Deputy Evan Olsen did not sign up for this. In Willy's Wonderland, actor David Sheftell plays an earnest -- if naive -- local cop who finds himself pulled into a night of terror. After he's called in to back up Sheriff Lund, he discovers the dark secret behind a local entertainment center called Willy's Wonderland, as well as the animatronic terror that lurks inside. But when push comes to shove, will he do the right thing -- and survive long enough to see the sunrise?
Speaking to CBR, Sheftell broke down his role in the film, from his audition all the way up to its grisly end. He recalled "nerding out" over Godzilla and Superman with star Nicolas Cage, as well as the "amazing" time he had working opposite Child's Play 2 alum Beth Grant. He also addressed the comparisons between the film and Five Nights at Freddy's, explained why he wants to play Booster Gold in the Arrowverse, shared the unique way he got cast as a voice actor in Family Guy and more.
CBR: How did you get involved with Willy's Wonderland?
David Sheftell: So I had to audition for it and I self-taped for it. So I got my scenes as my character, Deputy Evan Olsen, and I auditioned. I put myself on tape. Then Grant Cramer, who's one of the producers, he really championed me for the role and he took my tape to the director, Kevin Lewis, and they both said, "Yep, I think this is the guy!" Did a couple more rounds and some tests and that's how I got involved. So it was a thrill to be a part of it, though.
What is one thing you think viewers should know before watching the film?
One thing I would like viewers to know, I think, is that if you love Nicolas Cage, you're gonna love this film. If you grew up ever being afraid of the animatronics at, say, a Chucky Cheese, then this is the movie for you.
Of course, the premise inevitably begs comparison to Five Nights at Freddy's. In your opinion, what separates the film from the popular video game?
It's funny, because I didn't know anything about Five Nights at Freddie's until well after we finished wrapping and people were like, "Oh, it's kind of like this, kind of like that." The thing that I've heard that the biggest difference is, is imagine you're in that but somebody knows exactly how to handle themselves in that situation.
Speaking of which, what was it like to work with Nic Cage?
Well, you're intimidated at first, because, like you said, you grow up watching him: Face/Off, Con Air, The Rock. I remember going to the movie theater with my friends to see The Rock and being like, "Oh my gosh, this is crazy!" I do love National Treasure, just like everybody else.
He couldn't have been cooler and he couldn't have been nicer. He's super collaborative. He's doing some amazing work in this movie. He really doesn't -- I don't want to spoil anything, but he doesn't say a lot in the film, so everything he's doing is with the eyes. There's a part where I do have to tie him up with a pair of zip ties, and there is a part where you go like, "Okay, it's Castor Troy. He could beat me up."
But no, he's super, super cool and he's just fun on set. He nerded out -- we nerded out about certain things. As you can see, I'm a big Superman fan, and for someone who was almost Superman and was Superman in Teen Titans Go to the Movies... we chatted about a bunch of comic book and nerdy stuff, which was cool.
Did he tell you anything about that lost Superman movie he was almost in?
He didn't go into that, but what I didn't know is he's a huge Godzilla fan. So we talked a lot about Godzilla, and one of our crew members, he had sleeves of tattoos and a bunch of Godzilla tattoos. So we were talking about the old Toho films; we were talking about the new Monsterverse. We're both looking forward to Godzilla vs. King Kong. I think we'd both like to be in one of those kinds of movies.
If you could play any superhero, who would it be and why?
Well, yes, so Superman, he's my number one, but obviously Henry Cavill is our movie Superman, and I'm very happy about that. He's doing a great job. Then we also have a new TV Superman coming up, which I think Tyler Hoechlin, he's great on Supergirl and I'm looking forward to Superman and Lois. So if I could, I would love to do maybe a voice over for one of the DC animated films as Superman. I think that's where I could fit in at this point, while the other two gentlemen are doing their thing.
But if I had to be a superhero on film, I'm gonna go kind of obscure: Booster Gold. I think he would be so fun to play. Here's a guy from the future who doesn't have superpowers, except what he's bought in technology. I just think it would be great and maybe see him with a Blue Beetle or something like that. I think that'd be a lot of fun.
Did you watch Smallville? What did you think of that version of Booster?
I did watch Smallville! He was good, obviously, but I definitely want to see that big screen movie version of him. I think he would also fit, if you were to fit him into the Arrowverse, like he was a guest guy on The Flash. I think he would work perfectly, especially since they play with time so much on The Flash.
Who's your Blue Beetle? That's the other question.
The one I'm most familiar with is Jaime Reyes.
I'm most familiar with Jaime as well. So I think Jaime Reyes would be an awesome Blue Beetle to pair up with Booster.
Back to Willy's Wonderland! I want to hear a little about your other costars: the animatronics. I need to know what that experience was like and how it looked on your end.
So when you're looking at the animatronics, they were there. I think there might be 98% everything is real, and maybe there's 2% CGI. So there's not a ton of CGI in this film at all, but you had people in the costumes, you had puppetry going on. It was really old school cult classic horror filmmaking that we all just really got Jonesed about. We were sort of like, "This is awesome! This is so cool!" When they're grabbing you, when you're looking at them when they do the slow turn because you don't think they're alive, but they are? Yeah, it's really happening. So it's great to play off of as an actor.
Introduce me to Evan.
Evan is a super nice, down-to-earth regular guy who just happens to be a deputy sheriff. Then he works with, for the evening, gets brought in for one evening as backup with the sheriff, who's played amazingly by Beth Grant, who was in No Country for Old Men. She was in Child's Play 2. She is an absolute pleasure to work with, couldn't have been nicer. We became really, really friendly on- and off-set. I've hung out at her house. I've had a meal with her. We've done play readings over Zoom.
Anyway, she's amazing. So she's the hard, tough Sheriff and I'm the happy-go-lucky guy. She may know a little more about what's going on in town. I have no idea until I'm brought into it when we get a phone call and all hell breaks loose. I have to navigate what is going on in Willie's Wonderland and in the town of Haysville.
What is one aspect of Evan's character you relate to and why?
I like to think I'm earnest. So he's pretty earnest, and he sort of takes people at face value and trusts everybody until there's something that's not to be trusted, I guess. So I think that's what I share with Evan.
It looks like there was some prosthetics work for your role. What was that process like for you?
So that was my first time really working with prosthetics and it was pretty awesome. So it was probably an hour or two at the end of -- we had already shot a couple of scenes and then we had to do the end of that scene. So my whole neck was was covered in prosthetics.
It is a horror movie but I don't want to spoil anything, but there is some blood; there is some gore. I may post it at some point but I did one of those -- the fast version of the video of the makeup artist who did all of the amazing, amazing makeup and gore and stuff on me. So it was pretty, pretty cool. But you are sitting around in the cold waiting to go on and they're like, "Oh! It's drying! More blood, more blood."
How long did that take?
I think we got it down to like two hours. So it wasn't The Nutty Professor. I wasn't sitting at 4 am putting on tons and tons of prosthetics, but it was definitely really, really cool.
Can you tease your favorite moment or scene from the film?
Well, I'd say probably my favorite scene is right when things start to get going with Nic Cage's character, the Janitor, inside Willy's Wonderland and you see that maybe he's a little more skilled than the animatronics thought he was.
But my personal favorite of my own is my ending scene at the end of the movie. So I kind of have a nice little hero speech, and then we meet some animatronics ourselves. So we'll see. I don't want to spoil it, but we'll see how it goes.
What's next for you?
The cool thing I'm working on right now is it's a Facebook Watch -- it's part game, part show. It's with Wil Wheaton, our friend Wil Wheaton, and it's called Rival Peak. Basically, it's like you can play a Sim style game of our characters that we portray. You play that all week long, and then it's kind of like a show if Lost met Survivor and we're all competing for $10 million. Then every Wednesday, Wil Wheaton hosts the after show called Rival Speak, and he interacts with our characters, and we get voted off based on how much people play our characters.
So we're about nine or 10 weeks into our 12-week run. My character, he's an Australian larrikin named Saabun. His real name's Christopher, but his spiritual name is Saabun, which means soap, which he didn't know until he got his spiritual name. He's one of the final three. So hopefully, people will go play the game and my character will win his $10 million while weird, crazy things happen on Rival Peak, like getting possessed or animals talking or all kinds of crazy weird stuff.
I see you've also done some voice work for Family Guy and The Cleveland Show. Tell me a little more about what that's been like for you.
It's amazing. So I've always been a fan of animation and Family Guy and American Dad and The Cleveland Show were some of my favorite shows. Basically, in high school and in college, I would leave outgoing voicemails for people as the characters and do stuff like that.
After I graduated from college, I was lucky enough to get in to see a table read, just as a fan. You got to see Seth MacFarlane and all the other actors do the table read and they would switch between characters and it was unbelievable. While I was there, they were showing us around and they introduced us to Linda Lamontagne, who is the casting director for those three shows, among a million other shows. My dad has been one of my greatest champions ever and he sort of pushed me in front of her and said, "My son can do all the voices." And she goes, "Oh, really? Do them."
So I did them, and she goes, "Those are pretty good! Here: I need somebody next week to do some background voices for us and fill in some stuff. Can you be here at 9 am?" and I think I was there at 7 am, just so excited to be there. She really looked out for me and helped me get into the voice over business, helped me get my first agent. She was very integral and I owe her a lot, a lot for that. So yeah, I still pinch myself every time I get to go in because it's so much fun.
Oh my gosh, I would have been mortified if my dad did that!
I was mortified, but it got me the job, so I can't thank him enough. I'm sure if my mom had been there, she would have pushed me too. She goes, "He's right. Go!"
Do you find it challenging to switch between those voice over roles and live-action?
I mean, I do love it all. So I studied theater in college. I've done a lot of theater. So you sort of learn to be adaptable when you're doing theater. You kind of learn all of it, doing the voice over stuff, doing the on-camera stuff.
So on-camera is my love, and that's what I would love to do, but the amazing thing about voice over is, yeah, you can be anyone. You don't have to look like I do to be the part. So if it's an old man or an animal or an alien or something like that, you can adapt the voice to it.
But it's funny -- sometimes, being on-camera, it's very subtle, what you're doing. You're speaking very quietly because the microphone's right there. Same with the microphone in animation. You have to know your relationship to it. But to express what this character is going through in the animation, sometimes you're waving your arms about, you're jumping up and down. Sometimes, you're more out of breath doing the animation work than you are the on-camera work.
Last one: if you could have any superpower, what would it be any why?
You know, I get asked this a lot. I mean, if I could just have all of Superman's traits, that's one, but I think teleportation is the biggest one. I hear that's the most common, is people just want to teleport wherever they want to. [laughs]
Directed by Kevin Lewis from a screenplay by G.O. Parsons, Willy's Wonderland stars Nicolas Cage, Emily Tosta, Beth Grant, Caylee Cowan and Ric Reitz. The film is slated for release in 2021.
0 Comments