The following are highlights of a new The Rack interview with Kane:
What can we expect from Jacob Goodnight in ‘See No Evil 2’: “Well, this is going to be a little bit different than ‘See No Evil’; the girls who directed this film are twins, Jen and Sylvia Soska, and they have a huge following in the horror genre and are going to be the next big thing in horror. What’s really interesting about ‘See No Evil 2’ for me, and I just got to see the finished copy the other day, is the fact that despite the film is dealing with disturbing material, is a beautifully shot movie. It’s beautiful; the cinematography is awesome, and the soundtrack is great and it’s really a contrast as you are dealing with this disturbing material and violence and everything but also you’re going ‘Wow, this is really pretty’. What we also tried to do was to try and bring more depth to the characters and to actually have not to your stereotypical slasher movie; let’s make it a movie where you cared about the people in the movie and hopefully that brings about more emotional involvement and not just the visceral visual effects but the fact that you’re like ‘Oh, I really like that person’ and hopefully it makes it a little more scary that way.”
If he got more creative freedom in portraying Jacob Goodnight in the sequel: “Yes, I guess I did actually. There were a couple of scenes that were added to the movie, that weren’t in the original script, that me and the Soska sisters fought for that sort of rounded Jacob out, bringing him more to life and making him more of a human being than a character. I was really happy about that.
You still explore the relationship with his mother, even despite the fact that his mother is no longer with us, she still has a tremendous impact on his psychology and on his emotions. In fact, in the first movie ‘See No Evil’, the mother was the real villain, not Jacob. In this one, she’s still the dominant aspect of his life.”
What was it like working for the Soska Sisters, a set of female directors: “We meshed really well, because they are not your typical females; they are huge WWE fans and they’re probably into all the stuff us guys are into. So, they were really great and what was really interesting about working with them is despite the fact they are two people, at times it’s like you are dealing with one mind because Jen would often be on the floor and directing the action and Sylvia would be watching on the monitor and you’d go through a scene and they’d be tweaks and they wouldn’t talk to each other; Jen would just talk to you differently and you’d do the scene again and Sylvia would go ‘OK, that’s good.’ You’d be like, ‘wait a second, how… did they see through each other’s eyes, or what’s going on?!’
So, at first, I was worried, thinking how are you going to work with two directors? because the director is the boss, they’re the ones who have the final say in what’s going on and how are you going to do it if there’s two of them? But what was really cool about it was it was like you were still just working with one and instead of competing and butting heads, they actually augmented one another. So, it was really an interesting experience.”
Does he enjoy the fact that recently he’s been able to explore different aspects of the Kane Character (Team Hell No, Corporate Kane, The Big Red Machine): “No, absolutely; I’m having a lot of fun. The Team Hell No stuff with Daniel Bryan has probably been the most fun I’ve ever had in WWE because it was something complete different than anything I’d ever done before. I’d always been a very curious character and here we are providing the comic relief to the show. So, if you’d asked people before we did Team Hell No that Kane was going to be the guy you were laughing at, who would have said yes, right?
So, that was a lot of fun and with The Authority now, with Corporate Kane, it’s also very gratifying for me because now he’s sort of a normal person, but underneath it, you have that underlying fact he’s a monster and now he has political power, which is really scary. So, I do have a lot of fun doing different things because as a performer it gets stale when you’re doing just one thing for years and years and years. So, I’m grateful for the opportunity to do different characters.”
What does he think of the newer crop of Superstars like Bray Wyatt and The Shield: “I think they’re going to be great; I think they’re great now, you know? They provide a lot of energy, new ideas; they’re hungry. The thing I noticed when I worked against The Shield (Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns) was the fact that those guys were confident; they knew they were going to be successful, no matter what it took. That’s the kind of attitude you need. So, I’ve really enjoyed working with the younger guys because they have that freshness and that hungry that actually revitalizes me at times.
There’s all sorts of different dynamics going on now too and that’s what makes our product really interesting; when it’s not straight forward and there’s all sorts of different things going on between everybody and that’s what’s going on now. So I think, moving forward through Hell in a Cell and afterwards, it’s going to be quite interesting.”
His favorite Hell in a Cell moments: “Well, my favorite would have to be, of course, my debut and ripping the door off and going in and giving a tombstone piledriver to The Undertaker and having Vince (McMahon) screaming ‘That’s gotta be Kane!’; that would far and away have to be my favorite moment.
Even though it wasn’t at a Hell in a Cell PPV, I’ll never forget the match between Undertaker and Mankind at King of the Ring in Pittsburgh; when Mick went off the cell and then through the cell. That was one of those things that sort of rocketed the Attitude Era into the stratosphere.”
The weirdest thing he’s ever gotten from a fan: “I haven’t gotten a lot of weird stuff; I’ve gotten a lot of stuffed animals, which is different, but probably the weirdest thing that’s ever happened or the most uncomfortable thing that’s ever happened was I received a fan letter at my house. It was really, really nice and it was from a gentleman who was interested in promoting drug awareness and gang resistance and that sort of thing, and it was really great except the fact that he was going to do that once he got out of prison; so yeah, the letter had come from prison. I don’t get a whole lot of really weird stuff.”
Check out the complete interview at WildTalkRadio.com.