‘Chucky’ Season 3 – Brad and Fiona Dourif Discuss Sharing the Screen

The Big Picture

• Brad Dourif and daughter Fiona Dourif discuss their scene together in
  Chucky
  Season 3 in this interview with Collider.
• The duo share memories from the
  Child’s Play
  premiere, what it was like working together for the first time, and why Brad Dourif didn’t want to do ADR over Fiona’s original work.
• The father and daughter also share a family secret that will shock the horror community.

By the time Fiona Dourif earned her role as Nica Pierce in 2013’s Curse of Chucky, her father, Brad Dourif, had already been a part of the Child’s Play family for more than two decades. Dourif, who has an impressive list of credits to his name, including an Academy Award-nominated turn in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, has been with the franchise since the debut film, 1988’s Child’s Play, made dolls scary again (were they ever not?). Now, more than 10 years since her first foray into Don Mancini’s horror universe, Fiona Dourif is still going strong alongside her father in the uber-successful Syfy and USA Network series, Chucky.

Having just wrapped its third season, the latest installment was filled with twists and tricks as the titular killer doll sharpened his knives and got in some crafty kills at the White House. For both fans and the Dourif family, it was a particularly exciting season as Brad Dourif returned to the screen in his corporeal form for the first time since the opening moments of the 1988 movie. Another goosebump-inducing sequence saw father and daughter share a scene, with Fiona Dourif playing a younger version of her dad’s character, Charles Lee Ray, aka Chucky. While she’s donned prosthetics and makeup to appear as the youthful serial killer in the seasons prior, this was the first time she and her dad were face-to-face on camera.

During an interview with Collider, I spoke with the Dourifs and dug into what it was like for both of them during this special once-in-a-lifetime moment and chatted with Fiona Dourif about her childhood memories of growing up with her father voicing a killer doll.

The Father and Daughter’s Scene Together Was “A Long Time Coming”

COLLIDER: Congrats on another awesome season of Chucky, you guys. Another one in the books. I know you guys have worked together before on Deadwood, or have at least both appeared on that show, but the big one, that you’ve come together now for Chucky. How was that for y’all, and this season in particular, that you’re both physically there? And Brad, how is it seeing your daughter as a younger version of you?

BRAD DOURIF: I’ll answer the last one first. I was doing ADR — and you see these pieces of film go by — and I said, “Stop.” I looked at this thing, and I was leaning against a bar, and I said, “I don’t remember shooting that,” and they said, “It’s not you, Brad. It’s Fiona.” So that was my first time really seeing it. I mean, she totally confused me. I thought she did a beautiful job. I had to ADR her, and I seriously regretted it because I thought the way she did it was kind of better than the way I would have done it.

FIONA DOURIF: It was a long time coming. We’ve never been in a scene before. We rehearsed it two or three times on different days before we did it and didn’t wanna rehearse it too much. And then it was looking at somebody that I trust more than any other person, which was really comforting.

Yeah, that must be nice.

BRAD DOURIF: The thing is, when Fiona and I did auditions — and Fiona was actually living with Claudia [Handler] and I for a while — and then beyond that, she would come over and we would do the auditions together.

FIONA DOURIF: This was a long time ago. I haven’t lived with him in a very, very long time. [Laughs]

BRAD DOURIF: We were very used to working together in that way. I mean, it felt very familiar.

I just have to add that, truly, when you first popped up in the makeup in Season 1, it blew my mind. It did take me a second. As somebody who’s always told that they look like their dad, I was like, “This is genius that they did this.”

FIONA DOURIF: I didn’t think it was going to work, but it was very fun to do. It was much more unsettling than I thought it was going to be in Season 1. It is a testament to MindWarp FX out of Toronto, who’s Tenille Shockey and François Dagenais. They did all of the heavy lifting. Three-and-a-half to four hours later I looked in the mirror, and I had quit smoking at the time, and I smoked a cigarette that day. I couldn’t tell exactly what was happening, why I was so uncomfortable. The whole thing I found very emotionally confusing. [Laughs] I mean, I feel really lucky. It’s so fun and intimate, and incestuous, and really fun. People like it. It just feels like I won a lottery. I’m not even just saying that as lip service. It’s actually what the series feels like.

The Dourif Family’s Secret Fear

I guess that that also kind of segues me into my next question for you. I presume that a lot of your childhood was spent on the set of different movies from at least Child’s Play. Do you have any specific funny memories? We will also take traumatic memories.

FIONA DOURIF: I have one main memory of Child’s Play. So I was seven, and I have a memory of turning a corner, walking into an office and my dad behind a glass pan, screaming like he’s dying. I didn’t understand what was happening, and I ran.

That’s terrifying.

FIONA DOURIF: And that’s basically all I remember. I also maybe have a fabricated memory of being at the premiere. Do you think I was at the premiere, Dad?

BRAD DOURIF: Yeah.

FIONA DOURIF: You think so?

BRAD DOURIF: Yeah.

FIONA DOURIF: I think I remember that, also. Why did you let me watch that movie?

BRAD DOURIF: Because you couldn’t watch it.

FIONA DOURIF: I looked down the whole time. [Laughs]

BRAD DOURIF: No way would you sit in the seat and watch that movie, so there was no problem. You went out, sat outside, and I went and joined you for a while.

FIONA DOURIF: Oh, fun fact. The Dourifs get too scared to watch blood. Both of us pass out at the sight of real blood, and we can’t watch gore. I like horror, but I often have to look away in the scary scenes. [Laughs]

I love that. That is a very fun fact.

FIONA DOURIF: And Brad Dourif can’t handle them for one minute. He gets too scared.

Season 3 of Chucky is now available to stream on Peacock.

Watch On Peacock