Eric McCormack is an actor that most wouldn’t associate with the horror genre, but that is all going to change with Slasher: Ripper. In the newest season of Shudder’s anthology horror series, McCormack plays charismatic 19th-century tycoon Basil Garvey, a man who is as ruthless as he is successful, and whose villainy is rivaled by a mysterious new serial killer known as The Widow. PopCulture.com had a chance to speak with McCormack about the new show and his role, which he says is “the most delicious thing I’ve ever chewed on.”
Discussing why he wanted to take the role, McCormack explained, “It’s not, first and foremost, my bread and butter, as you probably know, but I think I was three scenes into reading the first episode, and I called my agent, I said, ‘I’m in.’ This character is the most delicious thing I’ve ever chewed on. And you’ll see I do a lot of chewing. It’s fantastic.” Noting that “there’s not been a lot” of projects in his past that touch on horror, he did not that one role from his repertoire was quite similar. “Almost 30 years ago now, I was a similar bad guy on Lonesome Dove: The Series, particularly in the second season.” He then quipped, “I wasn’t evil, I was just a bastard.”
Comparing his Lonesome Dove: The Series role to Basil, McCormack offered, “This guy is 10 times that, and his willingness to kill, to maim, to do whatever it takes is really quite astounding. Because that’s the thing, he’s not first and foremost a killer… he’s not a serial killer. He’ll just do whatever it takes to wield and maintain power.”
The actor went on to say, “There’s a couple of things that I do in this series, that Basil does, that we almost couldn’t stop laughing on set because it’s so unforgivable. He’s unredeemable. And the only thing that does redeem him, as you’ll see in the first episode is he falls for this girl. Granted, she’s 40 years younger than him, but his feelings are: he genuinely falls in love. And it’s such a confusing thing, I think, for the audience because they’re going to hate him. They’re going to love to hate him, but that’s going to be like… It’s creepy as hell. And yet the one genuine streak of humanity he has is his feelings for Verdi,” the character played by Sadie Laflamme-Snow.
While Basil is undeniably nefarious, The Widow is equally so, but almost in an opposite manner. While Basil’s cruelty is out of self-preservation, The Widow is a veiled exactor of vengeance. “The threat of this character, it’s a great character, is that she’s like, everybody’s shadow,” McCormack said of The Widow. “Everyone in this as you know, I’m sure, from Slasher in the past, everyone’s kind of an a—hole… Everyone’s completely self-involved. So this sort of shadowy character, I think Basil does look and go, ‘Holy a cow. I may have met my match in this one.’ She can get to anyone and she’s as ruthless as he is.
McCormack then noted the cleverness of how Slasher creator Aaron Martin and showrunner Ian Carpenter crafted the new season. “The mystery side of this, Aaron and Ian, I love their writing,” he said. “I love their dialogue, but the fact that we go eight episodes and I dare anyone to figure out who The Widow is.”
Revisiting his comment that “everyone’s kind of an a—hole,” McCormack clarified, “There’s actually a few in Slasher: Ripper that are genuinely good people, but not that many… And even they get a little corrupted, which is really, I think, interesting.” He then offered a comparison to some recent popular whodunit, saying, “I look at something like these two Knives Out movies that came out that were so popular. I mean not anywhere as bloody as Slasher, but everyone is equally kind of despicable. You’ve got reasons to almost want it to be that guy or that woman… I think that makes it more interesting.”
Finally, McCormack shared some behind-the-scenes details about filming Slasher: Ripper, revealing, “We shot all eight episodes in the space that a Canadian series the Murdoch Mysteries used for 16 years. Shortly after finishing, I directed an episode of Murdoch Mysteries. Same space. So I was on my Slasher sets, but we redress for Murdoch as they’re meant to be.”
He added, “They’re both period shows so it gave me a chance to immerse myself in that turn-of-the-century thing again. Which is just, that gothic thing, I think it adds to the horror, it adds to the mystery. You can smell the horses and the streets are filthy and it was very cool. Every house becomes a haunted house in 1900, just by the creek of a stair, it’s all candle lit. We did the lighting with actual candlelight, which was pretty great.” The first two episodes of Slasher: Ripper are now streaming on Shudder and AMC+, with new episodes rolling out weekly on Thursdays.
