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Damon Herriman Comments on Playing Charles Manson in ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ and “Mindhunter”

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“Justified” actor Damon Herriman has found himself in a pretty interesting position here in 2019: he’s been typecast as Charles Manson, playing the notorious cult leader in both Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, now playing in theaters, and the upcoming second season of Netflix’s “Mindhunter,” arriving on August 16th.

In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Herriman plays a young Charles Manson in the year 1969, while “Mindhunter” will see him playing an incarcerated Manson in the 1980s. In the latest episode of the Back to One podcast, Herriman talks playing double duty as a real-life madman, touching upon the vast differences between the two versions of the same character.

Mindhunter came first,” Herriman told the show’s hosts. “[Charles Manson] is in jail at that point. So yeah, it’s different. Because of that age gap. Manson, in the Tarantino movie, is pre-jail, and he’s kind of in his court jester… out there just living on the ranch and taking drugs and having sex. He’s in that sort of whole cult life world. And then in jail, he’s an incredibly bitter, angry man. A certain lightness existed in him in the early stuff…he doesn’t feel like the same guy anymore when you see him in jail. He looks pretty pissed off most of the time.”

The closest thing I can think of to him is a homeless person,” Herriman continued, speaking about getting inside the mind of Manson for the Netflix series. “Maybe someone with schizophrenia that you see talking to themselves on the street. A lot of his interviews have that sense, where [he’s] just spouting stuff that doesn’t make sense. Other times it does make sense, like a lot of sense. So clearly the guy was mentally ill. I’ve read and watched a whole hell of a lot; I still don’t really know what made him tick.”

After filming “Mindhunter,” Herriman found himself as a younger version of Charles Manson on the set of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with Quentin Tarantino directing him.

[Tarantino] knew that I had done it, because obviously it would’ve been weird to keep that a secret,” Herriman explained. “But he didn’t ask about any of it. He certainly didn’t say, ‘I want you to do something different.’ But there was enough already that I found that was different about him. And I looked different in that too.”

Herriman only plays Manson for one brief scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but he noted in the interview that he did shoot an additional scene that didn’t make the cut.

Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

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Julia Garner Joins Horror Movie ‘Weapons’ from the Director of ‘Barbarian’

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'Apartment 7A' - Filming Wraps on ‘Relic’ Director's Next Starring “Ozark’s” Julia Garner!
Pictured: Julia Garner in 'We Are What We Are'

In addition to Leigh Whannell’s upcoming Universal Monsters movie Wolf Man, Julia Garner (The Royal Hotel) has also joined the cast of Weapons, THR has announced tonight.

Weapons is the new horror movie from New Line Cinema and director Zach Cregger (Barbarian), with Julia Garner joining the previously announced Josh Brolin (Dune 2).

The upcoming Weapons is from writer/director Zach Cregger, who will also produce alongside his Barbarian producing team: Roy Lee of Vertigo and J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules of BoulderLight Pictures. Vertigo’s Miri Yoon also produces.

The Hollywood Reporter teases, “Plot details for Weapons are being kept holstered but it is described as a multi and inter-related story horror epic that tonally is in the vein of Magnolia, the 1999 actor-crammed showcase from filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson.”

Cregger was a founding member and writer for the New York comedy troupe “The Whitest Kids U’Know,” which he started while attending The School of Visual Arts. The award-winning group’s self-titled sketch comedy show ran for five seasons on IFC-TV and Fuse. He was also a series regular on Jimmy Fallon’s NBC series “Guys with Kids” and the TBS hit series “Wrecked,” and was featured in a recurring role on the NBC series “About a Boy.”

Weapons will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.

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