AREDILECTION FOR WEARING THE SKINNED FACES OF WOMEN, KNOWN Hooper and writer Kim Henkel loosely based the character on Ed Gein, one of
N 1974 DIRECTOR TOBE HOOPER TERRORIZED FILMGOERS WITH A NEW PBREED OF VILLAIN: THE DERANGED, CANNIBALISTIC ENIGMA WITH A
S LEATHERFACE.
the most infamous murderers in the annals of American crime. They chose to focus on the macabre aspects of Gein’s crimes, as borne out in the film’s set design; the furniture made from human parts, the skulls used as decoration and the masks Leatherface wears have basis in fact. (Interestingly, the cannibalism in their film is only implied, just as it was in the Gein case; Gein never admitted that he con- sumed human flesh, even though the heart of his last victim, Bernice Worden, was allegedly found in a pot on his stove.) Over the course of six sequels and remakes, the character has drifted from
a force of nature that was, as original Leatherface Gunnar Hansen once noted in an interview, “not discoverable by the audience,” to a perverse clown in Hooper’s direct sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), a trans- vestite in The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1994), and a horribly abused child in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006). Dan Yeager, the latest actor to don the dead skin mask, for Texas Chainsaw 3D (out January 4 from Lionsgate) is taking the char- acter back to his roots and may just be the best beast to pull Leatherface out of the creative doldrums. “In the early ’80s, they re-released the original movie. I’d heard of The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre but never seen it. My family and I were living in Las Vegas and me and the boys went to see it at the local drive-in,” recalls Yeager of his first encounter with the character. “It was just the greatest movie, I loved it. Shortly after that, when my parents got our first VCR, I bought two tapes: Eraserhead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I wore them out.”
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That early fascination with horror became his life’s pursuit. Yeager is a visual
artist who runs clothing company Bad Anger Designs. His work is inspired by everything dark, from Edgar Allan Poe to Nosferatu to serial killers. A natural ven- ture into film included acting classes – and a date with destiny. “I met producer Carl Mazzocone a couple of years ago. We were helping a mu-
tual friend shoot a pilot for a TV show he was pitching. We started hanging out to- gether because we like doing a lot of the same things. It was about a year later that another mutual friend, Jeff Celentano – I was taking Jeff’s acting class at the time – suggested to Carl over cigars that I’d be a good Leatherface. I don’t think it was until I met the director at Carl’s Christmas party that they were convinced. Actually, it may have been a few weeks later, when they came to see me as ’Erbert the ’Orrible Ogre in the British pantomime Puss In Boots at The Mayflower Club in North Hollywood. I scared the hell out of people, despite it being a farcical com- edy.” Making the leap to Leatherface was something Yeager calls “surreal and ab- solutely bizarre.” First, he met with artist Aaron Sims, who designed the fleshy headgear for the new film, so they could make a cast of his head to sculpt the masks on. But the full import of being Leatherface didn’t strike the actor until his first day of shooting. “I still remember when they suited me up,” says Yeager. “It was for
the scene you see in the trailer with Alexandra [Daddario] tumbling down the steps and I’m right behind her. I still remember standing in that house and when they said, ‘Alright, man, start the chainsaw.’ It was just the most awesome feeling you could ever have. There were some opportunities to bring something to the character as an actor, but
a lot of it is automatic. You pick up a chainsaw, you put on that mask, and people are automatically afraid of you. Everybody tried to be cool, but I could scare anybody on that set. It’s an interesting dynamic. There’s something about Leatherface.” His goal was to make the audience believe that what they were seeing,