| Velkan Valerious *** The Wolf Man Will Kemp |
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| From the very beginning, the filmmakers wanted their Wolf Man to be completely different from anything anyone had seen before. "I watched the original, Universal Wolf Man and I realized that this guy was really a tormented soul," says Stephen Sommers. "He wanted to be good but he just couldn't help himself. I felt a lot of sympathy and empathy for the character." The actor Will Kemp auditioned for the part in London and was one of the first actors that the filmmakers interviewed. "Even though he hadn't done anything before, his audition was spectacular," says Sommers. "There was real power to his performance." Kemp is a dancer, and he was able to use his body for transformation into the Wolf Man that was nothing short of spectacular. "We wanted him right away but because we had not yet cast the leading lady, who was his sister, we couldn't hire him yet. We had to hire the leading lady before we hired her brother," explains Sommers. "So we kept Will on the hook for months while we searched for our leading lady. Eventually it all worked out. The funny thing was nobody knew who he was until I mentioned that he was that guy in the Gap commercial. Then people, especially the women, would say, 'Oh, that guy!?" |