Known best for his iconic role as Otis Driftwood in Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects and his breakout role in 1986’s horror parody The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Bill Moseley is never one to shy away from villainous roles in eclectic films. It should come as no surprise, then, that his next antagonist finds him starring opposite Nic Cage in Sion Sono’s Prisoners of the Ghostland. Moseley plays the Governor of Samurai Town in an apocalyptic and neo-Western-inspired world, where Hero (Nic Cage), a bank robber, is sprung from prison and tasked with saving his granddaughter, Bernice (Sofia Boutella). However, if Hero fails to retrieve her in five days, the bombs strapped to him and his testicles will detonate.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Moseley shared what it was like creating the twangy voice of the Governor and working alongside both Sono and Nic Cage on location in Japan.
CBR: In Sion Sono’s Prisoners of the Ghostland, you portray the Governor of Samurai Town and you have this wonderful Texan-like accent. What was it like developing that twang for the role?
Bill Moseley: Thank you for asking! I’m really proud of it, actually.
What went into it was first and foremost, the white suit. As I put on that white suit and put on those blood red gloves — which was really the cherry on the top of the sundae, so to speak — that’s when our director, Sion Sono, looked at me and went, “Gov’na.” I was like, “I get you now. Okay, so I am like, somewhere between Colonel Sanders — and what I like to do is sometimes base characters on other characters that I know have affected me — and the character that I really based the accent on was Foghorn Leghorn, a cartoon rooster in the old Looney Tunes.
Leghorn was full of a big old blustery rooster ego, and go, “I told you, boy!” He took a little chickenhawk under his wing and always giving bad advice. So a big, big blustery, blowhard. I was also seeing a lot of Colonel Sanders, who’s very big in Japan — especially in Tokyo, and in Kyoto. That all got baked in there.
I read in prior interviews that Sono was interested in you starring in his film because of your work in Rob Zombie films and was curious if he ever mentioned what particularly he liked about that style and your take on those characters? I could totally see him as a Rob Zome fan. That makes a lot of sense.
Yes, I was very happy to hear that. Sometimes I forget that movies can travel globally. When I heard that at first, I was surprised as well as happy. Then, of course, I thought about it and that made sense.
I’m a big fan of extreme Asian cinema… I became a big fan of Sono’s when I first saw his movie Tag. That was the first movie of his that I saw. The first 10 minutes of Tag is really a mind-blower. And so I got more and more excited about him and saw more and more of his movies.
When you find a new director who has made maybe one or two movies you love, of course, you then get an insatiable appetite to watch all of their stuff. I guess that’s called binge-watching? I ended up watching certainly Tokyo Tribe, which was amazing, Suicide Club, Hair Extensions… And then my favorite, Cold Fish. So that was very cool that he liked my work in Rob Zombie’s movies.
I think the one thing that is that the Governor and Otis have in common, aside from their kind of primacy, and there is their joy about what they’re doing. Otis loves creating mayhem and drowning people in gasoline and killing people left and right. The Governor also just really enjoys being the Governor. I love to play characters that are happy in their work. The Governor is certainly another iteration of that.
Prisoners of the Ghostland has been getting a lot of buzz over being Nic Cage’s “wildest” performance yet, but it feels important to note that the film is also about Japan’s complicated and tragic history with nuclear disasters. Since you were also shooting in Japan, I was curious how that knowledge informed your performance? Especially since it’s very clear that you’re not the “good guy” in this situation.
Well, that I knew when I pulled on those red gloves. I realized that the white suit was really a caricature. When I pulled on the red gloves, to me that was what represented the guilt — the blood on their hands.
Frankly, I didn’t really have a lot of time to go down the road exploring nuclear guilt and nuclear disasters. I was walking through the rice fields of central Japan, just pounding those lines, because I found that my job was really to explain and set up the whole story. Especially with the [bomb] suit, there were so many technical aspects to it that I really wanted to make sure that I got everything right.
When it comes down to explaining technical details, there really is no wiggle room for improv. You can’t laugh your way through it. That’s the one thing that’s a big difference between, let’s say, the Governor and Otis or Chop-Top for that matter — you’ve got some wiggle room. You can throw out a couple of expletives and makeup something and sometimes that’ll fill it in for you when you forgot the line. With the Governor, there wasn’t any wiggle room.
I spent most of my time literally walking around pounding lines day and night. I was so relieved when we actually shot those scenes. On the day that we were able to do them, we did them in one or two takes. When you’re doing technical stuff, first of all, you’ve got to know exactly what you’re saying. Second of all, you have to deliver them as the character so they have to come trippingly off the tongue, and that’s the hard part. So I was very happy to have done that.
I, and most of my scenes, of course, were in Samurai town. The first time I actually saw any of the sets was going out to the Ghostland and seeing that seeing the amazing work that they had done with what was, I think, an abandoned cement factory — where the giant clock was and where all of the Ghostland scenes were shot. That was pretty amazing.
I don’t think it was a destroyed cement factory, so I don’t think it was because of the ravages of war. But I certainly felt it. Just before I even showed up — in terms of the nuclear history of Japan. I thought it was really, really cool that that was also another one of the plot twists and ingredients [for Prisoners of Ghostland].
Yeah, the Governor’s role is so much about setting up the stakes of the film, and because of that, it has to be fairly a straight-man role. What was it like keeping that demeanor up alongside Nic Cage’s Hero and developing your character’s dynamic with him?
To be honest, at first, I was a little nervous. I had met him twice briefly before — once at Rob Zombie’s wedding many years ago and then once on a set for Rob Zombie. Rob did a fake trailer for Grindhouse called “Werewolf Women of the S.S.” I played a German scientist [puts on German accent], Dr. Heinrich Von Strasser! So I was that and in the end, Nic played Fu Manchu. At the very end of the trailer, there’s a reveal of him laughing maniacally.
So I met him, but I hadn’t really and then had just become more and more of a fan. I can’t tell you how much I love Mandy. I thought Mandy was just such a great movie. I hope someday to work with Panos Cosmatos, who wrote and directed Mandy— just amazing! Of course, I loved Color Out of Space — so I was a big fan of Nick’s and I was a little intimidated, and a little worried that maybe when we got onto the set together that… Sometimes you wonder, and you just hope that your fellow actor is not going to be difficult for you to work with or judge you or all of the different things that can happen.
Before we even started shooting, it was November/December of 2018, around U.S.’s Thanksgiving. Nicolas Cage took 30 of us, cast and crew, to an old, traditional Japanese restaurant. We had a five-course meal. We had a lute playing — or whatever that instrument is called. Then he suggested that we all go around the room and talk about what we are grateful for.
Aww!
Yeah! I was so excited that that was my introduction to Nic. I decided then that he was sensitive and sweet and wonderful. When I got on the set with him to do our scenes, I just thought he was awesome. He was very derring-do; he came out in a samurai diaper. It was cold out because it’s November in Japan, which is kind of like November in Illinois. It’s cold. He came out and he was prepared. He was focused. He was into it. That inspired me. I gotta say, that just fired me up to really bring my A-game. Not that I wouldn’t have otherwise, but it was so inspiring. I can’t say enough good things about him.
Prisoners of the Ghostland is now playing in theaters.
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