Phil Treagus-EvansDouglas Bradley is an English actor, best known for his role as the lead Cenobite “Pinhead” in the Hellraiser film series. He is one of only six actors to play the same horror character at least six consecutive times. Due to his eventual skill at application and removal of the Pinhead appliances and costume, he has been credited in some of the Hellraiser films as an assistant make-up artist named Bill Bradley, using his middle name. After Doug Bradley’s roles in the Hellraiser films and the 1990 horror film Nightbreed, 2006 saw him star in Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes and 2008 saw Doug Bradley once again returning to Clive Barker’s cinematic universe by way of a featured appearance in Book of Blood. He had a small guest star appearance in the 2008 black comic horror The Cottage. In 2010, he starred in the Anglo-Spanish horror film Exorcismus. Doug Bradley also voiced the Sith Emperor for the multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic, based in the Star Wars universe. Doug Bradley is also the author of Behind the Mask of the Horror Actor, which explores the history of masks in society and their applications in horror films. On October 19th 2018, Season 2 of Lore will be available on Amazon Prime which sees Doug appear in the Burke and hare episode, playing Dr Robert Knox, the Edinburgh surgeon who ‘commissioned’ their nefarious exploits. Please enjoy my interview with iconic Doug Bradley.
How do you describe your occupation?
Actor. I have written a book, first published by Titan books in 1996 under the title Sacred Monsters: Behind the Mask of the Horror Actor. Subsequently, the title was shortened, far more prosaically, dropping the main title and promoting the sub-title. But it remains in print and continues to sell. I’m very proud of it, but I have no hesitation in saying I am an actor who has written a book: I am not a writer. In recent years, I have begun to be active in the Audiobook world, which I love doing.
What is something about you that people might find surprising?
For other people to decide, I think. If it’s something I do, it’s probably not surprising to me.
What are you reading at the moment and what made you want to read it?
I’m not a linear reader: I rather tend to have far too many books on the go at once. I’ll give you a snapshot of what’s underway at the moment. You can assume that all of these books reflect my interests. In no particular order:
The Witches: Salem 1692 by Stacy Schiff,
Rumours Of The Marvellous by Peter Atkins,
Reasonable Doubt: A Shocking Story Of Lust And Murder In The American Heartland by Steve Vogel,
Unfaithful Music And Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello,
Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories That Scared Even Me by Various authors,
Dreamland: The True Tale Of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones,
Megalith: Studies In Stone by Hugh Newman,
Red Or Dead by David Peace (re-reading).
What was your favourite book as a child and why?
I don’t think I could point to one book, and I suppose it also depends on how you define the end of childhood. I have clear memories of visiting the local library with my mother and bringing home a series of books which featured the adventures of a winged rabbit. For some time, I imagined that this was Puck Of Pook’s Hill by Rudyard Kipling. Why I would have thought this, I don’t know. When I encountered Rudyard Kipling’s collection of that name, I realised it wasn’t that. Subsequently, I discovered that they were the various Pookie stories by Ivy Wallace.
I was given, as a prize on moving from Infant to Junior school – so around seven, I guess – a copy of Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. I am half-Scottish and was very much besotted by Scotland, so this book fed into that romantic attachment. I didn’t understand any of the history of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite rebellion at that age, but that didn’t spoil any of my enjoyment of the tale of David Balfour and his Uncle Ebenezer. It also kindled a life-long love for Stevenson’s poetry and prose. Greyfriars Bobby by Eleanor Atkinson was another Scottish-linked obsession.
I was an Enid Blyton child. The Mystery series (Ring O’ Bells, Rocking Down, Rubadub), The Famous Five, The Five Find-Outers, all devoured. Also America’s Bobbsey Twins books.
Roger Lancelyn Green’s retelling of the Arthurian myths and legends was also a greatly –prized and much re-read possession, with wonderful illustrations by Lotte Reiniger. I would also take the copy of Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, which had been my mother’s when she was little, and read and re-read that. I still have the Stevenson, Atkinson, Green and Carroll books– just about holding together.
There were many more, but from a quick reach into my memory, these are what I came up with. And why? Just because they resonated with me on whatever level. They took me away from provincial Liverpool, I guess: thrilled me, excited me, challenged me, moved me and delighted me. I think they all also made me very much aware of the nuances of language and the beauty of the English language when well-crafted. And almost always read aloud as well as to myself.
Speaking of all this, I suppose I should add one more. I inherited from my father a love for all things Charles Dickens, and I know that when I was about ten I waded manfully through the entirety of David Copperfield. It took me an age, but I was inordinately proud of doing so and it certainly left a lasting impression on me.
When did you fall in love with reading?
I read at a very early age, and that was it! And as I said in the previous answer, as soon as I could read, I liked to read aloud, and still do. I guess there’s a straight line from there to acting and Audiobook narration.
What was the last book you purchased, and why did you buy it?
Megalith: Studies In Stone by Hugh Newman. The mysteries of stone circles has been a lifelong passion. The fact that we are discovering more and more of them all over the world speaks of a unity of culture in the distant past which is so intriguing. The ‘discovery’ of Gobekli Tepe – which dates back to 10,000 BC – in Turkey in 1994 is absolutely thrilling.
What are perfect reading conditions for you?
At the moment, where I was a little earlier. On the upper deck of my house in the late evening sun with a vodka & tonic.
What book have you found most inspiring, what effect did it have on you?
No one book. I really couldn’t answer that.
What’s the most obscure book you own; how did you discover it?
I’m not much of an obscurantist. Maybe my copies of Hill Of Dreams, Secret Glory, and House Of Souls by Arthur Machen, dating from the 1920s and 30s. I was briefly employed by Liverpool City Libraries in the mid-Seventies, and had occasion to be sorting books at the Everton Store, which was basically a place for books which had been taken out of circulation. Their date stamps told me they had languished unread for more than a decade, so I made surreptitious arrangements for them to go to a better home.
What’s the best book you’ve read in the last 6 months?
Maybe Killers Of The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The FBI by David Grann.
What is your proudest achievement?
My children.
If you were trying to impress a visitor, which book that you own would you leave on the coffee table?
I try not to impress visitors, and I don’t have a coffee table. Whatever I’m reading at the moment.
If an alien landed in your garden; which three books would you gift them to showcase humanity in the best possible way?
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams, The Complete Illuminated Books of William Blake, and Concise History Of Painting From Giotto To Cezanne by Michael Levey.
Are there any books you haven’t mentioned that you feel would make your reading list?
Hundreds.
Which book sat on your shelf are you most excited about reading next and why?
There are three lining up to come down the pike next. I tend to buy books faster than I read them, though, so who knows? But I am looking forward to:
See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt, which is a novelisation of the Lizzie Borden story. Open If You Dare by Dana Middleton, a children’s novel by my friend Pete Atkins’ wife. Hell’s Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher Of Men by Harold Schechter.