I would take my taser,

(growling)

(electric buzz) (yelling)

and I would go for the scrotum.

- Okay, that'll put 'em down.

(chainsaw revving) (electronic music)

Hey, I'm James A. Janisse,

and some of you may know me as Dead Meat.

If you do, you probably already know

that I love to watch people die.

You know, like on screen.

I've always wanted to talk to the horror legends

who put those kills on screen,

and find out what scares them,

and also if they could survive

their favorite kill scenes.

This is Meat Up.

Today's guest, horror legend Tony Todd.

(piano music)

Hey everybody, welcome back to the show.

Today, we're here with legendary actor Tony Todd

in the heart of Hollywood, at this restaurant Jitlada,

which, you picked for us Tony.

- Yeah, I've been coming here for about the last six years.

- You're ordering for us today.

- Well, let me tell you just in case,

'cause you may overwhelmed when you see

all the goodness that comes out.

- Okay.

- We've got a little Tom Kha soup,

which is your basic coconut soup with shrimp in it.

I forgot to tell them, though,

whether how hot you could handle.

- Oh.

- I didn't tell them dragon heat.

I didn't tell them, like, little baby squirrel heat.

- Okay.

- So it's going to be surprise.

- Hopefully it's somewhere in the middle there.

- Yeah I want you to take your first swallow

in between questions, okay?

- Yeah.

- Then we've got a little Crying Tiger,

which is a Filipino treat

that they do with meat and spices.

- Oo.

- And I think we have a little,

what else do we have?

A Coco Mango Salad.

- Great, and you also got us some Thai iced teas.

- We have Thai iced tea.

- It's delicious.

- Delicious, and, it brings out

the seven year old in everybody.

(jazz music)

- Tony, you've been working for decades

with all different kinds of...

- When you say decades, it's frightening.

You make it sound like it's six decades or five decades.

It's been three decades.

- Three decades.

But you have worked in a variety of different mediums.

You've done theater.

You've done television, movies, voice acting.

And, you're perhaps best known for Candyman,

which is a seminal horror film.

I saw that you didn't actively seek out the horror genre.

- No.

- That it kind of came to you.

Are you fine being associated with it?

As kind of your legacy?

- To a point.

I understand fandom.

There's no filter on it.

Does it bother me?

It depends on the situation.

My daughter, Arianna, handled it brilliantly.

When she was about 4, Candyman had been out a couple years,

and people kept coming up to us,

oh my god, oh my god.

And she finally dropped her little shopping bag and said,

"That's not Candyman. That's my dad!"

(laughter)

And it made absolute sense to me at the time.

It was said so honestly and so directly

that I understood what she meant.

To not give in to that all the time.

You have to be able to say no, this is my private life

and, not in front of my family.

(jazz music)

- I looked online to see if

you'd answered this question before,

and maybe you have, but I couldn't find it.

- OK. I like new ones.

- It seems like an obvious question.

- OK.

- You're best known for Candyman.

What's your favorite candy?

Have you been asked that before

and I just couldn't find it?

- Never.

- No?

- Never been asked that.

- That's shocking.

- And I do have a sweet tooth.

Commercially, ah, I don't want to, cause I'm not,

I'm not a commercial person,

because I don't want them to take it as an endorsement,

- That's right.

- But I do like it when my fingers get buttery.

- OK.

- If you know what I'm saying?

- Yeah.

- Butter.

- Yeah.

- There you go.

- Yeah.

(lively music)

- Now what was the spicy thing

that you said was gonna be my quest?

- Well, you want to try this.

You want to stick your finger in that.

- Okay.

- Like any good movie, or any good script we actors get,

you gotta put your finger in it first.

- Okay.

- Just like your grandmother taught you.

(laughter)

When she made you that wonderful cake,

you gotta taste the batter.

Is it too hot?

- I think it's right at about my threshold.

- I'm gonna to do this.

- I feel like I'm going to cough.

- I'm gonna do this.

I'm going to go for it.

Now, this is a time to ask me your hottest question.

- Candyman, it's recently been discussed,

that it might be getting a bit of a remake.

- That's a very strong rumor, yes.

- With Jordan Peele attached.

If you were asked to reprise the role, would you?

- It all depends on the script.

I mean, at this point, I care so much about the character

that I want it to be done right.

If they don't use me, I want them to use the best actor

that appreciates the cultural significance of the role.

- Mhm.

- Or could bring something else to it that perhaps I missed,

or the script missed in the original.

- One of your first roles,

and I think I your first lead role maybe,

was as Ben in the Night of the Living Dead remake.

- It was my first lead role, which was important.

- It was, yeah.

- And seeing Duane Jones, who originated

the role of Ben, was an inspiration.

I grew up in an era where Sidney Poitier was in every film.

He was our sole African-American representative.

And, it was fine, but it felt a little goody-goody to me.

It wasn't necessarily real.

It was just refreshing, the way

George Romero created this character

in the background of a zombie apocalypse,

end of the world situation,

where your hero was this African-American man.

And I asked George, rest in peace.

- Yeah.

- I said, what made you cast Duane in the first place?

He said, I didn't think of the role

as black, white, Spanish, anything.

Duane was just the best actor

that came in the room at the right time.

But, because he was African-American,

I think it put a whole 'nother stamp

on the whole zombie apocalypse possibility.

- Yeah.

- You know