[Interview] Dick Warlock Talks Career Highlights from ‘Halloween II’ to ‘Spider-Man’ (Part 2)

Continuing our new series of video interviews, Halloween Daily News recently talked to legendary stuntman and actor Dick Warlock about this year’s 40th anniversary of the 1981 sequel Halloween II, the legacy of Michael Myers, the most dangerous stunts he ever performed, his memories with Walt Disney, John Wayne, Elvis Presley, and much more in an epic, career-spanning conversation.

In Part 1, Warlock discussed getting his start as a stunt performer at the Corriganville Movie Ranch in California, later working with Disney for 10 years, where he met Kurt Russell, for whom he would to go to serve as stunt double for 25 years, and some of the challenges of working as both stunt coordinator and Michael Myers actor in Halloween II.

In Part 2, Warlock reveals his personal favorite Michael Myers performance among the 11 films released (so far) in the franchise. “I thought the best, for my money, was Brad Loree (from Halloween: Resurrection), he said. “I thought he was the best Myers, and that includes Nick (Castle).”

Critiquing his own performance as Myers in Halloween II, Warlock said he hates Michael’s blind slashing in the air as he’s bleeding out the mask eyeholes in the climax. “And some of the walks,” he said, “I thought why didn’t somebody say, ‘Can you kind of speed it up a little bit?’ I mean, yeah I like the idea of him being more robotic, because when Nick got up off the floor (in Halloween 1978), it was mechanical, and that’s why I did it the way I did it. I tried to follow some lead from the guy who did it before me.”

On the performance of the most recent man behind the mask, James Jude Courtney in Halloween 2018, Warlock declares, “He did a good job. Not that the other guys did a bad job, but they’re a little bit different… Courtney did a good job, and he’s a nice guy. All of them are nice guys, every one of them.” 

Of the many Easter egg references to the various franchise sequels embedded throughout the 2018 film, including a nod to “Boombox Boy” played by Dick’s son Lance Warlock in Halloween II, he told us, “Yeah, I saw a lot of tributes. I thought that was kind of cool.”

He also reminisces about fun on the set of Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, for which Warlock served as stunt coordinator, including when he mooned Tom Morga, who was playing Jason Voorhees (and would later play Michael Myers in parts of Halloween 4), from just off camera

Dick also recalls fond memories with makeup effects icon Stan Winston, revealing that he and his former wife actually helped hand-sculpt the baby gargoyles seen in the 1972 TV film Gargoyles, for which Winston won an Emmy award for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup. Warlock later helped Winston work on the Xenomorphs for Aliens, through which he met James Cameron, which would later lead to Dick working on The Abyss.

We talked about much more, including tales of teaching Adrienne Barbeau how use a gun for Escape from New York, flying a helicopter while filming The Thing, acting with Robert De Niro in Casino, appearing in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, a near-death experience while doubling Richard Dreyfuss in the cage on Jaws, and many other highlights from an incredible career. We also got his thoughts on Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, in which Brad Pitt plays a stuntman character who is not unlike Warlock himself.

You can watch Part 1 here, and then watch Part 2 of our exclusive new interview with Dick Warlock below.

[Read our original 2015 interview with Dick Warlock here!]

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