Brad Dourif

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors

  1. John Savage, Heaven’s Gate, 1977.   He was Michael Cimino’s first choice for Steven… the first of two succesive “hot” roles that Dourif lost to Savage. His ominous tones later became the voice of Chucky, the killer doll, in the creepy Child’s Playfilms. All seven of them. ”Of course, I’d like to play the guy next door, but nobody’s going to hire me for that.”  Dourif was In two of thee almightiest flops…He agreed that one, Dune, became  science fiction’s answer to the other, Heaven’s Gate. This was  thefirst of two succesive “hot” roles that Dourif lost to Savage.  (And a third one in 1978) 
  2. John Savage, Hair, 1978.   The second time was when Milos Forman – who directed him as Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1974 – selected him for Claude Hooper Bukowski. And again Savaga won the gig.   Forman made it up to him with a role in Ragtime, 1981
  3. Peter Firth, When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? 1978.   Refused to reprise his stage role of Stephen Ryder as he had no wish to work with thje star and producer Marjoe Gortner – an evangerlist and miracle worker, even marrying fiolk, since he was four! He starred in a documebtary about himself. But he was a self-admitted fake . “Hundreds of people were healed at my crusades, but I know damn well it was nothing I was doing.”So despiite Dourif’s fussy feelings, Gortner was obviously a born actor.  Paradoxically, Dourif next played a preacher in…
  4. Dan Shor, Wise Blood, 1978.   John Huston sent him a script of the first Flannery O’Connor novel with a request to adiuition for Enoch Emery. Brad, however, was far more smitten with the leading character, Hazel Motes.  Problem was that Huston had already chosen Tommy Lee Jones for the preacher-man.  Fortunately for Dourif, TLJ  had to leave the production and, after a test, Brad was Motes – creatiing his own “church of Christ Without Christ. Where the blind can’t see, the lame don’t walk, and the dead stay that way.”
  5. John Savage, The Deer Hunter, 1978.    And Savage wins again…  Director Michael Cimino didn’t get all  his own way.  He had wanted Dourif for Steven and Jeff Bridges as Nick – in the Oscar-winning film about rather more than just Vietnam. Bridges and Dourif starred in in Cimino’s next film, Heaven’s Gate– when  he did get all his own way – resulting in an  almighty 1980 flop. 
  6. Peter Firth, When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder, 1979.   Never, replied Dourif.
  7.  Jack Nichoson, Batman, 1988.
  8. Robert De Niro, Cape Fear, 1990.  Martin Scorsese thought about him as the scumbag Max Cady in the remake of Robert Mitchum’s 1961 chiller. . But then Marty’s main man, De Niro, proved available after all.  
  9.  Cilian Murphy, Batman Forever, 1994.
  10. Michael Massee, Rizzoli & Isles, TV, 2010-2013.     Main villain of this latest take on Cagney & Lacey was jailed serial killer, Charles Hoyt, planning  to kill his nemesis, Boston PD  Detective Jane  Rizzoli before he dies of cancer… Hoyt was aimed at the usual oddballs: Brad Dourif, Robert Englund (aka Freddie Krueger), Michael Ironside,  John Lithgow. Plus a few surprises like Mark Hamill (helluva  switch from Luke Skywalker!), old RoboCopper Peter Weller and, somewhat stupidly,  Paul Ruebens  – Pee-Wee Herman as a vengeful killer.  That would have his worst move since  going  to the XXX South Trail Cinema. In his Sarasota  home town inFlorida, on July 26, 1991.

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  9