A few years ago I went to Manchester for a new horror convention, called For The Love of Horror (by Monopoly Events). As you may know Carola and I are both big fans of the horror genre (our first convention ever was a horror con called Weekend of Horrors in Oberhausen), so I was glad I had the chance to check out this new horror con. Unfortunately Carola could not come, so I was on my own. One of the guests at For The Love of Horror 2018 was British horror actor Nathan Head. He is mostly known for his work in British independent horror movies and I had never heard of him before For the Love of Horror. But I started to write some articles about the guest list and did some research. From what I read, Nathan seemed to be a very interesting guy and I decided I definitely wanted to attend his panel at For the Love of Horror. Well I did and it was so much fun to attend. A few months ago I was going through my comic con pictures and I stumbled upon Nathan again. At that point I decided to contact him and ask him if he was interested in an interview....and he was! I browsed the internet to get a hand on some of his movies and watched them before I put together some questions for Nathan. He was nice enough to give me some recommendations and we messaged back and forth. And now we take you with us and dive head first in the world of British Indie Horror with the lovely Nathan Head!
Who is Nathan Head?
Nathan Head was born on October 8th, 1980 in the city of Warrington. This town is situated in the county of Cheshire and is situated on the banks of the famous river Mersey. But of course there is more to tell, so first up we asked Nathan: Could you tell us some more about yourself?
Nathan: "My name is Nathan Head and I’m a British actor, I live deep in an ancient woodland in the North of England. People probably know me from my work in horror films, most notably the 2014 film Theatre Of Fear (aka The Midnight Horror Show), where I played the killer clown Trinculo “Trinc” Moreau, but I’ve been in a few other things people may recognise me from. I worked on Doctor Who back in 2007 with David Tennant in a feature-length Christmas Special, and I was also Heinrich Berger in the third Robert The Doll film, which was released in 2017 with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment."
Have you always wanted to be an actor and how did you roll into the business?
Nathan: "Well I’ve been an actor now for about fifteen years, I took drama classes when I was at High School but I was convinced by my Drama teacher not to pursue acting professionally, because I can’t sing, and she insisted that anyone who isn’t a triple-threat would fail in their careers. So for a while I went into graphic design, which I was intending to use as a stepping-stone to work in film production design, but that never really took off and when I was in my early twenties I looked to get back into acting. After taking some local acting classes in Manchester (where I lived at the time) and working on local independent productions and plays, I eventually built up my résumé and eventually got more substantial roles and it grew from there.."
Work in horror
Luckily your drama teacher was not that convincing and you still chose to pursue your dream of acting. Over the years you grew out to be one of the household names in the British Indie Horror movie scene. Have you always been into the the horror genre?
Nathan: "I’ve always attributed my love of the horror genre with time spent with my mother when I was young, I have many fond memories of sitting down with her to watch Whatever Happened To Baby Jane and Carry On Screaming, or The Beast With Five Fingers and other lame titles along those lines. Also, with my Birthday being in October, most of my birthday parties were “Halloween Themed” and my parents would throw together garish games for me and my friends to play. I particularly remember my mum and dad tying a large rubber centipede to a long string and fastening it to each of our heads, one after another, to see if we could get it into the neck of a small bottle. Great fun! So yeah, I guess you could say I’ve always been into horror movies, I don’t specifically seek out horror productions to work on, I apply to all kinds of acting roles, but when I get a gig on a horror film, I get a little extra excited inside."
So you watched a lot of horror movies with your mother, that is so cool! Well, obviously the next question has to be: what's your favorite Horror movie?
Nathan: "Oh gosh, what a hard one to answer, there are so many! Right now I’m very much into extra-dimensional films, like the Cloverfield franchise and The Mist (the film NOT that awful “it’s all a hallucination from a gas” TV series). The sort of films that deal with creatures seeping into our world from another realm are the ones I enjoy the most I’d say. I particularly enjoyed Nacho Vigalondo's segment in V/H/S: Viral, I would love to a see a full feature film spawn from his chapter of that anthology!"
Career in movies and TV
Over the last 15 years you have worked on over 50 projects and there is still a lot to come. But looking back on your career at this moment: which one of your movies are you most proud of?
Nathan: "Again, that’s a difficult one to mention because I have a few in my back-catalogue that I’m proud of for different reasons. I played Pathologist Colin Green in the 2018 film Hellriser (not to be confused with Hellraiser) and that film went down really well with genre-fans and it was nominated for ‘Best Thriller’ at the National Film Awards. I also owe a lot of my horror success to Theatre Of Fear (pictures below), working on that film really opened up doors for me elsewhere."
Those were exactly the two movies, I bought and watched before doing this interview. I really enjoyed them, especially Theatre of Fear (aka The Midnight Horror Show). Over the years, you must have spent a lot o of time on movie sets...can you tell us something about your best memory on set?
Nathan: "Way back in 2007 I worked on the original UK version of the series Shameless, it was shot overnight in the middle of Winter and my scenes involved me having no trousers on. It was freezing cold and David Threlfall, who plays Frank, gave me his pocket hand-warmers and told me to stuff them down the front of my underpants to warm me up. I’d never worked with him before then and this really broke the ice, thankfully nothing else broke (it was certainly cold enough)! Unfortunately ALL of my scenes were cut from the final broadcast version, which stung a little at the time but I quickly got over it. These things happen all the time and they’re all there on the season box set as special features for people to watch anyway. Plus I still got paid, which was the main thing!"
Hahaha, that is a great story! I can imagine it's very frustrating when you hear that your scenes get cut, but unfortunately that is something you can't control. Imagine you were in charge and you could play any role you want, which one would it be?
Nathan: "I’ve longed to work on a Mummy film for years now, that is currently my goal. About a decade ago I was lucky enough to be involved in a photo shoot to promote a theme park (Scare Kingdom in Lancashire), and for that I was in full Mummy makeup. I’m a big fan of Ancient history, and an especially big fan of ancient Egyptian Mythology, so it would be amazing to work on a Mummy movie one day!"
We would love to see you in a Mummy movie some day! We both love the Universal Monsters franchise and Boris Karloff in his role as The Mummy. This franchise had a big influence on the history of horror and film making (in our humble opinion). Speaking of big influences: who (or what) would you call your biggest hero/influence?
Nathan: "My biggest influences are both my parents, I mentioned earlier how they introduced me to horror and always encouraged me to be creative and be myself. Huge shout out to our Dave and Elaine, I love you both!"
Events and comic cons
We love going to comic cons and horror events and we have visited quite some of these over the years. In 2018, Liv went to Manchester for For The Love Of Horror (by Monopoly Events). She attended your panel over there. Do you do a lot of these events and what are your best memories?
Nathan: "I’ve attended a few horror fests over the years and For The Love Of Horror was possibly the best, it was just so well organised and had an amazing selection of guests and events and entertainment all throughout the day and night, with some great traders and stalls too. Because of my work on Doctor Who, there’s also a great community of fans for that show and I love chatting to them when I’m working Comic Cons too, I’ve attended lots of those as well as Horror Fests. I guess some of my favourite I’ve worked are Hoo Fest (which was held on an actual animal sanctuary and was great fun) and Chester ComicCon (which was held at a huge racecourse). The biggest and best Comic Con I’ve worked so far has to be MCM Birmingham, it was HUGE and full of so many awesome people, I really enjoyed that weekend there."
Future plans
At the moment we are all living in an uncertain world and the future is more unclear than ever. Can you tell us something about your future plans?
Nathan: "Well, I’ve been busy working off and on on a few films that are just about nearing completion, I’m not too certain when they’ll be released yet, because the effects of Covid-19 has put a lot of things on hold and delayed many projects. There’s the two Blood Curse Films that I shot with my partner in crime Keiron Hollett, they’re a great duo-logy story told in two halves; The Haunting Of Alicia Stone and Asmodeus Rises. The first film is more of a classic haunted house story with a mystery, and the follow-up film is your classic dark, gritty possession tale. I’ve also been shooting scenes for a new anthology that’s coming out soon, the working title for that one is Artifacts Of Fear and my story segment is called The Tale Of The Screaming Skull, I play a researcher who turns up at an old farm house to study the calcified remains of an evil Witch from a local legend. I’ve also just finished shooting a paranormal documentary series called Apparitions, that should be available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV by the time this interview gets published. In that we cover all sorts of supernatural themes such as witchcraft, angels, alien abductions, crop circles, UFO sightings, premonitions, spirit boards, poltergeists and other subjects along those lines. That was fun to shoot, I spent most of my time creeping round ancient tombs and crypts, or lurking in fields in search of flying triangles. Oh I almost forgot to tell you about Harvest of the Dead: Halloween Night, I have a small cameo in that as the newsreader. It’s a great film from my buddy Peter Goddard, who made Season Of The Witch and Any Minute Now (you may remember those films from a few years back). I also worked with him, sort of, on the first film in the Grindsploitation series with Troma Entertainment. Anyway, Harvest of the Dead 2 looks great and I think it’s currently with distributors, so keep an eye out for release news on that one very soon."
Signature Questions
In this last part of the interview we would like to ask you our signature questions. We always try to sneak them into the interviews we do and the first one is: How would you describe your sense of humour?
Nathan: "I’ve got a pretty childish sense of humour when it comes to comedy moments, I find flatulence jokes more funny than I should admit ... I do. I also love classic saucy innuendo comedy, like what was found in the British comedy films of the 1960s and 70s. Sure a lot of that humour is dated, but it was simple while being clever in the wording, without being coarse or offensive."
Our second signature question is: if you could be any historical figure, who would you be and why?
Nathan: "Probably Alexander the Great, he was a handsome guy and spent most of his time relaxing in steam rooms from what I’ve read."
Our favorite hashtag is #excitedisanunderstatement, so we would love to know: what are you excited about right now?
Nathan: "Right now the things that I’m excited for are; the new season of Rick and Morty, the new season of Law & Order SVU (gotta love Mariska Hargitay!), the new Chucky TV series, the next season of Snowpiercer, whatever Elvira Mistress of the Dark does next, I’m excited for Halloween (mainly for the embarrassing amount of chocolate and bad movies I will consume), I’m excited for the concept of Andrew Divoff returning for a potential Wishmaster 5 and I’m very excited for the next episode of How To Cook That on YouTube."
Well now that is a lot of excitement! Thank you for your answers! Would you like to add something?
Nathan: "Nothing other than it’s been a pleasure chatting with you and that everyone should checkout Carola & Liv’s Conmose site for all the best discussions on horror and TV series and Comic Cons!"
Thank you that is so nice! We would like to thank you for making time to have a chat with us and hopefully we will see each other at a comic con or event in the future! We would love to keep in touch with you. Thanks again for your time!
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