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Conversation with Stu Charno

sm_stu2“The Future is Coming”: A Conversation with Friday Part Two’s Stu Charno by Brian Kirst

“The Present just left.
The Future never gets here.
This must be the Past.” –
Stu Charno

Stu Charno has seemingly lived the glided artistic lifestyle and it has only just begun. Perhaps best known to horror fiends as Ted in Friday the 13th Part Two (just re-released on DVD with extended special features), Charno also has appeared in a variety of other fan boy favorites (The X Files, Christine, Once Bitten) and is currently expressing himself through his original jazz music, his haiku poetry collection and the occasional acting gig. (He is featured as an interview subject in the expansive His Name was Jason and is attached to the upcoming Horrorween, as well.)

www.stucharno.com

“Steve Minor gave me surprising freedom,’ he recalls of his penultimate horror film. “You got any more jokes, Stu? Steve Minor would say, Stu tell another joke.” And when it comes to that film’s final girl – “Amy Steele was just an angel. I got to see her and her daughter recently. Her daughter looks just like her when she was younger.”

As for Don Vandenberg in Christine – perhaps his next most beloved role – Charno recalls that “John Carpenter was an oasis of peace on the set. There was this whirlwind all around him and JC was just calm.”

As for the infamous smashing of ‘the car Keith Gordon loved’, Carpenter told the participants including Charno, to “do it like you’re having the time of your life!” Of course, everything ended with Vandenberg’s death scene in the ‘fireball as a gas station’ sequence, of which Charno recalls being moved across the street and being able to watch as his character’s world fierily exploded.

In an interesting tidbit, his other Stephen King associated project Sleepwalkers, in which he played a police photographer in a scene with Clive Barker (“It was cool watching him pretend to act”) came about because that film’s lead, Alice Krige was a beloved yoga student of Charno’s.

Charno also has true affection for his lauded appearance on X-Files with Peter Boyle. “It was written by Darren Morgan and won two Emmys. Director David Nutter would stop in the middle of what he was doing, close his eyes tight and then make a decision. He was a great director.”

Filmed out of the country on the cheap, Charno found the conditions on his last film Alien Hunter (with James Spader) “Bleak – the people were living in such poverty. But we held each other up,” he says of his fellow cast members.

Now, Charno, who studied for years with legendary jazz musicians and never intended to be an actor, finds himself concentrating on his writing, music and one man show.

“Beavers make dams.
Spiders make webs.
Humans – make songs.”
Stu Charno

Indeed, Charno, who finds his music training invaluable as an actor (“It gave me a sense of timing and for interacting with people – playing along – The battle cry is YES as opposed to No, no, no!”) is fascinated with the profundities of language – “Language is invisible. It’s operating, but can’t see itself operating.”

“The future is coming,” he also states and indeed there seems to be many more artistic worlds for the beguiling, talented Charno to capture before it does.

(Be sure to visit www.stucharno.com to catch up on the latest with Stu and to purchase photos, CD’s and books. After all there are three Friday the 13th’s this year and there in no better way than to celebrate than with some stuff o’ Stu!)

All words (poems/lyrics) copyright Stu Charno.

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