Quotes

[on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)] I'm not totally enamored with the film. It is very, very good at what it is, a film that succeeds in really scaring the hell out of people. As to 'Chain Saw' being analogous to the breakdown of the American nuclear family and other lofty themes recently explored -- bunk! The movie was very effective because we broke some rules, a lot like Psycho (1960) did when the heroine is killed early in the film. There are no safe scenes in our film, no cuts or distractions to relieve the terror.

People have a very mistaken idea of me. They figure that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) was the biggest thing that ever happened to me, that I was just off somewhere being rich, famous, signing autographs. I get crank calls in the middle of the night, guys making chainsaw noises, "v-v-vroom, v-v-vroom!," and telling me chainsaw jokes.

[on being cast as Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)] I never thought I had it in me. Just before production started, I was sitting in a drugstore, had nothing at all planned for the summer, heard about the casting call, and decided to try out on a lark. I was 26 years old, just out of graduate school, when I met Hooper [Tobe Hooper] and writer Kim Henkel. They asked me three questions before they hired me. "Are you a violent person? Are you crazy?" When I replied, "No, not more so than normal," they finally asked, "Can you do it?" "Sure, it's easy," I said. They loved the fact that I filled the doorway. Tobe Hooper said, "We'll put high heels on you and make you a little bigger."

[on his perception of Leatherface] Homicidal, brutal, a simple personality, but he's a real freak, a retarded maniac.

[on the character of Leatherface] They defined the character for me as someone who was severely mentally retarded and severely mentally disturbed. The idea was that there was really nothing behind the mask and that's how the character was created. You could never unmask him like Darth Vader, because if you were to take the mask off there would be nothing there. That is why you see him wearing different masks at different times. That is how he presented himself, but killing was the only thing he knew.

Acting had never been what I intended to do. I moved back to Maine and decided to get serious about writing. This had always been my main interest, something I always wanted to focus my work on. I moved to a village on an island on the coast, where I figured I could hit those keys.

I'm really proud of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), but it's not the biggest thing I've ever done. As far as I'm concerned, it's not the most important thing in my life.