Hellraiser is one of those film franchises that started strong but never reached the heights of the first two films. A new revival and incarnation of the series is on the way, starring Jamie Clayton as Pinhead, becoming the fourth person and first woman to play the leader of the Cenobites.
First introduced in the novella The Hellbound Heart, the figure of Pinhead didn’t have a name yet, but was notable in the text for being a charismatic, androgynous being with a feminine voice—making Clayton a wonderful candidate for playing this role. Her performance in Hellraiser is one of the absolute standouts because you can tell it wasn’t made just to be a copy we have seen before.
During an interview with the actress, I asked the gay icon what it was like to play a gay icon based on a novel by a gay icon. “I love that,” she laughed. “I love when people throw things at me like icon and legend.” She continued to say about becoming Pinhead, “It was a huge task to step in. These are very big blood-soaked shoes to fill. I didn’t want to copy or reproduce anything that Doug [Jones] had done before because of course his performance is unmatched on every level.” With director David Bruckner, there were conversations about how to build these ideas of how “The Priest” would look and her voice and posture.
“David gave [us] the time to play with different intentions,” Clayton said. And the result was that even when she finally watched the film, there were moments where she could see all of those different moments coming together.
Hellraiser comes out exclusively on Hulu as a Hulu original film on October 7. You can check out our full interviews below:
(image: Disney Platform Distribution/Hulu)
