0:01:00 – Speaker 2
Greetings and citations. My name is Jonathan Nadeau, with you, as always here at Embrace your Storm. We’ve got a couple of show note things here before we get to the episode. We have the Tornado Music and Film Festival coming up August 27th. There’ll be show notes in that coming up. And then one new thing is we’re on Amazon Smile. So if you join SmileAmazoncom, you can choose Tornado as the charity to choose and then go on shopping like you normally do. Nothing changes and Jeff himself will send his money to Tornado due to how much you shop. So we would appreciate that. There’ll be a link in the show notes.
And I need to get to this interview because this is an honor and a privilege, and so today I have on Kane Hodder. He really doesn’t need any more introduction than that. So, kane, thank you so much for coming on and I really appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you so much. Everyone knows a lot about you, but there’s some specific stuff I want to get to that we were able to talk to a little bit before the interview, so uh-oh no, no, no.
So so the one thing that I find fascinating is where I you know, I believe your career began and you probably do is. I heard you talking about when you’re in high school that you just loved to like terrify your friends. And when I say terrify it’s not like jump out of the corner and scare him or, you know, maybe jump out of a tree or something Like I mean, just really scare the but Jesus out of them, and you got much pleasure out of that.
0:02:30 – Speaker 3
And I sure did. It was the highlight of my day to scare one of my friends and, like you said, not startle them, but make them think, oh my God, this guy’s crazy and he’s going to die.
0:02:46 – Speaker 2
Like right, right, Like you would push it to the end when you would do it.
0:02:52 – Speaker 3
I did, and it was all for my own benefit. Really, I just found it so entertaining when, for instance, I would hang off the balcony of a 35 floor hotel with my friends on the balcony. I’m on the outside of the balcony hanging on, letting go with both my hands and then grabbing on again just to watch their reaction, because I’ve never, even as a kid, I never had any kind of fear of heights and I always found it funny that so many people were terrified of heights. So of course, being the asshole that I am, I would just exploit that fear and make myself laugh.
0:03:36 – Speaker 2
That’s actually even funnier now than you know, kind of like more of the deeper answer to that story. So now for you when you’re hanging off the edge like you’re not, you’re not scared, it doesn’t bother you.
0:03:46 – Speaker 3
No, not at all.
0:03:47 – Speaker 2
And so when you’re seeing them being terrified, that’s kind of fueling you doing what you’re doing. Oh, for sure.
0:03:56 – Speaker 3
Laughing at the same time and half of them this was my, my teammates from the basketball team from high school.
0:04:04 – Speaker 2
Yeah.
0:04:04 – Speaker 3
We went from the island we lived on to Hawaii to play a couple of Hawaiian high schools and that’s why we’re at that hotel and to watch some of them look at me and then get so scared they ran back in the building and eventually there’s nobody on the balcony except me on the outside. I climbed back over, laughing my ass off and go to find them and of course I don’t let them off easy. I I’m sure they knew that. I thought they were kind of bitches for being so nervous. A couple of them still talk about that.
0:04:48 – Speaker 2
I would imagine.
0:04:49 – Speaker 3
Like.
0:04:50 – Speaker 2
I’m sure you left it in imprint in their mind for sure.
0:04:53 – Speaker 1
You know like it was.
0:04:56 – Speaker 3
You know what’s. What’s also interesting is that not only did I never have a fear of heights, but, as you know, Jonathan, I got burned back in 1977 in my first year of doing stunts for film, and burned badly half my body, third degree, lots of skin grass, five and a half months in the hospital, all that stuff. And even with that I never had a fear of fire after that and continued doing fire stunts a little differently than I did before. I’d have proper safety precautions in place. Where that’s the tough thing is when you’re young in the stunt business. You’re all gung-ho and you tend to not worry about safety as much as you should oh, okay, yeah, Stunt looks great, and you don’t take every single precaution as you do once you’ve been around for a while and become a veteran, saying, look, I probably don’t need to do this, but why not do it just in case? And so then you get a little smarter and most people that are killed as stunt people are killed early in their career because of reasons of like that.
0:06:16 – Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, that’s actually what’s interesting. You know, when you got burned like that, obviously you got some downtime. You know skin grafts and all that. I was going to ask like what was kind of the thing that you learned from it? But I mean, you just basically kind of said it, like you know, I should have just been more careful, like that’s where you got to go.
0:06:34 – Speaker 3
What it is. It’s a fine line to walk in the stunt business where you want everything to look as dramatic as possible because that keeps you working but also not compromising safety as much. So it’s tough because if you’re too safe then most of your stunt activity doesn’t look that dramatic. So it’s a tough situation but I always enjoyed that challenge, you know.
0:07:04 – Speaker 2
What was some of your favorite stunts?
0:07:12 – Speaker 3
Some of my favorite stunts that I’ve done in my career are the fire ones where, like, for instance, I did a full burn, where you’re on fire head to toe as Jason in part seven in my first Friday, the 13th movie, and that, to this date, is still my favorite fire stunt I’ve done. What do you have to?
0:07:34 – Speaker 2
do to prepare for that to like be, because I mean, you prepare for that. Like what are you wearing? Like what do you have to?
0:07:41 – Speaker 3
Yeah, there’s all kinds of different layers put on and the fuel is important. That’s what burned me when I did get burned was I used a different fuel and didn’t test it ahead of time, which is pretty stupid really, but I didn’t think it was necessary. I thought we used to use rubber cement. We still do a lot because it burns.
So orange, it looks fantastic and it’s on you, but I use rubber cement and I don’t know if you know this part, but the day before I got burned, I had done the same fire stunt with the same reporter and when I saw the pictures of it, I didn’t like how it looked because it was too windy, so it was blowing the fire down and it didn’t look as dramatic. Okay, and this is how wow, so ironic things are. But yeah, it was windy because I was six feet from a lake and because of the water being there, the wind was too much. So we went out the next day to do the stunt again. I did. I didn’t have any more rubber cement, so I had hurt, bring some. I didn’t test it and it was far more volatile.
0:08:54 – Speaker 2
It was like a different brand or kind of yeah, yeah.
0:08:58 – Speaker 3
And I was in the desert now. Oh no, If I had gotten out of control on fire the previous day, I would have jumped in the lake and barely burned. But this time, you know the powers that be thought, ah, let’s burn him up out in the desert where he can’t get himself put out.
0:09:17 – Speaker 2
So that’s the right right. Like you know, I think someone had told me wear gloves a lot. Is that why you wear gloves a lot?
0:09:26 – Speaker 3
At least they said they kind of well, I mean, I do wear gloves when I’m doing signings, and it’s only because I don’t mind people seeing my scars, because I got scars over half my body. But when I’m signing something, people are looking at what I’m signing. I used to get the question so many times what happened to your hands, right, right, and I again, I don’t mind talking about it. But when it’s so often, I started wearing gloves and even though my whole arms are burned, nobody ever asks anymore.
0:09:59 – Speaker 2
So I guess you’re bringing attention to your hands.
0:10:04 – Speaker 3
So, and now it’s my kind of my signature. People are used to seeing it, so someone mentioned to me. There’s a lot of scratching again.
0:10:15 – Speaker 2
Have you done any like car stunts or, like you know, driving fast and smashing cars or whatever? Well, many, many, many.
0:10:23 – Speaker 3
Okay, yeah, would be my second favorite part of stunts. Okay, Because car stuff I used to oh my God, I used to work on Dukes of Hazard. I don’t get it Doing driving all kinds of big action movies like Enemy of the State, that’s cool. I used to play with a weapon three, I think it was, or four, three or four demolition man, you know.
0:10:48 – Speaker 2
Did you have any? Did you do anything terrifying when you’re, you know, younger, as the kid with your driver’s license, with your friends? Like would you? You wouldn’t put, would you ever put? Like not, I wouldn’t say them in danger, but would you do terrifying Always?
0:10:59 – Speaker 3
Yeah, I’d put them in danger for my own anything. At least you’re honest, I didn’t want to go down that road just in case. People know I’m not right in the head.
0:11:12 – Speaker 2
That’s funny. But hey, they kept hanging out with you, man, so you know why? Cause you’re entertaining, cause you’re scared of the crap out of them. You know Cause I’m not boring.
0:11:21 – Speaker 3
That’s ridiculous.
0:11:23 – Speaker 2
That is so funny. Hey, speak like circling back around to kind of like your, your burn, you know when you, when you got burned Well, not when you got burned. But one thing that I also noticed is you were at a. It might have been like I don’t know if it was necessarily like a burn victim. Yeah, it was like a burn victim unit in like a hospital somewhere and you’re doing an interview and what I said I I like to talk about this more is you know, when you’re at this thing and you’re talking to, you’re just like you know.
If it wasn’t for me getting this part of Jason and being you know, having this role and being a part of this, I wouldn’t be able to do this here. What I’m doing now and I’m assuming you’re kind of waving your arms down around you know and being like you know, being able to do this burn victim stuff, and I love that. You acknowledged and recognized that. Hey, you know this can be used for some good stuff and obviously you are affected by it. So that that’s closer to home for you. But I just really appreciated that you I don’t want like it’s not taken advantage or whatever, but you’re using the, the where you are and the platform in life where you are for some good.
0:12:22 – Speaker 3
Making the best out of a situation.
0:12:24 – Speaker 2
That’s how I looked at it Totally, totally.
0:12:28 – Speaker 3
I like I’d still be able to volunteer at burn units. And just so you know, the preferred term is burn survivor, burn survivor, okay, burn survivor, because we, we, you know people feel like you were a victim, but now you survived. So right.
Okay, okay, but anyway, you know I’d be able to do the burn unit thing to help current patients, just because I know how valuable it is to have somebody talk to you. That’s been through it. Hmm, totally so, the point being like, when I was in the burn unit, for instance I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this quick story, but I was in the burn unit and you know, with with an injury like this, I have no idea how it is to deal with what you’ve been through yeah, for me I ended up with quite a bit of PTSD issues, I can imagine, and while I was in the burn unit and you know, five and a half months, which is way too long, for I was only in the hospital for a month and a half.
0:13:34 – Speaker 2
So you you had you were in way longer than me.
0:13:37 – Speaker 3
I was in the hospital for months for for 50% burns Wow.
0:13:42 – Speaker 2
I didn’t realize it was that much Normally like.
0:13:45 – Speaker 3
Well, like, what I was going to lead up to was I was very depressed after like four months in the hospital and not really healing that well and going through a lot of mind stuff, because I was 22 and, like you, I didn’t realize you were that young, wow yeah. And so I’m kind of bummed out and depressed. And I see, you know, in a burn unit all of the patients rooms have windows to the nurses station so that the nurses at all times from the nurses station can look at each patient and make sure everything’s okay. So there’s windows there, okay, and I’m in my bed, depressed as hell, in ridiculous amount of pain, and I see a guy come in that’s all you know, gowned up and everything, because you have to do that in the burn unit. It’s a self-contained um carol unit and he comes in and he’s talking to the nurses and I’m just watching him from my bed and he’s joking around and laughing his ass off and having a good old time and I’m looking at him saying fuck you, you, you lucky motherfucker, you don’t know anything about what I’m going through and you’re all happy and I’m not, you know. So I got a little bitter and then I looked at him closer and I saw he doesn’t have any fingers on either hand. And then I saw, because he had a hair net and a mask on. Then I realized he was severely burned.
Okay, and had been a patient in that burn unit. He was burned 90 percent. We worked for the gas company and a gas line exploded on him oh, my goodness, 90 percent. He was in the hospital for you know eight months or something in that same unit and he came back to visit the, the staff, like we all do. Yeah, yeah, we like to show off how you know we’re doing. So it makes us feel good to come back see the staff and they oh, wow, you look great. All that and that turned me around, without even talking to the guy at the time, you know, I just said wait a minute, he’s worse off. He was worse off than me and he looks fucking happy and he’s laughing and I was like is that possible to get through this and be happy with your life again? And he completely turned me around and never knew it.
0:16:11 – Speaker 2
I told that story actually. Yeah, at 22 too it’s uh, I had not the same sort of realization, but you know it’s good. That we came to our realization is the way we did and we kind of came out of our stuff the way we did, you know, yeah, because you could choose the different path, for sure, and people do often, and you can’t really blame them necessarily.
0:16:35 – Speaker 3
It’s more it’s more admirable when you can get through it, but unless you’ve been through something fucking horrible like this and sorry about my language- no problem. Okay, no problem. Unless you’ve been through something really, really bad, you can’t imagine that you might get to the point of saying this is not worth it anymore that’s.
0:16:56 – Speaker 2
It’s seriously. It’s very true that again, having someone going through a, you know, pretty traumatic, it’s really true, like when you hear people say like, oh, I don’t know why they don’t get over, it’s like you don’t understand. Yeah, you know, like it, some people just deal with it.
0:17:14 – Speaker 3
But yeah, that’s an amazing story so here’s another interesting little tidbit, november 2nd this past yeah all the heart attack. So you know, and everything is good. Yeah, everything was fixed and and all is good, and it’s been, you know whatever seven, eight months, but it’s just a yet another hurdle to overcome, you know. So that’s why people say I’m hard to kill.
0:17:52 – Speaker 2
There you go, Always coming back around. One other thing that I, you know I have the time that I want to bring up too that I saw was interesting. You know, having been in the industry, I thought this was cool. I didn’t know that you actually took part in this project. It was, like you know, more of a technology thing where you had like the synaptic feedback stuff set up, you know, hooked up to your body and everything to trace like your movements in a video game. Like what was that like experience like for you, Like to be sort of doing that and being like wow, like I’m the model for the movement of this, like character in a game. Like what was that like?
0:18:33 – Speaker 3
Well, and it was my character, right, right.
And the Friday the 13th video game and the term is motion capture, and the company that was doing the game basically insisted that they thought I should do the motion capture for Jason, because fans enjoy how I played the character and stuff, and they thought gamers would respond to the same type of performance.
Because, let’s face it, you know it’s animation, so it really didn’t have to be me, but I was just very happy that they thought it should. And it’s a strange situation that you’re in because of what you’re wearing. You’re wearing spandex with sensors everywhere and on a grid work floor and you know there’s no kind of set, there’s no makeup, there’s no wardrobe, nothing. But it was still easy because it was my character. So I felt right at home doing the scenes, even though it didn’t look the same, it wasn’t that hard to get used to. And now I don’t know if you know, but we’re doing a new game, the same company, and, along with the Friday the 13th game, we are now doing a Texas chainsaw massacre game and I’m doing the motion capture for leather face. So it’s fun to be back on the motion capture stage, absolutely.
0:19:59 – Speaker 2
I think the I’m figuring out. I feel like the horror industry pushes envelope as far as, like, when it comes to the production or the performance of, like the film or whatever itself. Like you really push the envelope when it comes to, like technology, cinematography, like you know, effects, all kinds of stuff like that, honestly, it’s cool. Yeah. And what one other thing, ken. I’d like this circle back around to one last thing. I’d like to kind of like the burn, the burn unit. Like when you visit people, do you have conversations like I don’t know how badly you’re burnt, like maybe on your face or your arms or whatever, but do you deal with people being like well, no one’s ever going to look at me the same, or whatever, and like do you kind of come back being like, hey, look at me, I’m not, you know, I’m in movies and I’m burnt, you know, or whatever. Like do you talk to people that way or have conversations? Oh yeah, I mean not blatantly like that.
0:20:56 – Speaker 3
Well yeah, I’m being blatantly like that and you know that. First of all, several times I have asked to see someone in a burn unit because of their age or whatever. I think I could help them and I’ll kind of get met with. Yeah, they’re not really into it, they’re. They’re kind of like depressed right now and they don’t really want to talk to anybody. And then they’ll mention about the Jason thing and all of a sudden that’ll swing the engine direction so that they say wait a minute, he’s a burn survivor and he does the movies I like. Maybe I will talk to him. Exactly.
It kind of tips it a little bit in the favor. Not that that’s the most important thing, certainly, but it’s another aspect to me coming in and talking to them when we can talk about other things that they and myself have in common, like the, the horror angle, but also the burns at the same time. So, yeah, it’s, it’s just a huge help in getting access to people, because I just know how much it helps, and not because of who, the character I play or anything, but just because I know how you feel, man, when you are in the burn unit at the time and doctors tell you what to expect or how you should feel. In your mind you’re saying you don’t fucking know. Don’t tell me what to expect when you haven’t been there.
0:22:32 – Speaker 2
But just because you see it, let me talk to somebody that has. Okay, yeah, and again I love the story that I told because you said it yourself like you didn’t even talk to this particular guy or anything. He didn’t even say anything to you, you just got to see him and that was enough for you to just be like All right, like like that kind of gave you the, the one kind of line of you know silver lining or whatever, and you’re like All right, I actually can turn this around.
0:22:58 – Speaker 3
Yep. And it came at the perfect time where I was at my most depressed and thinking Okay, now I’m 22, for the rest of my life I’m gonna have people staring at me, right, if I’m at a pool or something because of my scars, and how good is that gonna be now that I’m 22, just be right. Seriously, yeah, you know, and yeah, and you know. So you got to get past all of that stuff and I still carry the ptsd. I can imagine lingering aspects.
0:23:32 – Speaker 2
You know, yeah, I can imagine like Is. Is it sort of like not loud sparks or anything, but as if you see fire?
0:23:40 – Speaker 3
Yeah, nothing, Nothing at all. But if I can still set myself on fire after that, I’m either one stupid motherfucker or I’ve overcome it.
0:23:55 – Speaker 2
Okay, I really, really appreciate your time. I think Thank you for opening up on these roads and it was great talking with about these things and I I appreciate your, your creativity and you know that that’s what we’re about here and it’s amazing what you’ve done with it and the career you’ve had and what you’ve you’ve done and and overcoming even you know the burn and, uh, you know Probably that really fueled, you know that choice of words but fuels your fire to kind of carry on and that’s a good choice of words.
0:24:25 – Speaker 3
Oh, like that you know and I have to tell you there’s not many people that I’ve ever talked to that, um, I Admire what you’ve been through and how you’ve handled it, and the fact that you’re doing this stuff and and helping people With other similar situations get through it. So Thank you for doing what you do. And I can’t, you know, imagine just like you can’t imagine how it is to burn to death, almost right. I can’t imagine losing my sight. So I hear you.
You know, uh, I I think you should be applauded and I really appreciate you even wanting me to be involved, uh, on your show.
0:25:07 – Speaker 2
So thank you very much. Thank you, kane and everyone. I thank you for listening. Don’t forget the august 27th coming up. Don’t forget the amazon thing and embrace your storm and create something out there. Thank you.
0:25:20 – Speaker 3
That’s right, and make sure you Uh, I’m talking to the, the fans out there Make sure you Listen watch the show that jonathan just mentioned. Uh, because if you don’t, I’ll kill you.
0:25:32 – Speaker 2
Thank you, kane that was perfect, that was the best. Thank you so much. Thanks, man.
0:25:38 – Speaker 3
See you.
0:25:40 – Speaker 1
Tornado with jonathan nado. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe now so you’re first to hear new episodes with more stories of inspiration about the highs and lows of life and how embracing the storm Is so much more fulfilling of a life than being crushed by the weight of the world. And until then, we hope you’re inspired to do something, whether it’s creating, participating or learning, whatever leads you to your personal passion.
