Lucky McKee – Exclusive Interview

Lucky McKee, a director known for his dark, peculiar horror offerings May, The Woods, and Masters of Horror: Sick Girl, stars in Roman, the directorial debut of one of his favorite, oft-used actors, Angela Bettis.

Horror.com caught up with Lucky today, to ask him about acting in this cool, quirky little "romantic horror movie".

Staci Layne Wilson/Horror.com: How was it, being on the flipside - Angela directing you for a change?

Lucky McKee: It was a fantastic experience. Acting is much less stressful than directing, especially when you have a director that makes you comfortable with what you're doing and encourages or discourages you in the right directions.

Q: How did she get even?

McKee: I think I'm the one that got even. Now she knows how overwhelming answering all those questions can be!

Q: I saw Adam Gierasch in the movie... why no Jace Anderson? [his screenwriting partner] She has cooler hair than Adam, any day.

McKee: Adam actually started out as an actor in the business and Angie thought it would be fun to throw as many writer/directors in the mix as possible (Chris Sivertson, Zach Passero, Rian Johnson, Kevin Ford, Adam, Jace, and many more contributed to the film in some way or another). I don't know why we didn't put Jace in there. Maybe we'll replace Adam with Jace a la the Star Wars Special Edition with Jabba. And you're right, she has much cooler hair.

Q: On a more serious note, would you describe Roman as a horror movie?

McKee: Without the first act of the film, I think Roman would probably be considered a romantic comedy. There are more elements of that genre than the horror genre, I'd say. It's a love story about guilt over death more than anything. We take inspiration from all types of art forms, so we don't really categorize the movies ourselves. The distributors usually do that, and sometimes they approach it right (as Echo Bridge has been with this flick) and sometimes they miss the boat completely.

Q: What made you decide to commit to such a big acting role? You really are in every scene, aren't you?

McKee: It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Everyone just seemed to think I should be that guy. Guess that tells you something about me. People picture me as a big creepy oaf that accidentally murders television stars.

Q: What, in your opinion, is the most disturbing scene in Roman?

[spoiler alert!]

McKee: When it's revealed that Roman has the girl on ice in his bathtub there's a moment where he tells her she's beautiful, then kisses her on the forehead. I almost yakked all my Pork and Beans when I had to do that.

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