'Chucky' Star Lachlan Watson Reveals How They Swapped Between Glen And Glenda

One of the most exciting parts of “Chucky” Season 2 has undoubtedly been the return of “Seed of Chucky” characters Glen and Glenda, which was a surprisingly laborious task for everyone involved in the show. Actor Lachlan Watson spoke to USA Insider about the lengthy and complicated process it took to be one person playing two roles on screen at the same time. 

The star previously explained how much responsibility they felt to show the twins have been living full lives since they were last seen in the franchise roughly 20 years ago. Fortunately, Watson found it to be a dream scenario.

“It's pretty much like an actor's playground to be handed two characters with enough lore and history to not feel like you're completely starting from scratch, but also enough freedom that you feel like you really have the opportunity to create something — twice even,” they said. “So, it was honestly really, really fun. I had a great time being able to develop these characters.”

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Despite how much work they put in to elevate the characters within creator Don Mancini’s story, there were logistical headaches that needed to be figured out, particularly when it came to scenes that required both twins to be on-screen. Watson notes they had the easy job of transitioning between the characters — it was everyone else they felt for.

“It’s less about how much time did I get and more like how much time did the crew get because there was no way we could shorten it. It took about an hour and a half total to completely change my costume, completely change my wig, completely change my makeup and get me back on set,” they revealed. “That was a big learning curve because a lot of the crew were not used to taking that kind of time ... This is kind of a huge process to undertake.”

Watson also made sure to shout out their acting double, Annie Tuma. Any time the cameras could simply shoot Glen or Glenda from the back, they had look-alike Tuma step in. However, Watson explained that required her to undergo as many wardrobes as they did. 

“She had the same amount of weight on her shoulders as I did, except her part throughout the entirety didn't make it into the final cut. It was always edited over with me,” Watson said. “So, she kind of has this really wild, thankless job, because I would start the day as Glenda, and Annie would start the day as Glen.” 

Watson continued: “So, we would do all of that and then we would pause everything. No one would touch those cameras, and that's when the process would begin. Me and Annie would both go off and change for an hour and a half, and then I'd come back, and Annie would still be there for blocking.”

The actor said that because nothing could be changed in that hour and a half, everyone had to vacate the set, including the other actors. As a result, Watson shot many scenes by themself on set with a microphone in their ear feeding the lines they’d already recorded. As for blocking for the other stars, that got a little weird. 

“I had a bunch of tennis balls set up to the actor's heights,” they revealed. “So, if I had a scene with Jennifer [Tilly], instead of Jennifer, there would just be a tennis ball where Jennifer was at one point.”

They concluded: “So, I have these really silly behind-the-scenes videos of me just sitting in a completely empty room basically talking to no one while we’ve got the second half of the twinning shot, and it was just as crazy as it sounded and it was a huge learning curve because I could only see where I was an hour and a half ago through the monitors. I couldn't see any of it live and all in my head, so I had to muscle memory and brute force my way through some scenes because people walk around, people change what they do, people improv and you have to remember all of that, and be able to accommodate that or else it's going to look really weird ... I think that hard work shows in the final product in a huge way.”

You can see the finished product of all their hard work on “Chucky” Season 2 every Wednesday at 9/8c on USA Network and SYFY. You can catch up on past episodes on Peacock right now.