Meat Loaf with a side of horror musical
Singer-actor’s latest flick, Stage Fright, billed as ‘Scream meets Glee’
It’s not your same old Meat Loaf.
“It’s not even close to anything I’ve ever done,” says singer-actor Marvin Lee Aday, better known to his millions of fans as Meat Loaf, of his latest movie Stage Fright. “The fact they got me to sing is unbelievable.”
It’s only the third time Meat Loaf has sung onscreen after The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006).
Meat Loaf, star of Rocky Horror on stage and screen and Grammy-winning rock anthem belter — his Bat Out Of Hell remains one of the bestselling albums of all time — talked to the Star from the set of Stage Fright, the new horror musical being filmed at a summer camp in Parry Sound.
Being billed as “Scream meets Glee,” it’s written and directed by Montreal’s Jerome Sable, whose horror short The Legend of Beaver Dampremiered at TIFF’s Midnight Madness program two years ago before earning kudos on the festival circuit. Sable also co-wrote the score with composer Eli Batalion.
Meat Loaf, who turned 65 in September (“I’ve stopped having birthdays,” he said, refusing to give his age) has 69 film credits to his name, according to the Internet Movie Database. He’s still singing, too, and will be back on the road with his Mad, Mad World Tour Oct. 19.
In Stage Fright, Meat Loaf plays down-on-his luck performing arts camp owner Roger McCall, who hopes to save his business by remounting the show that ended with the murder of his leading lady (Minnie Driver) at the hands of a masked killer who isn’t exactly a fan of musical theatre. Her daughter will play the lead . . . but is the killer on the loose again?
The action includes over-the-top production numbers. “They’re doing Busby Berkeley,” said Meat Loaf appreciatively.
“I will admit when I first read the script I went, ‘Oh God, this is not good,’ and then I began to work it and I went, ‘no, I’m wrong. This is really good.’ ” said Meat Loaf, adding that the film’s premise is “so bizarre and so weird.” His drama coach urged him to take the role after she learned Sable was directing and Meat Loaf can’t say enough about the young filmmaker’s talents. “Jerome has pushed me and I like that,” he said. “He really has pushed me into doing things that, at first, I was not comfortable with and they’re out of my zone. The character is kind of a schizophrenic — it flips and he turns on a dime.” Meat Loaf added he knows he’s given his all when “I can’t remember what happened,” after a take. He was also impressed with the young cast he’s working with, including Allie MacDonald ( The House at the End of the Street) and Douglas Smith (TV’s Big Love). “I’ve been on sets before with young actors who never come prepared, and these kids come prepared. Everybody walks on set prepared to do their job and I think it’s spectacular,” said Meat Loaf. “We had a really hard scene that took two days of high energy, and they came loaded for bear.” Meat Loaf pre-recorded his musical numbers at his Austin, Texas, home studio, but he’s also singing on the set during filming, not lip synching, which is very unusual. Director Tom Hooper is employing the same technique for his December blockbuster, Les Misérables. That fact seems to please him. It took some doing to convince him to make a musical, said Meat Loaf, who has turned down Broadway offers. He’s more interested in doing the unexpected, like a David Mamet drama or the Shakespeare he did early in his acting career. “I’m singing, but I’m not singing like Meat Loaf (in Stage Fright). I’m singing more Broadway. It’s very low, very Broadway, between a bass and a baritone.” “I look at everything as moving forward,” he said of his filmmaking experiences, which include Fight Club with Brad Pitt. “I learned the object of every day is to learn something new, whether it be about the world, or that giraffes only sleep two hours a day, and on a set, I’m constantly learning.” Stage Fright is due out next year and Meat Loaf would love to see it premiere at TIFF. “If this movie turns out to be as good as it was written, I don’t know if you can ever use the word ‘great,’ but it will certainly be shocking and surprising, so I guess it will be great.”