Horror Legend Brad Dourif Has Retired From Acting – With One Exception
Since earning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination upon making his film debut in Miloš Forman's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," Brad Dourif has been one of cinema's most distinctive character actors. He was utterly heartbreaking as the painfully shy Billy Bibbit in Forman's film, but thereafter he specialized in more unsettling types. Need someone to play a character who's a little creepy, squirrelly, or just flat-out weird? Dourif will likely be at or near the top of your list.
Onscreen, Dourif is probably best known to most moviegoers as the scheming Grima Wormtongue in Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" movies, but he's made, shall we say, quite a killing as the voice of the stab-happy doll Chucky in the "Child's Play" films and, currently, the "Chucky" television series on SyFy and the USA Network.
Like so many great character actors, we've taken Dourif for granted over the years. So it's a bummer to learn that, according to a recent interview with JoBlo, the 74-year-old legend has decided to retire. But don't get too downhearted. Dourif might not be accepting new roles, but there's one part he won't be abandoning anytime soon.
Dourif can't quit, won't quit Chucky
As long as Dourif can speak and horror fans still have an appetite for watching a freckle-faced doll kill people, he will continue to provide the voice of Chucky for the television series and any future movies. For Dourif, it's a family affair. His daughter Fiona stars on the show, and he considers Don Mancini, who created the character in 1988 with the original "Child's Play," to be blood as well.
This should come as a relief to horror fans. The Chucky franchise has been one of the genre's most reliably entertaining series. The movies were played fairly straight at first (at least, as straight as you can play movies about a serial killer stuck in the body of a child's toy), but took a campy comedic turn with "Bride of Chucky" in 1998. The franchise has generally stuck with this tone, and Dourif has lost none of his vicious fervor in portraying the title character. And, really, if you can roll out of bed every day, hit the recording studio, and toss off macabre one-liners for a living, retirement sounds like a bore.
The day will inevitably come when Dourif moves on from Chucky, but, thankfully, it sounds like he's committed to the role for the foreseeable future. And you can keep up with Chucky's bloody antics right now, as the second half of the series' third season just picked back up on SyFy and USA.