As Chad Michael Murray sat down for a conversation about his new film, the horror thriller House of Wax, the first thing I noticed was the glittery new wedding band on his left hand. “I had a wonderful weekend,” grinned Chad, who tied the knot with his lovely One Tree Hill co-star Sophia Bush just seven days before our sit down. “Best day of my life.” Chad was coyly mum on his honeymoon plans, but otherwise the easygoing actor has plenty of other thoughts to share with Hollywood.com, including dealing with waxy build-up and his own real-life camping trip scare.
How did you discover House of Wax? Did your producer, Joel Silver, approach you first?
Chad Michael Murray: “Joel came to me and said ‘You’ve been doing a great job with everything else and would love to have you a part of this film.’ I always thought in the back of my head ‘Can I really do a horror movie? And I was ‘Hell, yeah! I can’t wait to give it a shot.’ It was fun, a great time. [And] it was an honor. How else do you say it? Joel‘s done so much for this business. From the Die Hards to the Lethal Weapons, to have the opportunity to sit back and learn from him was a gift I couldn’t turn down. It’s such a blessing. I was obviously a little nervous, which I don’t usually do, but when you sit down it’s like ‘This is Joel Silver!’ It stresses you out a bit.”
Do you like to watch horror films?
Murray: “I do. The Night of the Living Dead. The originals, like the ’54 version of Vincent Price‘s House of Wax. I love those types of films.
Yet this is very different story from Vincent Price version?
Murray: “Oh, completely. We took liberties. We contemporized it just a bit, but it was fun. You can sit down get a few scares and go home.”
It looked like an extremely demanding shoot, physically.
Murray: “Definitely. Just with the wax, it’s not as easy to move around in that crap as it looks. We had to shoot this one scene in a peanut butter bed where I’m wrestling around with one of the villains, and the first time we shot it, the consistency wasn’t as thick as it should’ve so we sunk right down to the bottom and the bed fell apart. It took two or three guys to pull us out of the bed, we could not get out on our own. So it was definitely physical…They used a lot of real wax and compounds they put together for slippery wax because you don’t want to be sliding around in hot melting wax. But the floors were made entirely of wax. It was incredibly grueling and at the end of the day all you wanted was a shower. You had wax everywhere. I mean I’m not trying to be gruesome, but my God, it sticks in your hair and you’re pulling crap out.”
But unlike Elisha Cuthbert’s, your hair is pretty short in the film. You got off easy.
Murray: “I loved it. For work, I was ready in five minutes. Shaving it off tends to be a summer tradition for me, but I’m not this summer because I have upcoming projects.”
What did you draw from to play the evil twin? Any sibling rivalry stories?
Murray: “I have a very, very large family. I have three or four brothers–a half brother–and a sister, so I really understood the relationships I have and bonded with my siblings. So Elisha and I didn’t have much time to bond but when we did we made it work and it was exciting. I think everyone’s wanted a twin at some point…We look very similar, so she could easily be my sister. I think just our dedication to film and working on professionalism and growth as an actor is really where we ended up finding our bond. We really take our craft seriously.”
What did you think of your other female co-star, Paris Hilton?
Murray: “She impressed us all. She really did. She’s a sweetheart. Her and my wife–which I can say now–got along really well. She made the whole cast very comfortable with her.”
And at the end of the day, after working on something so gruesome, can you easily walk away without taking it with you in your head?
Murray: “Yeah. I mean, I didn’t go home and have nightmares, because I’m there and know it’s not real-but especially in this business, you take your work home with you. You never really get to go home and forget about it because you go home and make sure everything’s prepared for the next day. You can’t just go home and forget about it.”
Did the cast do a lot of screwing around on and off the set to offset the grisly tone of the film?
Murray: “Jared [Padalecki] and I have known each other for a couple of years. We did the first season of Gilmore Girls together, so we’ve been best friends for a while and actually roomed together in Australia. That was a riot–We stayed up all hours of the night playing video games and beating the shit out of each other. That’s what I did in my off time. But when I go to work, I really try to separate myself from that. Unless it’s really not an emotional scene or physical scene, I tend to want to put my iPod on and keep to myself.”
Even though you were part of the make-believe process, did the movie feel real when you finally saw the finished product?
Murray: “I think the first time you see it, you’re going to be very critical of yourself. You’re your own worst critic, so you watch every little thing. Then you walk away and can be comfortable with what you accomplished with the picture. The second time you can watch it more as an outsider. But I’ll be the first to admit that I jumped a couple of times. I jumped at the campsite when Elisha leaves the tent, and when Paris was in her tent after the little strip tease. That climax, I was like, ‘Gosh–you got me!’ ”
Do you feel this role will help demonstrate your diversity and allow you to branch off into other projects?
Murray: “I do, because you can sit back and watch One Tree Hill and this, and you won’t see an ounce of Lucas in this project. And that’s what I wanted to show. It’s not necessarily Good Will Hunting or Taxi Driver, but it’s an opportunity that I had to create a character with mystique and age up a little bit and show another audience what I have to offer.”
How was it shooting in Australia, so far way from home with everything you had happening in your personal life, planning a wedding, etc.?
Murray: “It sucks, I’ll be honest. I liked Australia, but I wish I had more time to travel. Loved their cranberry juice and food. But to be honest, you just miss American TV and food and your things. I couldn’t bring my dog, but I got [a new dog,] Ozzie over there, which was awesome, but my first-born “child” Joe, my dog–I was away from him and Soph for three months. I had a few visitors that came out. But my family couldn’t make their voyage because they were working there assess off, as they should. Soph came out a few times, so that was nice.”
Have you ever gone on a camping trip and have anything scary happen?
Murray: “I love camping. Me and my boys go to Sequoia. I love sitting by the campfire and leaving out food for the bears to attack. One time, there was this Christian camp that runs up there that serves food and I was sick of eating fish. I was standing there eating a hot dog and talking to my boy and he’s looking right here and we’re in the middle of a conversation and he tells me ‘Do not move–There’s a bear right behind you.’ I turn around and not more than ten feet away there’s a bear who knocks over a trash can, so that’s memorable. Some a–hole threw a board at it and he walked away.”
