While watching the Leprechaun movie marathon on SyFy yesterday, the third film stuck out as the best sequel to me. I decided to look up the film’s star, John Gatins, and chronicle him in this edition of Where Are They Now?. Born in April of 1968, John landed his first role as Russell in Witchboard 2 (1993), which was followed up by playing Young Casper in Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings (1993) and Scott McCoy in Leprechaun 3 (1995). While these films went straight-to-video, they cemented John as a well known horror actor by the age of 25. He also played a bit part in the Frankenstein creator biopic Gods and Monsters in 1998.
Unfortunately, landing this bit part would become the norm for Mr. Gatins. His further roles are made up of bit parts in genre entries like Imposter (2001), Real Steel (2011) and Fred 2: Night of the Living Fred (2011); as well as in out of genre entries including Varsity Blues (1999), Big Fat Liar (2002), Norbit (2007), Meet Dave (2008). During this time, however, John Gatins started working behind-the-scenes of major motion pictures and wrote dramas Coach Hardball (2001) and Coach Carter (2005).
So, where is John Gatins now?
While his last acting credit worth mentioning was a supporting role in comedy 7 Chinese Brothers, John has maintained a strong presence in big-time Hollywood. He continued to write screenplays with his 2012 script Flight being nominated for an Oscar in the Best Screenplay category. He wrote Need for Speed (2014), the recently released Kong: Skull Island and the upcoming sequel Real Steel 2. He also executively produced the Power Rangers reboot which will hit theaters next week.
