‘Chucky’ Star Devon Sawa Was Never Supposed to Make It Past Season 1
Actor Devon Sawa returned to his horror movie roots when he was recruited for the scyfy series Chucky. Sawa was originally only supposed to last one season, but plans changed.
Devon Sawa shared his season 2 return was a complete surprise
Sawa was given double duty as an actor when he was cast in creator Don Manchini’s Chucky series. He portrayed twins Lucas and Logan Wheeler, brothers in completely different places in their lives. The actor was already very familiar with the horror genre, having starred in films like Final Destination and The Exorcism of Molly Hartley.
After taking a brief hiatus from the film industry, Sawa was offered a starring role in Mancini’s Chucky. He gladly accepted the part since it was different than anything else he’d done, which Sawa felt was a pattern in his career.
“I tried to be talked out of Idle Hands, a movie about pot smokers,” he told Men’s Health. “And then I remember my managers and agents telling me a music video with a white rapper would never work. I just tried to take all these things that were a little bit different from what everyone else was doing. I think Chucky was also that thing.”
Manchini only had Sawa in mind for one season. But the showrunner then decided to have Sawa return in Chucky’s second season as a different character. It’s a practice Sawa hopes will be a series tradition.
“I am praying [the same thing] happens, so I could put up pictures of headshots of all the different characters that I play on the show. That wasn’t the plan at the beginning of the first season. I was leaving the show. When Mancini called me and said ‘Hey, we’re going to bring you back to play a new character,’ it was probably one of the most flattering things to be told as an artist,” Sawa said.
What other characters might Devon Sawa be interested in playing for ‘Chucky’
Having the same actor playing different characters in the same television series isn’t anything new. Ryan Murphy is well-known for applying this same practice in American Horror Story with actors like Sarah Paulson and Jessica Lange. Mancini even joked that’s the exact direction where the franchise is going with Sawa.
“In the way that Ryan Murphy would bring actors back in different roles [on American Horror Story], I guess Devon Sawa is this franchise’s Jessica Lange,” Mancini told Entertainment Weekly not too long ago.
This opens the door for Sawa to potentially play several new characters within the Chucky series. Still, despite the possibilities, Sawa doesn’t have any preferences on who to play. His plan is to simply step aside and let Mancini do his job.
“I’ve told myself to let Mancini be Mancini. I don’t give many ideas. He’s steering this ship and doing a very good job. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Whatever he has next year, we’re going to build on that,” Sawa said.
Why Devon Sawa found his role in season 1 of ‘Chucky’ challenging
The prospect of playing two characters at the same time was exciting for Sawa. But doing a role like that could be difficult for the actor. Especially since, despite him playing twins, the characters’ personalities couldn’t be anymore different.
“I play Logan and Lucas Wheeler. They are twins. Lucas is the more broken, highly flawed of the two twins. And Logan is his very successful, over-achieving brother. They both have some problems that they are dealing with,” Sawa said in an interview with 9 Entertainment. “There’s one particular scene, a dinner scene, where I sit next to myself and we have a full-out argument. To make sure I had both characters down, and they were both different enough but similar enough to be twins. It was a lot of fun, but challenging.”
In season 2, Sawa was re-cast as the character Father Bryce.
