Director Rob Zombie returns to the world he started with House of 1,000 Corpses tonight as 3 From Hell begins its limited three night run. A sequel to The Devil’s Rejects, the film picks up where that film very explosively ended and Coming Soon had the opportunity to speak with star Bill Moseley about the sequel and his return as Otis Driftwood. Read our full chat below!
Tickets for the September 16th/17th/18th nationwide release of 3 FROM HELL are available at FathomEvents.com/3FromHell
Potential spoiler warning for the opening of 3 From Hell below
ComingSoon.net: Given how definitive The Devil’s Rejects ending was and how long it has been since then, when did Rob first call you and say something like, “Hey, we’re thinking of going back?”
Bill Moseley: You know, that was about almost two years ago, and I was very happy to hear it. It’s funny because it did certainly seem pretty definitive at the end of Devil’s Rejects that we were basically going out in a blaze of glory. But where there’s a will there’s a way.
CS: What were his initial conversations with you about doing another one?
Moseley: Rob and Sherry invited Sid Haig and me to lunch, and we had a happy vegan lunch here in Los Angeles. And Rob said, “Are you guys down with doing another one?” And both of us were quite enthusiastic in the “Yes: department.
CS: There was no hesitation from any of the four of you about…. not to change the ending of “Rejects,” but I guess to put an asterisk on it, if anything?
Moseley: Yes, and also to kind of figure out, because over the years, it has been 14 years since. I think Rejects was 2005. And it’s been interesting to see there’s so much fan wishing of another one. And yet, they were trying to figure it out, and it’s been a real head scratcher for a lot of fans, trying to figure out how can there be a third one? And it’s been fun to listen to some of the theories and the story ideas. One of course is that one of us wakes up and it was all a dream. That really is like the worst of all possible story ideas because that is just like, come on, man. That’s like the cheapest trick in the book. And then, another one that I actually liked was that we died and went to hell and we were so bad that the devil rejected us, hence our moniker, “The Devil’s Rejects”. There were lots and lots of different theories. And I go to a lot of conventions, meet a lot of fans, and I’ve heard a lot of different ideas. And my response is, “Just wait until September 16th and all answers will be answered.”
CS: That’s kind of the beauty, right, is that it just starts? The movie just begins. There’s not a twist to how they’re back.
Moseley: You know, yeah, there’s a beginning, middle and an end. The nice thing about the movie, too, is that just like Devil’s Rejects was to House of 1,000 Corpses, 3 From Hell is absolutely a standalone movie, so you don’t really had to have done your homework. I know that the third of the three nights of this Fathom Events release of 3 From Hell puts it on the tail end of a double bill with Devil’s Rejects. So that’s going to be a nice opportunity for the fans to compare, but yeah, it was certainly a lot of fun to make it, and I’m really glad that after all this time it’s finally coming out.
CS: Now one of the things that I really liked about the new one is there’s a couple of scenes that to me felt really meta, where it was you and Baby were sitting in a hotel room and you’re asking each other, “Is it even worth it to keep doing this? Why are we still doing this?” And did that come from a real place for Rob or for you guys in the meta sense of, well, Why are we making another one? What’s the reason for being here?
Moseley: You know, in the moment, that was a very sensitive scene. It was very fun and it was a nice emotional break. But you know, that’s all Rob. So that probably is more of a Rob question. I was just so happy to be back with the gang, whatever the gang might be, however the configuration. So yeah, I was certainly not wistful.
CS: Building off of that, I was watching some older interviews with you when you were talking about the other movies and you had kind of talked about how you didn’t really get Otis until a couple of years after you’d actually shot “House” and you were sort of doing pickup shots for it. Was it like riding a bike, getting into them this time? Or did you have to like, find him again?
Moseley: You know, it was actually a couple of months, not a couple of years, when we did those pickup shots after House of 1,000 Corpses. But for Otis, this time, a lot of it is just growing that beard, so you want to talk about doing your homework, that was about 16 months of beard growth. And so, there was always kind of, Otis was coming in small obviously microscopic increments as my beard grew each day. So that was certainly part of it. What happened was, I remember on maybe that second day of work on this, I had kind of a mini monologue to deliver and I was tripping up on the lines the first couple of takes. And Rob was kind of like, “Dude.” And I said, “Give me a second here.” So I just sat down by myself and I heard this voice say, “Bill, get out of the way. I got this.” And it was basically, instead of the Hollywood actor trying to deliver the scene in some kind of Hollywood actor way, I was basically Otis saying, get out of the way with all your self consciousness and you’re tripping over lines and everything. Get out of here. Which side is my better side kind of considerations and just let me take over. And once we established that that was okay, yes, exactly, I got out of the way and Otis just had a great time.
CS: Now one of the things I love about Otis is he’s pretty theatrical. Any time he enters a room or is terrorizing a new person, he always has a new kind of performance he’s giving, not to mention he has his little taxidermy projects. Do you think he misses doing that sort of stuff? Because he doesn’t really get to indulge in that, both in the new movie and in the “Rejects” because he’s on the run.
Moseley: Yes, you know what? It’s funny because that really is more about the evolution of Rob as a writer, as a filmmaker, and also, Otis is his creation. And maybe that is more of a Rob question. To me, it was amazing, the transition from Otis in House of 1,000 Corpses” to Rejects just because they were really hugely different, they looked different. In Rejects, Otis is no longer an albino. And so, 3 from Hell Otis obviously has spent a long time in jail, which isn’t really that big a deal to me, to Otis, I should say. And getting back out on the road, that’s what we do. We like to avenge stuff. We like to do f***ed up sh*t. And that just seems to be the purpose of life. There doesn’t really seem to be any big plan or ambition. And I think that’s kind of the beauty of Otis but also the tragedy, is that there is not some day I’m going to be president and not some day I’m going to retire to a little bungalow in Florida. Otis just wants to keep killing and f***ing things up until I guess he finally does get shot and killed.
