Writer/Director Macon Blair (I Don’t Feel At Home in This World Anymore) introduces a very different Toxie in his Troma remake, The Toxic Avenger. Here, it’s the downtrodden Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage) who’s dunked into the toxic sludge that transforms him into a monstrous crusader against an evil corporation headed by greedy CEO Bob Garbinger (Kevin Bacon). Blair packs the contemporary update with reverent nods to the original but with a new approach that makes it accessible to those unfamiliar with the Troma classic.

Bloody Disgusting spoke with Macon Blair after The Toxic Avenger premiere at Fantastic Fest, where he shared what inspired his remake and the casting behind the new Toxie.

Like many, Blair connected with the 1984 film not just for its cartoonish violence but also for its relatable DIY filmmaking.

“It’s not like I’ve gone my whole life like ‘One day I will make The Toxic Avenger,‘” Blair tells Bloody Disgusting. “It’s not that, but I did see it when I was really young and very impressionable, and I’m sure you have similar things that you see at the right time in your life, and it just gets imprinted on your bones. That was one of them for me. At just the right time, the mix of my age, relative exposure, or lack of exposure to movies in general. This movie came at the right time, and we were learning how to make movies ourselves with home cameras. So that was a huge inspiration at the time, not just the sense of humor, which to me is like PT Barnum; anything for a laugh, the dumber, the better, just keep them laughing. That kind of sensibility. But also that it’s independent movie-making.”

Blair continues, “It’s just a vibe, the way it looks and sounds, the way people behave, and it’s fun to return to. That was the kind of thing we were chasing with this. I’m not a total idiot. You know that if you make a remake of something, there’s going to be a slice of folks that are like, ‘You didn’t do it enough justice, or you didn’t do it any justice,’ and that’s okay. It’s never going to be the same thing. It was more about just trying to make a crowd-pleasing, audience-pleasing movie as much as possible. However, that lands, whether it’s Troma fans or people that have never heard of this before.”

The Toxic Avenger boasts an impressive cast, including Elijah Wood’s quirky henchman Fritz Garbinger and Taylour Paige as Toxie’s invaluable ally. Yet it’s Kevin Bacon’s scene-chewing villainous turn that showcases a different side of the performer than we typically see.

Blair reveals why he wanted Bacon as his vain CEO and how he convinced him to play a part in his raucous horror-comedy.

“Kevin Bacon is definitely larger than life, and we submitted it to him,” Blair explains to Bloody Disgusting. “It’s the bad guy, and he was like, ‘Fuck, they’re always making me be corrupt cops.’ He heard villain and thought it would be that, and I was like, ‘no, no, no. It’s total cartoon style over the top.'” 

Peter Dinklage also breaks from expectations as the reluctant, melancholic Winston Gooze. While Blair wanted Bacon to embrace the zany comedy, he wanted his lead more grounded in reality. At least, at first. Blair explains, “Peter, actually, it was the other direction. I told him, ‘This is a ridiculous, over-the-top movie, but you and maybe you alone need to play it really straight. Because we’ve got to get everybody on board with this character, we’ve got a very short window of time before you disappear under all the makeup.’

“He’s instantly sympathetic with audiences. You get on his side very quickly. He’s very funny and doesn’t get to do a lot of comedy movies as frequently. I think it was a fun opportunity for him. There’s also some darkness to the character, and playing that straight, too. So, he was just, from a casting standpoint, he checked a lot of those boxes that we wanted for him. But mostly, it’s just, when possible, I like to present people the idea that this will be fun for you either because it’s something that you haven’t gotten to do before or you don’t get to do regularly.”

In the 1984 original feature, Toxie is played by multiple actors. Mark Torgl portrays the human Melvin Ferd Junko III, while Mitch Cohen plays the toxic-transformed version, with Kenneth Kessler voicing. In Blair’s remake, the transition feels seamless; Dinklage clearly is the voice behind the Toxic Avenger. But is he also beneath the latex suit?

“It’s not Peter,” Blair reveals. “It’s a tiny British actress named Luisa Guerreiro. She’s Portuguese. A complete badass. 110 degrees, 30 pounds of foam makeup. Motors all over her face to move the eyebrows and stuff like that. What she did was, and this is why I get so excited talking about it, Peter performed the whole movie on videotape as Toxie. Just himself. But making the choices, delivering the lines, physical choices, how fast he’s running all of it. There’s a video version of him just in a white room playing the whole movie. Luisa takes those tapes home, memorizes them, and studies them. She plays Teletubbies and Oompa Loompas. She’s like a physical performer. So, she’s studying his gait and his timing, his pauses, his line delivery, all of that. She replicates that on set, and then Peter, six months later, comes back and reinterprets the voice based on what she did.

“So, Toxie is actually Luisa playing Peter with Peter’s voice playing Luisa.”

Stay tuned for The Toxic Avenger release information as we learn it.