From Rebecca Murray,
Your Guide to Hollywood Movies.
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Was the fire scene your most difficult scene to film?
KEN KIRZINGER: Oh no. I think the hardest thing was when I sink into the lake. We were shooting in this tank and it's highly chlorinated. There's debris in it to make it look like lake water. Ronny just wanted this close-up of my eye. He wanted me to sink into the water but keep my eye open. The water just burned my eye. You're going down backwards so the water's coming up your nose and you've got the mask on so you have to hold your breath. You can't blow air up to sink because you see the air blowing up through the holes in the mask. So basically I’m lying on top of the water and have to blow out all my air and allow myself to sink down to the bottom of the tank on that ‘no breath of air’ and try to keep that eye open.

ROBERT ENGLUND: And all he can think about is no bubbles because for every bubble, that's $10,000 in CGI (laughing). They wanted it to look surrealistic. It's like a dream; they wanted it to be surreal.

Was there much CGI in the finished film?
ROBERT ENGLUND: I just talked to Ronny Yu. He literally finished yesterday. And I know that Ariel [Velasco-Shaw], the guy that's doing all the CGI and special effects, he has not slept since we wrapped. He got to have fun in Canada. He was out every night in Vancouver partying. He had the wife and the kids up there. We're working our butts off. But the moment it wrapped, he's in the room forever. He's got that 'editor's' tan' that glows in the dark. They literally finished yesterday. They got the color timing done and the final mix yesterday.

Do you personally believe this movie is the finishing touch for both series or do you think it's going to revitalize both franchises?
KEN KIRZINGER: I think it's the old story. If it makes a lot of money, then they'll make another movie.

How difficult was the transition from stunt coordinator to actor?
KEN KIRZINGER: I've done a fair bit of acting in my past. I started out as a stuntman and then they started handing me lines playing a thug. Eventually I did get an agent and started doing just some acting. But then my stunt career took off and I got into stunt coordinating. I ended up getting dropped by my agent and really focusing on stunt coordinating. This just fell into my lap. I went in to interview for the stunt coordinating job and the producer liked my looks, sort of knew that that’s the look they were looking for. I got a call a couple of weeks later, "Would you like to come in and audition for it?" I went in and auditioned. They put me on tape and showed that to Ronny.

The transition wasn’t hard at all. As a stunt coordinator, you have so much responsibility for safety and crew and sets, where really the responsibility now is just to focus on the character and to try and make the character my own kind of thing. After Kane Hodder played him four times and [with the] expectations of the fans, those were big shoes to slip in to, but luckily I’ve got big feet (laughing). It wasn't hard at all.

ROBERT ENGLUND: I don’t know if Ken agrees with this, but I direct too and you really just have to bite your tongue. You have to wear just one hat. There were times I know when Ken could solve a tough situation. I knew that if they just let Ken and I solve stuff… I might have moved the camera a little bit, Ken might have moved the camera a little bit, and it sounds like we'd be making it easier for ourselves but you kind of have to bite your tongue. It’s not your job. You have to surrender to the director and you have to surrender to the stunt coordinator on that. You have to just take that hat off and only wear the hat of an actor. It also means you don’t stress as much.

NEXT PAGE: CGI, Difficult Scenes and Transitioning from Stunt Work to Acting