Marietta Daily Journal interview with Shuler

Screen
Film
TV

Awards

Reviews

Gallery

Media

Articles

Guestbook

Articles & Interviews with Shuler

Actor Shuler Hensley is Marietta's Monster

Andrea Lynn
Marietta Daily Journal May 14, 2004

It wasn't enough for Marietta native Shuler Hensley to watch his movie Van Helsing score $52.4 million in the box office. He had to trump that by adding a new member to his family in the same week!

Hensley and his wife, Paula, welcomed 8-pound, 5-ounce Grayson at WellStar Kennestone Hospital around the same time that more than 150 people came out to celebrate his Van Helsing appearance with a mini-premier party at Town Center 16 in Kennesaw.

For his role as Frankenstein's Monster, the University of Georgia graduate required six hours of makeup in addition to a body suit and stilts that transformed his 6-foot, 3-inch frame to 7-foot, 2-inches. The end result doesn't just alarm movie audiences, but struck fear into the heart of his daughter, Skyler, who will be 4 in July.

"The first day I did a scene, I came over and Paula threw her hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp, and Skyler didn't know what to do," Hensley said. "Then she heard my voice coming out. She'd call me 'Daddy-monster.'"

Filming three months in Los Angeles and three months in Prague, the most daunting part of the production for Hensley was performing his own stunts.

"I've done stage combat before, but this was a whole other ballpark. But just reading the script, I knew this was basically non-stop action adventure," said Hensley, a graduate of Westminster Schools in Buckhead. "My favorite part was being 40 to 50 feet off the ground flying. It's a dream come true."

When Hensley arrived at the Van Helsing audition, director and producer Stephen Sommers remembered him from his Tony Award-winning Broadway performance as unlucky loner Jud Fry in Oklahoma! During the filming for Van Helsing from January to June of last year, Hensley noted the difference between film and theater.

"Well, you can do it over if you mess up," Hensley said. "But there's not that energy and immediacy that you can only get from theater."

Van Helsing chronicles the story of famed monster hunter Dr. Gabriel Van Helsing, played by Hugh Jackman, who heads to eastern Europe to battle with Count Dracula, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's Monster. By Van Helsing's side is Anna Valerious, played by Kate Beckinsale, who is a member of a family committed to ridding the world of evil.

"In the book, Frankenstein's Monster is a big, scary, growling creature. In this movie, he's very articulate and there is a lot of dialogue with other characters in the scenes," Hensley said.

A man of multiple talents, Hensley entered UGA on a baseball scholarship and spent his youth performing with The Georgia Ballet, which was founded and led by his mother, Iris, until her death of pancreatic cancer last August.

The baritone has also performed in Phantom of the Opera in Germany and played the villainous Javert in Les Misérables, and the Jud Fry role in Oklahoma! on the London stage, for which he won an Olivier, a precursor to his Tony Award on Broadway.

"In the end, when you get up there, it's all such a blur," Hensley said on the experience of winning a Tony. "You're in front of 3,500 people, a live audience at home and someone's trying to wrap up your time. It's a surreal experience."

The award has landed in storage because of the constant moving Hensley and his family have done in the past year. Currently, the family is Marietta-bound for a time, staying with his father, Sam, and closer to brother and sister, Sam Hensley Jr. and Nevanne Hensley-Thomas.

« Back to Van Helsing