“Hi I’m Chucky. Wanna Play?”

Everyone’s favorite killer doll slices back onto screens worldwide with the brand new SyFy series “Chucky.” Brought to life by showrunner and original franchise creator Don Mancini, the new show follows a young teen, Jake (Zackary Arthur), who stumbles upon a vintage “Good Guy” doll at a town yard sale. Jake soon finds out the doll he purchased is none other than infamous killer doll Chucky, and a sinister plot to seek revenge on local bullies ensues. The Daily Texan attended a roundtable with the actors who play Jake, Devon (Björgvin Arnarson), Junior (Teo Briones), and Lexy (Alyvia Lind). 

The Daily Texan: What made you interested in joining this project? 

Alyvia Alyn: Personally I had a meeting with Don (Mancini), and even through the Zoom screen Don was just so enthusiastic about this whole project. Just hearing how excited he was made me so excited. As I said, I am such a big horror movie fan, I love the Chucky movies. Getting to be a part of this iconic franchise has been so much fun. I’m so grateful to Don.

Björgvin Arnarson: Same thing. We just chatted about movies the whole time, it was fun. I felt like I was going to work on something that everyone liked to do. I was ready to enjoy it.

DT: Definitely looks like you had a lot of fun!

AA: Yeah! Murdering people, it’s a great time. 

DT: As someone who’s watched Chucky on screen before, what’s it like to be with the physical doll in real life? 

Teo Briones: It’s super surreal. Seeing him on a screen is very different from seeing him in real life and then you can kind of see the inner-workings of him. He has all these people around him controlling him, but that doesn’t make him any less scary. He’s still so terrifying in real life because there’s just something about a doll being alive and killing people.

Zackary Arthur: It’s the eyes, man! It’s the eyes. They’re so freaky. It’s like you’re in a trance when you’re looking at it. They actually brought the original doll look back but you know they’ve made some changes to how it works. The face, those expressions man. He’s much more expressive now! Definitely something you should watch out for. 

Josh Korngut, Dread Central: What was it like working with Don Mancini? 

TB: He’s amazing. He knows how to get exactly what he wants out of his actors. He has such a great understanding of how actors work, of how we want to work, of how we think about a script or a character. He loves when we have our own input as well. Super super caring, super including. He was a pleasure to work with on set.

ZA: In some scripts, when people write for kids our age, it doesn’t sound natural. I never felt that throughout the whole show. Don took a lot of what we said into consideration. Like Teo said, he asked us about everything. He actually helped us develop our own characters. Overall a great guy, friends with everybody.