David Hayter: Now that I'm a professional writer it's a little more di...

The most challenging work is producing. The physical act of getting a production up and running is extremely taxing, and you never have any guarantee that your years of work on any given project will ever bear fruit.

David Hayter

challenging-work running years

Acting is the most pure fun as far as jobs go, but it can be limiting in terms of freedom of expression. You are never the master of the story, just a part of it. But writing and directing give you the power of the gods.

David Hayter

writing fun jobs

A vampire is very easy; you just take a very good-looking actor, put some teeth on them, make them pale, and you're there.

David Hayter

vampire teeth actors

While the storytelling in games is getting so much better, you look at something like Grand Theft Auto V, which I thought was really beautifully written, it doesn't really need a movie because it is a movie. So I think you need a unique game - you either need an incredibly talented writer and director to come in and put together an amazing vision, or you need a game like Metal Gear, which is very cinematic, has a huge amount of history behind it, but whose cinematic experience is very different from what you'd get in a theater.

David Hayter

unique games thinking

Zombies - obviously they're doing it in a much more expansive way on The Walking Dead - basically, what you used to do is you put a bunch of goo on an actor and have them shamble towards you, and it's a very effective creature. It always has tremendous impact, just that feeling of death coming for you; that's universally accepted.

David Hayter

walking-dead impact feelings

To turn a human being into a part-canine or lupine creature takes a good deal of artistry and money.

David Hayter

canine turns deals

It's important to continue to change and evolve in the way that the comics change and evolve.

David Hayter

evolve important way

When a horror movie is well done, I love it and I put it up in esteem with any other genre.

David Hayter

genre horror done

When I was a kid I was really into horror films. I watched every single horror film that came out in the 80s.

David Hayter

horror film kids

All sizes of film sets have the same level of excitement and friction and tension and then vast sections of boredom that define the process, so I love it all.

David Hayter

size boredom levels

I was beating Amanda Lim to death with the tire iron, I accidently hit her in the finger. It was a fake tire iron, but it was run through with metal in the middle and when she looked up after the take, she was crying and it really hurt her and so I felt pretty terrible about that, but they got back at me when I had my big fight with Casey at the end and she just beat the bejesus out of me, being the amazing stuntwoman that she is.

David Hayter

fighting hurt running

I love acting. I think that's the best job in the world, but I don't really enjoy the career of it so much. You don't have as much control over your life or the material as you do, well, certainly when you're a director or a producer, so while I love acting, I prefer to make my living as a filmmaker, but my rule on acting is if somebody asks me to do a part, I'll do it.

David Hayter

careers jobs thinking

Now it's been fifteen years, nine games, and an enormous blast to undertake. If it were my choice, I would do this role forever. To hear anyone else's voice coming from Snake's battered throat, makes me a little ill, to be honest.

David Hayter

snakes voice games

Movies are designed to tell us stories, engage us on an emotional level and keep our attention. This can be done with a wide range of emotional triggers - Love, adrenaline, comedy. But fear is a highly potent sensation.

David Hayter

emotional stories attention

If you can get an audience to identify themselves with a character, they will subconsciously feel that their own lives are in danger. People tend to pay attention in situations like that. I think fear is the easiest, and most visceral, emotion to activate in an audience.

David Hayter

character people thinking

Number one rule in Hollywood is to maintain relationships with successful people, and you may find yourself involved in some very cool projects.

David Hayter

successful numbers people

I think American Werewolf in London is the greatest werewolf movie of all time.

David Hayter

werewolf london thinking

You can argue that the Terminator movies reboot their world each time they go back in time, but that doesn't negate the value of Terminator 1 and 2. So I don't really feel that way.

David Hayter

arguing way world

Comic books, if you're adapting a comic book - like X-Men, for example - you've got 40 years of amazing stories to dig into, things that incredible artists have been thinking about for decades.

David Hayter

artist men book

When you're playing a tough guy, all the other guys want to be tough right back at you and it amps them up.

David Hayter

tough guy want

Now that I'm a professional writer it's a little more difficult to enjoy a movie if it's not well done and a lot of the horror movies are not great, but when something's really good, like I really loved The Conjuring. That just scared the bejesus out of me.