Jennifer Tilly Reveals The Unusual Way She Wants Her Chucky Character To Die (For Real) – Exclusive Interview

You first appeared in “Bride of Chucky” 26 years ago, and that film basically launched a new era for the franchise, really setting the tone for future installments. Why do you think Chucky has been so enduring?

Twenty-six years … time flies. I think the key element is Don Mancini, who created Chucky when he was in college, and he’s been with the Chucky franchise for 30 years. He’s written all the scripts. He directed the last two movies and executive produced all three seasons of “Chucky.”

When I agreed to do “Bride of Chucky,” I never thought it would have legs because my character is horrifically murdered at the end. I was like, “OK, well, that was fun.” So, when Don called me up a couple years later and said he wanted me to come back and do more Chucky, I was astonished because I was like, “Wait a minute, didn’t my character die?” I was unprepared for the fact that, in the Chucky universe, nobody ever dies. Chucky gets killed every episode [of the series] and he always comes back to life. So, it’s been a wild ride.

It’s endured because Don is never like, “OK, let’s crank another one of these things out for the paycheck.” He loves Chucky so much. He’s a super fan. So he goes into it thinking “What would I want to see as a fan?” When he came up with the idea of bringing back Alex Vincent’s character, the little boy in [“Child’s Play” and “Child’s Play 2”], for the series, the studio gave him a big list of people they thought could play the character. And he went, “No, Alex is going to play the character. He is the character.” Don insisted, and he was right because the fans loved it. They went crazy when they saw that the little boy was back and out for vengeance.

When he brought back Christine Elise, who played the babysitter, they loved that too. They love that he respects them and respects the trajectory of the character. He never does that thing they do in other franchises where it’s like, “We’ll just forget this person ever existed” or “This person has three kids now instead of two.” He really feels like there should be structure and logic in the world of Chucky.

When I came into the franchise, I think that ushered in the camp era of Chucky because Tiffany, while she’s glamorous and funny, is also campy and like a female drag queen. People really loved my character. The franchise always had a lot of humor, but perhaps a different kind of humor. But Don and I have the greatest time coming up with things for Tiffany to do. When he came up with the series, I was like, “How’s Tiffany going to fit in?” Because the series is very much a small-town coming-of-age story about two young lovers, but it all works. You’ve got crazy over-the-top characters and then you have very subtle, hyper-realistic characters, and they all somehow come together and make this great Chucky stew.