Derek Mears ( born April 29, 1972 ) is an american actor and stuntman. Often appearing in horror and science-fiction titles, he came to prominence for portraying Jason Voorhees in the 2009 boot of Friday the 13th. His film roles besides include The Hills Have Eyes 2 ( 2007 ), Predators ( 2010 ), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ( 2011 ), Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters ( 2013 ), and Alita: Battle Angel ( 2019 ). On television, he played the title character on the DC Universe series Swamp Thing ( 2019 ) .
Life and career [edit ]
Mears was born in Bakersfield, California. He performed improv comedy at ComedySportz in Bakersfield. He graduated from Highland High School in Bakersfield in 1990. [ 1 ] Early on in life Mears had a hard case of the auto-immune disease alopecia, causing him to lose about all his body hair. [ 2 ]
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Mears has numerous credits both as a stuntman and as an actor. He had minor roles in The Tick, ER, Alias, Nash Bridges, Men in Black II, The Shield, CSI: NY, My Name Is Earl, Mr. & Mrs Smith, CSI: Miami, Community , and The Hills Have Eyes 2. His stunt credits include the films Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Blades of Glory, and television receiver series such as Angel and Bones. Mears got his breakthrough leave function in the 2009 Friday the 13th film. He was recommended to the producers, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form of Platinum Dunes, by makeup and special effects guru Scott Stoddard, who created the new search for Mears ‘ character, Jason Voorhees. Due to Mears ‘ acme at 6 foot 5 in ( 1.96 thousand ) he is one of the tallest actors who have portrayed Jason, beside Ken Kirzinger, who stands at a similar stature to Mears. He was nominated for an MTV Movie Award in the class for Best Villain for his portrayal of Voorhees, but lost to Heath Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight. Mears did a lot of research on child development to flesh out the function of Camp Crystal Lake ‘s ill-famed resident serial killer whale :
In the script, Jason watches his mother die in front of him. So I did research on, when you ‘re that age how do your cognitive processes happen ? How is the child supposed to be developing ? I found out that at that age you ‘re starting to be integrating into club, whether it ‘s through group sports or group activities so that you find out you ‘re not alone. I discovered that he missed that aspect. He was already an friendless from company for looking different and being disfigured, and his only connection to love and reality is his beget. [ 3 ]
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He is contracted to return for either another Friday the 13th sequel or another film by Platinum Dunes. [ 4 ] If Mears reprises his character as Jason, he will be only the moment person to portray the quality more than once, future to Kane Hodder. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] He portrayed a Predator [ 7 ] in the 2010 skill fiction repugnance film sequel Predators. [ 8 ] Mears appeared in Ultraforce 2 on the Superego podcast. He besides appeared in the American situation comedy Community in the episode “ romanticist expressionism ”. He appeared as a zombi, credited as “ Master-at-Arms ”, in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. [ 9 ] [ 10 ] Mears appeared with other repugnance actor Tyler Mane of Rob Zombie ‘s Halloween in Compound Fracture. [ 11 ]
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On June 5, 2013, it was reported that Warner Bros. had relinquished their film rights to the Friday the 13th serial to Paramount as part of a deal that allowed Warner Bros. to co-produce Interstellar. [ 12 ] One workweek belated, Mears revealed that Paramount was working with Platinum Dunes to make a fresh installment “ adenine fast as possible ”. [ 13 ]