Slender Man is out on home video this week. Javier Botet embodied the creature for the film based on “Victor Surge” (real name Eric Knudsen)’s creation of a monster that plagues children. Botet has already racked up an impressive resume of creatures in It, Insidious, The Conjuring, Mama and even Alien: Covenant. He told Bloody-Disgusting that playing creatures is what he always wanted to do.
“I’m so happy and proud,” Botet said in a phone interview from Madrid. “I was always interested in creatures. Since I was a child, my mind was blown when I saw the Star Wars movies for the first time. I was looking at all these creatures, aliens and monsters. I spent most of my life molding monsters, creatures and looking for all the information about makeup and prosthetic work and animatronics. I was interested in that.”
When Botet moved to Madrid, he found a makeup FX shop.
“The moment I was in the workshop, I started talking with the teacher,” Botet said. “I felt like that was the way I was going to start working in movies. I was very, very serious about that. My body was perfect to play these roles. I was also tall and skinny, so my body I knew was perfect to build over it, all the creatures you can imagine. Before doing my first job, I felt it was the beginning of my career. I felt I’m working hard, I love what I’m doing and I had a bit of good luck.”
Every movie may have different makeup, but there’s only one Botet. He strives to make every creature he plays unique.
“Yes, it’s always the thing I try to do,” Botet said. “I try to give something special to each monster. It always depends on what the director wants and how hard the makeup is. If it’s very restrictive, you can do one thing or other things. It’s teamwork between different people, but in my way, I always try to keep something special, something different with every monster.”
Botet kept up with the Slender Man story since its creation in 2009. When making the film, he was able to talk to Surge directly.
“I started with the original story,” Botet said. “Victor Surge, the creator, was involved in the project. I felt that we have to give everybody a white paper where everybody can fill with our fears. So I was seeking a way to keep that, give everybody the option to fill it with their fears. I tried not to make a very strict and clear role. I tried not to be very specific about how the Slender Man is. So I tried to keep altering his face for everybody to feel their own fears.”
While there are a few defining characteristics to the Slender Man – he’s gotta be tall and slim – he doesn’t necessarily have a face, so everyone tends to see him in their own way.
“I was reading about how all the people see Slender Man,” Botet said. “There’s a lot of different visuals, a lot of things that all the people see him in a variety of ways, so I didn’t choose one of those. I only started with the suit, which is what the creator did, and I kept a little bit of every other vision. I tried to keep myself in the middle of all the stories I read.”
Slender Man is on Blu-ray and DVD October 30, and already available digitally.
