It feels like yesterday when I approached the office on City Walk at Universal Studios Hollywood to interview for a front of house position at the Gibson On the grounds. I was dressed sharp and ready to win the job. As I walked in the door the room was booming with excitement. Lots of people interviewing for something from characters to ride operators there was excitement. As I was checked in and had a seat and awaited my turn.

The interview was short and sweet as they had just hired an engineer with a lot more experience. As a cravat the interviewer said, “don’t know if you would be interested, but we are auditioning for characters for the Halloween Horror Nights. We need guys your size for Leatherface and Jason Voorhees roles.”

At that moment my brain starting saying, ha, you doing this? Jason Voorhees, acting, you’re not cut out for this. All this happened in a split second and then my belly started to get a feeling and a ‘Go for it!’ Was issued to my conscious mind. Then I said, what the heck, it’s only an audition I may not have to do the job anyway. So I said “Yes!, what do I do next?”

I was corralled in a room with a bunch of other big guys and awaited the audition. Most of it became a blur from there but I was told I would get a call letting me know if I got it or not. I was told that over 3000 people auditioned and 300 of us got roles. Interesting, now I will have to do it, after all how many chances would I get to do this?

So I went through training and then I had to get fit in wardrobe. That was an interesting experience in the city of commerce. They brought out brand new clothes and then made them look like they were in the bottom of a swamp for many years.

This whole time I was thinking about the fun this would be and the adventure. Then another important event happened. I met my wife.

As I was heading to training one afternoon, we met by a parking garage and were shuttled into the scare zone where we worked. A shuttle had just headed out and she was left standing by herself. She was texting or something on her phone. As I approached, bubbling up, ‘Talk to her, Talk to her’. I was like nah, no thanks. Then, ‘Talk to her, talk to her.’ Alright, so I struck up a conversation. On a side note it did work out really well for her since she needed to be late almost every day and needed to relay that to the supervisors. I was the relay.

As I finish up, just saying that sometimes the crazy decisions work out amazing.