Jason Behr's Inner Biker

If you were a fan of the popular "Roswell" series on TV, you've probably wondered what happened to its handsome star Jason Behr who played alien teen Max. Yes, he popped up as Sarah Michelle Gellar's boyfriend in The Grudge but, now, the dark-haired cutie has re-emerged in a lot of indie films and as a hot, badguy biker in the supernatural thriller Skinwalkers. As Varek, leather-clad Jason rides into town with his cohorts to go all werewolf on the populace as his pack fights other changelings for the control of a young boy who can make or break the future for them.

The actor, looking buff in leather, chatted with press recently in Beverly Hills and admitted that, hey, it's really warm today, especially when you are wearing leather...but we know this dude can make temps rise no matter what the wardrobe. Jason revealed why he likes the bad guy role, doing some kick butt stunts, all about the impressive wolf make-up and how fun were those werewolf hook ups anyway?

TeenHollywood: This tale seems almost a coming-of-age story with a young boy at the center of it. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Jason: I think Matthew Knight who plays Timothy is really a talented kid and that's a lot of pressure on somebody to really carry that discovery and that moral compass of the piece. It is a coming-of-age story about him finding within himself the ability to really embrace his own power and to really believe in himself.

TeenHollywood: You usually play the hero. Did you take this role to enjoy playing a baddie?

Jason: [Laughs] That was one of the biggest draws for me was that I'm playing the bad guy. It's such a departure for me. It was something I've never done before. I'm doing all these sorts of things that I've always wanted to do I think as a kid and then as an actor. I got a chance to shoot guns and ride motorcycles and do all this insane wire work and stunts and just be a big, bad**s wolf.

TeenHollywood: So give us the lowdown on your guy Varek. What kind of beastie is he?

Jason: Varek is the very alpha leader of this group of naturalists or purists. The movie is about two very different tribes of Skinwalkers. One, Varek's group, is the purists. They have embraced that power and embraced that freedom and blood lust and they're almost addicted to it. They believe that power to be a gift. The others, the wimpy wolves, they believe it to be a curse and they have suppressed that primeval instinct for centuries. So I get to play the big, bad**s alpha werewolf which was just cool for me.

TeenHollywood: I heard you went to the zoo and really studied how wolves move etc.?

Jason: I did. I just wanted to be as truthful as I possibly could to the material and to Stan Winston [effects guru who created the werewolf look for the film] and everything that he's done for the project. We started off with watching this documentary about the Sawtooth Mountain wolves and you get to see this incredible footage of these very free, very beautiful wolf packs. Beyond that, I wanted to go and see what it was like at the zoo in Toronto and it really did sort of polarize. It was a real reflection and representation of these two tribal packs. You have one that's very free and then you have the ones that are in the zoo that I felt really bad for. I'm sure they're well taken care of, but they were confined, they were suppressed, and they were reduced to this small place. They weren't really truly free. So, it actually gave me a little bit more insight to really have empathy for them, but it also gave me a real clear vision of what these other guys are supposed to be and how free they were supposed to be.

TeenHollywood: That werewolf hook up scene was pretty hot but, I assume not really very enjoyable when you shot it?

Jason: To be able to actually answer that would be pretty amazing. We had our [werewolf] teeth in, we had our eyes [wolf contacts] in, we're out in the middle of nowhere, and literally naked. [Note: the film is PG-13]. Well it was interesting. I'll say that. I mean you had to be careful with the teeth because you could really take some flesh off with them.

TeenHollywood: To what extent did Stan Winston's make-up help you get into character? Was that a long, arduous process?

Jason: It was a pretty long process, but it did help sort of get into that mode. Stan is a legend. I figured if you're going to do a werewolf movie, you might as well do it with Stan because he's the best at what he does. He's been wanting to do a werewolf movie since he was a teenager. He has a story about how he would go out on Halloween dressed up as a werewolf because he loved werewolves. It's the reason why he got into this business in the first place and he's never done a werewolf movie before. His creation, his wolf suit, allowed us the freedom and gave us permission to play full out. When you put on the claws and you put in the teeth and you put in the eyes and you stand up, you feel like you've become something else. It gave you complete freedom.

TeenHollywood: When you're in that full make-up, do you feel a little immobilized? Sometimes we hear about how if you put in the contacts, you can't see anything anymore.

Jason: I will say that the vision was a little bit tough to get used to. You're talking about contacts that fill in the entire eyeball pretty much. You don't have a huge peripheral vision. It's pretty small, but you get used to it. You sort of have to. But the suits themselves did allow for a lot of physical freedom and movement because Stan knew that we had to do all these stunts.

TeenHollywood: So all those stunts were really you?

Jason: I did as much as I possibly could with the stunts. We had a guy named Steve Lucescu who is one of the world's best stuntmen. He would show me something to do and I'd come back the next day and say, 'Give me more. Give me more.' I felt like a big, giant kid playing every day. I think there were some things that they had stunt doubles for only because of time issues, but for the most part it's all me, it's all wolf, it's all fun [laughs].

TeenHollywood: Did you do any fight training beforehand to get ready?

Jason: I've done some stage combat stuff before so I'm familiar with that. As far as the training, they really didn't give us a whole lot of time to really fully prepare for it. They gave us a real sort of condensed gun training. We needed to be safe but as far as getting familiar with the gun, and I had some pretty heavy guns, they didn't give us a whole lot of time to adjust to that. It was fast, it was furious, and we were left to instinct which I guess is what it's all about.

TeenHollywood: Had you done wire work on stunts before?

Jason: Never. I'd never done wire work before. Steve Lucescu, our stunt guy, really wanted to make this exciting and new and do things that had never been done in the stunt world. I really wanted to and I took it upon myself to do as much as I possibly could to allow that to happen. But I had never done wire work before, never shot those kind of guns before, and I certainly, sure as s**t, didn't put on a werewolf outfit before [laughs] so it was just a lot of fun. I just had the time of my life.

TeenHollywood: How hard is wire work to learn? Is it something that is just natural, that you know when you start doing it?

Jason: I was the only person who really did it. Kim Coates, who plays Zo and is like my right hand man in the piece, did a few things here and there, but I think they saved most of the wire work for Varek because he's supposed to be, of course, the biggest bad**s in the world.

TeenHollywood: Have you considered going back to TV?

Jason: Yeah. I think there are great stories that are told on TV right now. I think that the lines between television and film have become very blurry. It's on a project by project basis.

TeenHollywood: You were in "Roswell," The Grudge and now this. Is sci-fi, fantasy, and horror a preference or is it just the project that attracts you to it?

Jason: It's usually based on a project by project basis. I've tried to balance it out with a lot of independent, character-driven pieces as well which I've been fortunate enough to do. To me, it's always been, first and foremost, the character and the character within the piece and the story. If anything, I'm drawn to good storytelling. Sometimes, you'll find a really interesting, very captivating character within a mediocre story and you wonder if there is any way you can possibly make that better. There's no one specific thing. I love challenges and I love to mix it up a bit and have the variety. I'm constantly trying to challenge myself as an actor and also allow myself to explore things that I've never explored before.

TeenHollywood: Can you talk a little bit about upcoming projects you have?

Jason: I did a movie, D-War [Dragon Wars] that's coming out in September. Then, after that, I have The Tattooist that I did in New Zealand. It's about this tattoo artist who finds himself immersed in the Samoan culture and tradition of tatau and all the beliefs that go with it. And then, after that, I have a movie called Senseless that I did that's coming out based on the Stona Fitch novel. I just finished a movie in New York called Frost which is a very character-driven piece about a man in this 30s having an existential crisis.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.