ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to The Lost Boys stars Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander about working with animals and getting covered in slime. It is now available on 4K, Blu-ray, and digital to celebrate its 35th anniversary.
“Teenage brothers Michael and Sam move with their mother to a small town in northern California,” reads the film’s synopsis. “While the younger Sam meets a pair of kindred spirits in geeky comic-book nerds Edward and Alan, the angst-ridden Michael soon falls for Star — who turns out to be in thrall to David, leader of a local gang of vampires. Sam and his new friends must save Michael and Star from the undead.”
Tyler Treese: Corey, 35 years later, this film still holds up so well. We’ve seen the fan base grow over time, and it’s still captivating and connecting with audiences, no matter what generation they are. What does it mean for you to have these films that are still connecting with so many people?
Corey Feldman: I feel very blessed. I feel very humbled and very honored that anybody remembers any of the work that I did as a kid, ;et alone that people actually hold some of them near and dear to their hearts. It’s a cool thing, to be a part of legacy films like that. At the same time, you never like to rest on your laurels, so it’s always about what’s next for me. I’m always kind of driving the ship forward. I’ve been on tour with my band. I’ve got a new album out, a new boxset out, and been very focused on the music the last few years. We just finished one leg of a tour. We’re about to do another leg of the tour, and ironically, somehow, Lost Boys has fit into both legs of the tour.
On the first leg, we did this thing in San Antonio called Summer of Santa Carla. Where Jamison was there, Jason Patrick was there, Billy Worth was there. We’re all there signing autographs and meeting with fans, and they had screenings of the movie. It’s kind of this celebration. Then on the second leg, on Halloween night in Dallas, we’re going to be doing an event where they’re playing Lost Boys, and the whole thing is billed as a special Lost Boys celebration, Lost Boys, Halloween party. My band’s performing. I’m sure we’re going to have to do a few songs. Jamison, by the way, has come out and performed with us a few times. He’s now a singer as well, and, he’s doing, “People Are Strange” with us.
Jamison Newlander: Yeah, we did “People Are Strange” together in three cities.
Corey Feldman: That was great.
Jamison Newlander: One thing I want to add to is that — if you go back to why we were doing this to begin with — people in entertainment like to touch people, to affect people, to give something to the world, you know? That people can watch and enjoy.
Corey Feldman: Take them out of their lives, you know?
Jamison Newlander: For a moment, yeah! So it’s great. It feels great to be able to do that for people with this movie.
Jamison, one thing that really makes the Frog Brothers really stick out is that you actually feel like real brothers when you’re watching the movie. Can you speak to your chemistry with Corey and how you guys worked off each other?
Jamison Newlander: I think right from the beginning, when Corey and I met in the audition … it’s part of what the audition was about, in a way, was matching up our chemistry and something about it worked. We come from different backgrounds and only just got into the movie business a couple years before Lost Boys. We had this chemistry. We immediately got along. We laughed at each other’s jokes or I think it was genuine.
Corey Feldman: I pretended to laugh.
Jamison Newlander: The thing is that Joel Schumacher saw that and really developed it and really brought that out. It was just really nice. it was natural.
Corey Feldman: I have to say one thing, which is that Jamison is a superb actor. So one of the things for me was, actually, I was excited that there was a kid that was the same age as me, that had the depth to play this character so seriously and be the straight man. I mean, we both had to be straight men. We couldn’t crack a smile ever. We couldn’t show any emotion other than ass-kicking mode.
Jamison Newlander: And we were serious about it. We weren’t playing it for comedy, especially at first,
Corey Feldman: We didn’t ever really play the comedy. It was more that the comedy was the fact that we did take ourselves so seriously as these characters. Being macho men at 14 years old . We suited up and we showed up and we came present. And the thing is, I respected the fact that he was able to keep up. He was new in the business. He hadn’t done movie after movie like I had. The fact that he was right there with Corey [Heim] and I and always on par was pretty impressive. Then I went and saw his high school play afterwards. He did a production of The Elephant Man where he played John Merrick and did an incredible job. I was so blown away. That’s probably the reason why I was so emphatic about making sure that he was part of the Lost Boys sequels, because it was like, “Dude, this guy’s a great actor. You can’t just let him go by the wayside. There’s a chemistry and that’s got to be part of this, or it’s not going to work.”
Jamison Newlander: It was very nice of Corey to come to my show was really meant a lot to me.
Corey Feldman: Heim came too, right?
Jamison Newlander: I don’t think Heim came, but I’m sure he meant to. Joel came. Schumacher came.
Corey, the cast is stacked, but one of the most like underrated stars is the dog Nanook. He’s so great in the film. How was it like working with the animals?
Corey Feldman: You know, he was a little bit of an ego maniac, I’ve got to be serious. He got massages, always making demands, he was like,” I want want my dog bowl on the set first thing in the morning and it better be filled right to the line.”
Jamison Newlander: Yeah. He had to get brushed. I didn’t get brushed.
Corey Feldman: Yeah, exactly. The grooming on that dog was insane. Constantly wanted to be groomed. No, we’re joking. He was great. He was a well-trained dog. I didn’t work with him as much as Corey did, because it was Corey’s dog, right?
Jamison Newlander: Yeah, Corey had that special bond with him, Nanook.
Corey Feldman: “Come on Nanook! What are you doing man?”
Jamison, the bathtub fight with Paul is one of my favorite scenes in the movie. What were your memories of filming that?
Jamison Newlander: A few different kind of conflicted memories? No, no.
Corey Feldman: It was a rough scene.
Jamison Newlander: Yeah, it was a rough scene. So starting from the fact that, when he grabbed me, I had some chest hair just sprouting through and it was really painful. So some of that acting, when he grabbed me, was real. Then also we had to sit in that slime for a long time. That was my biggest negative memory of the movie was sitting in that slime for days.
Corey Feldman: Well, once we got slimed we had to be slimed for the rest of the movie.
Jamison Newlander: Vats of Slime.
Corey Feldman: We’ll never forget the giant vats, I mean literally, just the barrels this wide. They would sit there and they would, pour it up with like scoopers and they would just pour it on our head. It’d be morning, pat it all over our bodies, and you’d just be all sticky and gross. The worst part was the part where we’re crawling through the cave after I stake Alex Winters. We’re crawling back through the cave and they’re shaking the cave, beause they want it to look like the whole thing’s imploding. They’re dropping stuff from these holes on top of us. We’re crawling in this little tiny like rat way, there’s maybe two inches above our heads and they’re on top of this thing, dropping through the holes, debris, and dust and all this weird stuff.
Jamison Newlander: Covered in slime.
Corey Feldman: We’re covered in slime, all the stuff sticking in our hair and it’s in every crack and every crevice. You’d get out of there and then Joel would be like, “Okay, clean them up and let’s do the next scene where it’s like the beginning of the movie and they’re clean.” And we’d be like, “What?!”
Jamison Newlander: Go shower!
Corey Feldman: Yeah, go shower. So then we’d have to like run to [Richard] Donner’s office, because it was the only place on the lot with his shower, which was of course completely on the opposite side of the lot. So we’d take our bikes and we’d run over.
Jamison Newlander: That’s true. We got around on our bikes, That’s part of the bonding, I think.
Corey Feldman: Yeah, exactly! So we’d take the bikes, we’d go over to the office, we’d shower and then some buffoonery I’m sure would kick in somewhere along the way. Fights and soap and all sorts of things. Then we’d rush back to the trailer and Joel would start screaming, “dudes! Where’s my dudes?! Hurry it up!” I’m like strapping the boots. “Come on!”
Jamison Newlander: But I also want to say about that bathtub scene is that I just realized recently that that’s where I think the Frog Brothers are really … when they get to that level of “these guys are badass” is when they were like, “You’re next!” He was like, “You killed Marco?” And we’re not like, “Oh, sorry, don’t hurt us!” We’re like, “you’re next!” That’s what I think.
Corey Feldman: About that scene — and of course we’re just faking it anyway — it’s all bravado, because we would’ve been very dead very quickly if Nanook hadn’t come in and saved the day. So again, it all goes to Nanook.