on set when the prosthetics happened. Okay, this is the scene where the bell should keep ringing. Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. See? And they took the bell out at some point. To me, it's a mistake. When the camera pushed in, it should have ring, ring, ring, and he says, oh, it's coming from the kitchen. So these are the things that just drive you crazy, but, you know, overall, I guess it's only going to drive me crazy. We're, like, really scared. Stay here. I'm going to check it out. I'm chuckling because we really did have fun making this movie, and I, you know, just can't take it serious. And sometimes, you know, I got beat up a lot. when it first came out, because I think, you know, people were expecting, you know, went theatrical, and they're saying, well, this is just kind of a low-budget horror movie. But I think later on, people kind of get it. And I did hear that Ron Howard's daughter and her boyfriend, it was one of their favorite movies. They loved Leprechaun. Because I think in Warwick Davis's book, he says that they gave him, he asked Ron Howard if he should do Leprechaun 2, and he said, well, you know, my daughter and her boyfriend love Leprechaun, so go ahead and do it. That's great. Now this is, again, now that's a double, as you can see, probably. There's Warwick. We intercut between Warwick and a stunt double. But here, you know, how can you not take this serious when he's got a stethoscope? Boom. There you go. See, sound effects always work. I still get excited when nobody hits anybody, but you put the sound effect in and it works. Now this is interesting when Ozzy runs back. He falls, and I don't know, you were there, Gabe, but I don't know if you remember. That was an accident, but we kept it in. And I think it's going to come up when he runs back after he makes the phone call. That's right. It'll be coming up. Now, I, for some reason, thought this was when we cut to him right here. I love this. It's like from a war film. Yeah, the leprechauns attacking. Now, okay, now here is some interest. There's David Price in the back of the background on the left. Far left, yeah. And that's a PA walking by. Here's David coming up. And, boy, he looks younger, about 20 years younger. No, David still looks good.

There's David and I right by his chin. We're Wanted poster. That's me and David. That's when I had long hair and a mustache. I looked like Gallagher. There. Green blood, you notice. See that fall? That was actually a mistake, and he just kept going, and we shot it. Kept it in there, yeah. I said, let's keep that one in there. He falls earlier. It makes sense. He's established that as a character. Yes. That's right. I remember that bear trap was great because it was steel. The spring was taken out, but it could still do some damage, and that was put on Ken's leg. We put on a two-sided prosthetic, so whichever way we shot it, we knew it would look pretty mean. Yeah. And, um... Oh, she hates me for that line, too. It was very cold if you remember. This was getting towards October or November in Simi Valley and it was absolutely freezing and people had to jump in a van to warm up. I actually have some behind the scenes that my assistant shot in high eight because we didn't have behind the scenes video when we made this. of Tori and everybody in the van trying to warm up between takes. Yeah, I remember I had my hooded sweatshirt underneath my leather jacket, gloves. I think you're in one of the tapes, and I'm going to find that, and hopefully we can put it on those Blu-ray extras. That would be great. I think everyone, including us, tends to forget in Los Angeles it gets really cold at night. Yes, it can. Yes. One of these days, talking about the van, I remember we were shuttled from where we parked down to location, and while we were driving, we got the sad news that Klaus Kinski had died. It was during the making of this film. Oh, really? Yep. Wow. But what if that thing is still out there? No way. I shot it. I put six rounds into that thing. Now, I think there's a scene coming up where Tori... grabs a shotgun. She plays a girl, Beverly Hills, rich girl, never handled a gun or anything. And I remember we were doing a read-through at my house in Encino, and I actually had a shotgun, and it was empty, of course, and she practiced cocking the shotgun at my house because she wasn't really familiar with guns. And I think that's the scene coming up where she goes out to give Leprechaun his gold, and she... cocks the shotgun, and it was, I actually, I taught her how to do that. So I could say I taught Jennifer Aniston how to cock a shotgun, which is probably meaningless. Okay, we made it. It's the hood sequence? This is when he bites Ozzy's ear. Oh, his ear, right. Oh, no, this is right. The kid always has to shake the distributor cap. And of course, there's going to be a surprise when he opens the hood. There's those little mushrooms behind him.

There we go. There you can see the dental acrylic nails that were attached to the gloves. There's a scene here. That was a stunt double who broke his wrist hitting the windshield. I hate to think I'm a jinx, but I had two stunt people break their wrist. This movie and one in Rumpelstiltskin. But they're troopers and they heal and they go on. There we go. That's called a cigarette lighter. I don't think anybody nowadays knows what that is, a cigarette lighter in a car. So that's just to point out. Now there's no windshield in there, if you can notice. We had to take it out for all kinds of reasons, I guess. We were gonna roll the truck.

It started to get kind of interestingly wacky here. He builds a little machine. See, he liked driving his little toy cars. And we were really getting carried away putting them in this toy car, that toy car. Yeah, so they were road warrior. Exactly. And here we go. He's going to turn it right over. Now, and I remember that Cole McKay, we actually had the stunt people, two stunt people in the truck. And Cole McKay broke his nose. During that, right. There was a pull rig pulling that truck over, end over end. And he just kept working. He said, no, I don't need to go to the medical. I'm fine. Stunt guys, I love them. They're crazy. I like how playfully each time the leprechaun gets damaged, he kind of heals himself pretty quick. We had the burn on the nose, and it's a good miraculous trait to have. It helps with continuity. Yes, yes. Yes, it made it easier. And here's the famous chomping the hand off, which I remember you brought it to my office and actually showed me how it works. It was terrific. Boom, there it goes. Drops, and now it starts to crawl away, crawl up. How can anybody take this movie serious? We took the cast of Warwick's hand with the glove, made a negative space inside of it, and put in motors that allowed it to actually be self-contained. Here's Warwick holding it. The servos were put together by Dave Kinlan. And off set, I would move the remote control and get the fingers moving. I remember. I remember. Didn't we run out of batteries at one point? I'm not sure. I'm sure we were able to open up the gore in the wrist and swap out batteries. Yes. There's one thing I've never, ever understood, that I've never done a picture where police cars, where you always have them parked and the lights are running because you can't have the engines running because of sound, and we always lose batteries and batteries go dead. And I'm saying this has gone on in every picture I've worked on. Police cars always lose. The batteries run down. No one's thought of a solution. No one's thought of a solution. I'm going to do that. I'll be a multimillionaire. Not that I'm not a multimillionaire already for anybody out there. Oh, that guy in the black hat is Adam Taylor, who was a first AD. That's his little cameo, and he sadly passed away in an accident in 94. And he brought his... Two little kids to the set. He was married to Ann Lockhart, whose mother was June Lockhart, who was in Lost in Space. But I just want to give a shout out to Adam Taylor. Very, very sad note, but I think he deserves recognition. He was a great first AD, probably the best first AD I've ever had. Adam was great. It was really sad news when he passed away. Yes. You've got the back door, right? Right, and the basement windows are locked up tight. All right, now double check the windows in the kitchen.

There I go with the shoe reference again. You know, up to this point, all the characters Warwick had played were very lighthearted and they were always positive. I remember asking him what his decision-making process was when he accepted this. He said, I love the idea of playing a baddie. a villain is something every actor loves to get their chops into. Made a lot of sense. Yeah, yeah, I think I remember him really responding and thinking it would be fun. Certainly destroyed his willow image. But, no, Warwick, he was great and he had a lot of fun doing it and he loves his stuff. And he's, you know, he's a great actor, I'll tell you. You know, I've seen him in other stuff. He's amazing. I think that's why his career keeps going very strong. He takes the work seriously, and he really rises every character he plays way above. It's terrific. Yes, I totally agree. Tell me about the gold. Okay, in the water bucket, right? Right, just pull it up and there's a bag of gold. All right, here was the... You've got to work. This is... So something like a cut like that, Mark, where you guys did a whip? Did you actually film the dialogue there and decide in editorial to do a quick effect to get out? Or did you know you'd kind of condense it with a gag there? No, I think we just screwed up in the script and just did a whip to just say, okay, she's already told him. Right. We know what's going on. Let's keep it moving. There's the shotgun. There it is. That's what I taught her to do. She's a pro. Yes. Yeah, whenever you have problems in story or structure, just go to, like, a whip pan. That's something you learn. Here we go. This is the night. Actually, I have some behind-the-scenes video of this night where literally it was freezing. And Jennifer, after we cut, she'd wrap herself in a blanket. I mean, it was... was deadly cold and the van was running so it had the heater on so everyone could get in there and stay bundled up now here's i'm gonna blame myself for a stupid mistake i don't know why i i didn't make that well older and more decrepit and and i'm taking responsibility that should have been like um You mean more weathered? Weathered, yes. Older and weathered in this. Sometimes the heat of the battle. I probably noticed it and didn't want to say anything because then Trimark would find that reason to fire me. So I kept saying, everything's great. It would call up. How's it going? Terrific. I remember maybe this night when the day ended. Is that Here you can see the prosthetics are full aggro on Warwick. The lines are very defined, and even if he's relaxed, everything's aggressive on him. Yes, that's right. No, you designed it, and you guys were very instrumental in helping me get this vision on the screen, because obviously the picture's called Leprechaun, and without a great leprechaun, it wasn't gonna work. If you see the wind blowing his coat, that's real wind and you get the chill. See her hair? Tori's hair or Jennifer's hair was... It added to the chill. It was very scary. Is it dullish out there? Yes, it was. Yeah, it was getting crazy. With One Night After Shooting, I... used to have asthma as a kid and didn't have it since i was 15 or 16 and driving home there was also a lot of dust down there with the cold and i felt my lungs tightening up and i thought wow i'm actually having a hint of an asthma attack and it was 5 30 in the morning six the sun didn't come up and i went to my local john's which are vons now or whatever and went into the store and in a half panic went down an aisle and i was still covered in dirt wearing my leather jacket, boots, looked like a six-foot ogre, went over to the medicine area and ripped open a breather thing, and one in a million, the container had busted. So I threw it on the ground. grabbed another one, ripped it open, did the inhalation, and threw that down and finally got my bearings. And as I turned around, I saw these three young late-night workers staring at me, half-trembling, like, what is this guy doing? And just politely thanked them and walked out, and they were like, eh, not exactly sure what just happened with this dude. That's funny. They probably told that story and had no idea you'd just come from Leprechaun. Exactly. That's funny. Now this, I thought, was... kind of funny, where he skillets it off and says, we're cooking now, kids. We're cooking now, kids. I think it adds to the psychotic of him. He loves the suffering and pain. The weirder it gets, even at his expense, it's all fair game. Yes. Now this sequence is the sequence that I had storyboarded to prove to Trimark that I could direct this picture. They didn't want me to direct it. They loved the script, but they said, you know, You're a first-time director. Can you really do it? And, you know, they just didn't like working with first-time directors. And I had John Dorman, who's no longer with us, a great storyboard artist. He did this whole sequence in beautiful storyboard, including grabbing his crotch, and I brought it into Trimark, and they said, you know what, maybe he can direct this thing. So it was the cat and mouse aspect of that, the doors, door number one, two, that they responded to, they knew it would be tricky from directing it. That's smart. And it actually was very similar to the storyboards. Maybe they'll print it in this Blu-ray, because I have them still. Yeah, now here's where I guess we got the skateboard coming up, which a lot of times, you know, I will say, Trimark allowed me to do it, but they always looked at me kind of funny about, you know, it started to get almost where they were going, really, you're going to now have this kind of monster killer use a skateboard and come through a chimney? And it got funny, but... I guess the skateboard is coming up next. So they were confused about the horror and comedy? Yeah, they didn't quite get it, and I just felt, you know, this is okay. It's okay to do it, and I think people will get it. And I think they did. A lot thanks to Conan O'Brien, who happened to start his show, his late-night show, the same month that Leprechaun came out in 93. And he used to make fun of Leprechaun all the time. And he still does now and then. And he did great for the VHS sales. Just kept it in the public's eye. He really did. Really did. I think this is the skateboard sequence.

I think it's great how they're all getting ripped up and weathered down now. They're deep down the rabbit hole. Yes, I mean, here it comes. And notice this little carnival music playing. Let's see. Now, you can't replace that. It's great. Come on. But I think that's when the crew started to have fun, you know, that kind of stuff. They got it. I mean, I think the crew really, you know, they worked on a lot of low budget movies, a lot of horror movies, and this sort of was a hybrid. Yeah, very much so. It's a great word for it. And it's funny, even when the character is doing these slightly lighthearted things, I think it adds to the dementia of it. It's crazy. Yeah. Now there they think he's gone. This is my famous floorboard sequence coming that took a lot of time and trouble. And at one point they were going, let's not do it, it's too expensive. And I go, no, it's got to come up through the floor. And you'll see, I think, now. That was a nice move by Warwick there. I remember it was important to get him to that exit position. Yes. And I think I stole another thing. Not another, not that I've stolen everything, but I think I did the hand coming out of the phone and somebody said it was done. And what, Freddy Krueger or something? Yeah, I think innocently none of us knew that. I'll tell you the truth, I certainly didn't. And afterwards I said, oh boy, it's exactly that. Yeah, so I apologize. There you go. I figured if it works once, it can work twice. Sure, we're in such Yahoo land here. That was a little cable-controlled foam rubber hand that we exited out of the edge of frame, and we knew where the phone would cut off, and we were able to make it wiggle and reach for her. Mm-hmm. Stop him! He's got the last gold coin in his stomach! Ozzie, come on, you can't go out there! There's got to be another way! That thing is a leprechaun, and we've got to find a way to stop it. Oh, good old Jennifer. What a trooper. Do you stay in touch with Jennifer? She won't return my calls. I leave messages. I drive by her house. I text her. She just, you know, a lot of times there's some armed guards, and they will stop me and tell me not to do it anymore. But anyway. No, I mean, I bumped into her a couple of times, obviously. years after, and she's been sweet and wonderful and tried to get away from me as fast as she could. There you go. Now, this is the, we're at the running with the boots. This is great. Now, this is the scene that somebody, so I always say somebody at Trimark. That way, anybody who's interviewed can say it wasn't me. So I won't name names, but somebody didn't, you know, thought maybe this was... the boots and I think even at the script stage when I started to write this because as I said the first draft of my script that they bought that they started prepping was completely terrorizing and horrific and a monster coming out at you and that happened to be a leprechaun you know but this started to become the funny stuff we added and the cute stuff we added but they maybe thought this was too far and the only two things that I wanted to keep was the shoe scene here where he can't go after him because he's got to polish the shoes and the ending where the kid says fuck you lucky charms and i said those are going to be great scenes and of course they they didn't believe me and then when they were and people loved it then they all forgot that i insisted on doing it they all took credit it's great he can't even help himself he's got to do it and it's cool because you keep tapping back to the original mythology it keeps a gothic flavor to the film yes And this is where, I think, coming up, I guess, is where he chases after the car. I think he's going to crash through a fence and leave an outline like a Roadrunner cartoon. But that's where my cartoon reference is. And why would you ever find wallpaper like that in a house of that kind? But here it is. And I remember... Here it comes. Gonna smash through a fence and do the classic cartoon. There you go. Nice. We actually built that fence and did the whole thing. Remember Warwick had a lot of fun with that. He's so physical, he's amazing. You just throw anything at him and he goes for it. And off he goes. Now here is Now, that's not Jennifer. That's the stunt double. Got a little Dutch angle tip there. Yes, yes. They're L.A. gear, and I don't know why they don't send me some money. Now, that's David Trippett, who's one of the executives who I still am in contact with. That's his little cameo. I won't mention the fact that I think it was one of his memos to take out Fuck You, Lucky Charms, but he may have just been sending it. and it may have not been him. So don't get mad at me, David. This is some insert stuff that Trimark sort of thought we had to have in there, and, you know, directors are always like, well, some inserts work, and do we really need this? And, you know, I think her just running to the room might have worked, but, you know, they were putting up the money, and you have to listen to them. This is our... I remember this thing. This is our Dutch angle, and I was walking back, and there's a lot of outtakes or little scenes where I fell, and she started cracking up, and I was walking backwards, and I fell right in front of the camera. And we should do the outtakes. I have VHS of all the dailies with the outtakes. That's something that... That could be fun to add. Yeah, we should put that. We should put the outtakes in this Blu-ray version. Um... Oh, really? So it's the leprechaun, and then, of course, it's going to be just a mop and some brooms. The old maintenance closet. Oh, there you go. It's very, very cartoon. It's hard for you to shake that, huh? I think I used that exact scene in a Scooby-Doo I wrote one time. But I remember I did the Scoobies with Scrappy, which no one liked as much. I did the Scrappy-Doos.

I think it's interesting from looking at it as a lesson to take a cartoon sensibility that's so ingrained in you and put it on the big screen. It's a wonderful balance. It's hyper-reality. I was just going to say, who's in that is Michael Prescott, who was my producing partner, whose dad was Norm Prescott, who owned Filmation Studios. He did Archie's and Fat Albert and all that. But that's Michael. in that wig. Obviously this is Leprechaun. I remember those playful photos on the set of him wearing that. It was funny. Yes. This is like a very weird version of the Changeling where the wheelchair is chasing the people. Right, right. Now the funny thing was when she goes into the elevator, which is coming up, that whole scene of O'Grady dropping down in the elevator and Jennifer talking to him was shot completely in the barn over in Simi Valley and probably three weeks before the hospital scene. This is the hospital and that's in the barn. Actually had fake elevator doors and a production design built this. And here's the scene where he comes crashing in. Poor Shay, we had to hold him upside down. Yeah, he was a trooper because even with everyone trying to work quickly, it's never a fast thing when you're rolling film. We put various cuts and bruises on him and I remember we were playing with the direction of the blood, that which way would it have been. It was bleeding north to south, but then we're gonna hang him this way, so you could see the blood going in different directions, trying to think of that reality. Yes. Yeah, the famous, how do we kill the leprechaun? Now, this is something I wanna say. I came up with this whole mythology of the only way you can kill a leprechaun is with a four-leaf clover. And I thought that's great. It's like a wooden stake in a vampire. And when they did number two and three and four, they completely threw away that legend. And I'm saying we had a great invented legend. And why did you guys not follow it through? And to this day, I don't understand. Yeah, it's strange. Maybe you know. I don't. I think the laws seem to change as each leprechaun got put together. Now, this was... We actually did grow a clover patch. Yeah. And we shined a green light on it. Gee, I guess it's hard to tell. But this is... Actually, we have behind the scenes on this. This is a scene that we have on video, which may be in the Blu-ray. Actually, I think Jennifer sprained her ankle in this scene. Or this... somewhere in this scene and she couldn't run and I said something about we're going to use the stunt double and I don't, I'm trying to think, I think that's the stunt double because Jennifer had a sprain to her ankle. So that actually is the stunt double. I think her name is Denise Lynn Roberts and she's no longer with us. But she was terrific and she doubled her very well. Now here's my, they gave me a Chapman crane for like two days. So this I tried to use it as much as I could. Great job. Yes. Now there's a scene The reason the deputy is in the car is there was a whole scene after he killed the deputy by snapping his head where Leprechaun is driving and eating donuts in the car. And again, that was one of the scenes that they made me cut out. This Warwick's acting with one eye. He's got a patch over his eye to allow for the broken baton nub to be sticking out and here's Gross eyeball. I did the similar gag in Rumpelstiltskin, the picture I wrote and directed after this, where we had Rumpel take an eye out of somebody. Actually, it was Mark Holton. I used him as an old villager. I gave him a little cameo as fun. You pulled out his eye? Yes, we pulled out his eye. There you go. Boy, this brings back memories.

I think this is a creepy shot of the leprechaun laying down here. Something strange about it, their point of view. Right there. Yes, yes. I always liked it. Just the way the head was cocked and the eyes opened. Yeah. It's almost like he's crucified or something. Yes. And see, a little scope there. I mean, that was a big location that we were able to... It was fun that we would return to that location a lot. We could really set up camp there. Yes, and there you see the wind. It's freezing cold. Never mind. Yes, in California. This is when we shot movies in L.A. This is when we didn't leave L.A. We actually shot all the movies here. Let's see. This is him.

He's got his own plan going on here. Yes, there's a slingshot, which will come in later. Remember, at this point, we were all in... We stuck with the stage three prosthetics, knowing that everything is... The energy is all heightened and the attacks are all severe. So we weren't having to make a decision on which set of prosthetics. We knew it was the full aggro at this point. Right, and I seem to remember we somewhat shot in sequence. Yep. As much as we could. Mm-hmm. Uh... You know, usually for pictures, you don't get that opportunity, but it made it a little bit easier. Always seems easier in retrospect, but boy, we did have... We had some tough nights. I think Warwick got sick and wanted to continue on, and I think we... Yeah, there was one day he got a flu, a real severe flu, and luckily there was plenty to shoot without him. But I think that became, ever since then, every time a Leprechaun film was made, I was insured as well because they realized, wait a minute, if Gabe wasn't there, we'd be in the same situation with Warwick not there. So it was interesting. I got elevated to being bonded like the key talent. Wow. Mm-hmm. See, you were valuable. Me, most of my pictures, they never bond me anymore. They just figure, well, if Mark gets sick, that's great. We'll be on schedule. No, I've always been on schedule in my pictures and been bonded a number of times. A little self-deprecating. Let's see. I think all the camera moves here that Levy was putting in all through the film are terrific. It does keep the movement very fluid. Yeah, yeah, this is, I didn't carry a Steadicam. We handheld some stuff, but I had no Steadicam. We didn't have budget for that, so we used dollies a lot. And since I love Steadicams, if they're used correctly, they keep things moving, and they work very well. And... I love that line. That was later put in. How's your leg? Did you guys do that while dubbing? Yeah, I can't take credit for it. It wasn't in the script. There we go. Oh, we got a light flare back there. That's good. It's misdirection while he tackles him. This is great. The buckle is the weapon, slicing him to ribbons. We progressively added these strips of ripped skin to Mark's face. Now here's the famous line. It was written in the script. from day one from the very first draft and here it is and his mother was there and he was like eight years old and he had to say it in front of his mother and we got permission but uh... and that's the one where i have a memo that the trimark memo was take it out and i said no it's gonna work and oh it's it's one of the biggest punch lines out there and i do have the memo i might even take a picture of it because i know they'll say, no, he never did. But yeah, listen, the bottom line is they obviously had the power and they did let me keep it in. And here's Warwick going through the disintegration prosthetic makeup effects. There's the puppet stage. Yes. And the special effects for its day were good. But remember, this was 91, 92, and they didn't have the great CGI that we do now. Right. The optical effects were doing what they could. But they were very, very good for its day. There was originally in the script, even up to the shooting script, where Ozzy had a frog. And Ozzy was going to die at the end, and he always carried a frog in his pocket, and the frog was going to be dead. And he was going to bring it out. And then I said, no, we can't kill animals. And then production started, and everybody said it's going to be too difficult to carry a frog around, and so we got rid of it. This I was excited about early on. We knew we would do this final stage where he's so disintegrated, we would make a puppet. And the fact that he would say that big line again was cool and it was nicely cut in there. All those stages blend together well. Oh, this leads up to the big explosion. Yes. Again, that's water. It wasn't gasoline. I don't want anybody to be scared. Yeah, see the pail should have been older and... junked up and everything. But anyway, here's our great explosion. Boom. We had about three cameras. Look at that mushroom. Again, I'm excited because you have to remember, this is very small budget. And remember, the sun was coming up at that point. Yes. And we were careful not to shoot off the side of the building. Yes. And actually, when we cut, well, that was flame that we added. Now, here was actually sunrise. It was a great shot. with the crane. The timing was with the cars come in and they gave me three police cars and I was so excited I got three. And here we go and that's kind of a nice shot. It's a great shot. And then we go back. That was our line producer, Jeff Malian, who's standing there. And me cold. So he's going to be back. And there it is. There's Dave Trippett. That was a lot of fun to revisit that. Everybody's dying on this thing. Jim Begg is no longer with us. We must have had really old people with us at some point. There you go. Well, 20 years is a significant amount. Russ Markowitz. Yeah, I liked Russ. Russ was great. Let's see. There's Holly Davis. By the way, Holly Davis was a great costume designer. She's living with David O. Russell, the American Hustle director. I believe she met him working on one of his pictures, which, you see, she went from leprechaun to Academy Award-nominated director. And there goes Karen Ogle, set photographer, one of the best. And John Dorman was a storyboard artist who I paid $2,500 to out of my own money, and Trimark never reimbursed me, so they owe me the money, unless this gets deleted. Ah, there's... Gabe Bartolis is credit again. There's our effects team. Had a bunch of great guys supporting me. Made it a lot of fun. Let's see. Yeah, these are, all films are just amazing time capsules. Yes, I'm remembering their stunt coordinator, Cole McKay, and there's our stunt performers. Tony Cox. Right, I remember Tony was in there. Yeah, Mary Bannon was the waitress. She was my assistant. Liz Kiefer actually became a big actress, or big soap actress, I should say. And we had a bug wrangler. And Lexi was first aid with one name. She was very sweet. And there's the second unit crews, which most of them were on the first unit. Let's see. So how much time from the wrap of this to when it got released? Do you remember the time between? It was over a year because they tested it and then they wanted to go out at the right time. So it was about a year. So we're thanking all these people, and I didn't get any wardrobe from any of the lead genes or anything. George Lucas actually... We thanked him because he allowed Warwick, it was under a contract, and he allowed him to do it. And Vice President Dan Quayle, actually, his office got us a permit to get Warwick into the country quicker because he needed a work permit. That was great, Mark. So much fun revisiting it. It's amazing how potent this film is and how your shadow stretches over the entire series. It's wonderful. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. But, you know, you got the credit, too, for, you know, designing and making leprechaun work. So, anyway, I think they've probably shut off the machine by now. Excellent. Okay.