Chucky Cast Reveals All About Jaw-Dropping Season 3
This new season of Chucky has it all: ghosts, nuclear codes, and lots and lots of blood. Oh, yeah, and the return of the legendary Brad Dourif in live-action as the ghost of Chucky! Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado spoke with the cast who revealed all the details of this jaw-dropping third season.
The entire cast was very excited to have Brad Dourif on the set of Chucky. “One of the things I think that the fans are going to love is that in this season after 30 years you get to see Charles Lee Ray in the flesh. We were so excited when he showed up on the set,” Jennifer Tilly told me. “We were like, ‘Oh my God, Brad Dourif, the voice of Chucky is gonna be doing some humanoid acting on our show!”
Surprisingly none of the young cast had ever met the horror icon before. “We've heard his voice over a speaker for so many years so now to get to be in the room with him and actually acting opposite of him, especially in the stakes that there are, it's really fun. We had a great time working with him and just getting to finally meet him. None of us had ever met him before the third season,” shared Alyvia Alyn Lind, “so it was just really great to get to hang out with him and be with him in between scenes on the green room and just talk to him.”
For Brad Dourif, it allowed him to finally feel like part of the TV family. “I'm retired and I've been doing the voice — which is kind of like acting — but having to actually go into makeup and hair and eat lunch there and be around people was really fun. In an odd way doing the thing in my own living room, I didn't feel a part of it,” he revealed. “This gave me a chance to meet everybody and work with them. They're all wonderful actors so I had a great time.”
Not only did Zackary Arthur get to meet Brad Dourif for the first time, but he also got tips on how to do the iconic Chucky voice when he’s possessed by him. “I really had to just completely jump out of my skin for that role. I had a lot of help from Brad, from Don, from Fiona, from Devon Sawa, who also played Chucky for a fraction of time in season two. It was definitely a long time coming. It was a lot of fun to play Chucky,” explained Arthur. “I would be at home and I'd go outside. I'd have this urge to practice the Chucky voice at random times in the night and I'd go outside for like an hour and I would be laughing as Chucky. I think I scared a few of our neighbors for sure. I sound insane when I do it.”
Arthur’s not the only cast member who gets to play Chucky this season, with Brad Dourif’s daughter Fiona Dourif reprising her role as a younger version of Charles Lee Ray. “The secret is MindWarp FX out of Toronto,” said Fiona Dourif on the trick to playing her father. “They do the heavy lifting. After years of playing Nica, who's this battered character, it feels like a gift to play this character that I consider utterly free and powerful and having the best time of his life. It was a blast. I feel like I won the lottery all because my forehead and eyes look like my dad’s.”
This season also finds Brad and Fiona Dourif playing opposite each other for the first time ever on screen. "I thought I was going to be too nervous to enjoy it and that didn't happen at all. I was face to face with somebody that I trust more than any other person alive. I just felt really comfortable and free and angry in the right way. It's really fun,” shared Fiona Dourif. “When I was a teenager, I used to fight a lot with him so that was really familiar.”
Brad Dourif continued: “It felt oddly familiar. When Fiona started out, we did a lot of auditions and stuff together, so it was like being back in my living room.”
Alongside the ghosts and spirit realm, Chucky comes face to face with Damballa this season who looks like whoever you most revere. Naturally, Chucky sees… himself. “I honestly think it would be Chucky also because Tiffany is definitely a standby your man guy,” said Tilly about who she thinks Tiffany Valentine would see if she were to meet Damballa. “She idolizes Chucky even though she knows he's the classless asshole. She's like, oh, this is what I fell in love with.”
“Even though she's always saying she hates him, hate is the other side of love. I was like she has to love him very, very, very much that she hates him and I think she hates him because he failed her. I think that's why people can relate to Chucky and Tiffany,” Tilly explained. “It astonished me that people like Chucky. They identify with Chucky. They're not identifying with the attractive teenagers running away and trying not to get killed. They identify with him. They're like, wow, look at him. He's got a naggy wife. He's got to deal with his unplanned pregnancy. Now he's got a kid that he's trying to bring up right. Chucky makes a lot of sense sometimes, but at the same time they are pathological killers.”
At it’s heart, Tilly called Chucky and Tiffany “a love story,” sharing that fans are going to be really happy to see the duo back together again. That’s right, this season ends with both Chucky and Tiffany back in their doll bodies and driving off into the sunset together. But what happens to Jennifer’s body now that it’s no longer possessed by Tiffany who was on death row? “I'm not sure. I was saying to Don, ‘Hey, what does this mean for season four?’ and Don's like ‘Wait and see!’ But I know Don loves to have me in all my fleshly glory on the set so I think he'll find a way. The fans are going to be really thrilled to see the actual Tiffany doll again,” she revealed. “I think the next season is going to be phenomenal. If there is a next season, there's so many cliffhangers at the end of this season that I think people are going to be on pins and needles waiting to see what's going to happen.”
Chucky and Tiffany aren’t the only ones to get doll bodies as our trio of Jake, Lexy, and Devon are not only not able to save Caroline, but get turned into dolls as well. “There's multiple worlds where this could go, but, I mean, maybe we'll see Lexy join the dark side with her. I don't know! That'd be kind of interesting,” jokes Lind, with Björgvin Arnarson adding: “First of all, how are we going to do this? How are we going to become dolls? Are we getting our own bazillion dollar animatronic? I finally got to enter the puppeteer room warehouse and it’s super cool in there. I love those guys. It was cool seeing how they were going to figure it out. They're gonna scan our face and stuff.”
Chucky season 3 is streaming on Peacock.
