Jessica Madsen may now play a mean girl, but she was once a raving psychopath.
The Big Picture
-
Bridgerton
actor Jessica Madsen’s portrayal of Clarice in
Leatherface
captures a manic pyromaniac with chilling authenticity. - Clarice’s backstory as a child pyromaniac burning down her house was cut, adding ambiguity to the film.
- The filmmakers considered making Leatherface a woman, suggesting that Clarice could have been the iconic killer.
Bridgerton Season 3’s most unanticipated character arc absolutely belongs to Jessica Madsen‘s Cressida Cowper, whose temperamental mean girl ways are slightly reforming. But what’s more unexpected about Madsen is her under-the-radar role in a notorious horror franchise that made a significant impact on its legacy. Before donning her lingering snarl with shiny jewels, tight curls, and ballgowns, Madsen played the unpredictable psychopath, Clarice, in Leatherface (2017). Clarice becomes one of the key contributors to the birth of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre‘s legendary killer, Leatherface, whose villain origin story is chronicled in an ambiguous manner in the 2017 film. This ambiguity leaves us wondering which one of the escaped psychiatric facility patients actually becomes the chainsaw-wielding killer, with Clarice herself in the running. But the most exciting part about Madsen’s character is really how she was created, from her inspiration to Madsen’s interpretation of this manic pyromaniac.
Leatherface
- Release Date
- September 14, 2017
- Director
- Alexandre Bustillo , Julien Maury
- Cast
- Lili Taylor , Stephen Dorff , Sam Strike , Vanessa Grasse
- Runtime
- 90 minutes
‘Leatherface’s Clarice Was Inspired by Chop-Top Sawyer
Leatherface’s Clarice is unexpectedly inspired by the memorable Robert Sawyer, more commonly known as Chop-Top from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. While Chop-Top was mentioned in Tobe Hooper‘s original film, as the cannibalistic family implies that he had been drafted to the war in Vietnam, we first see him in the second installment, played by Bill Moseley. As his character suddenly appears in the radio studio of the cartoonish addition to the franchise, he is garbed in bright confusing colors and truckloads of black, instantly becoming visually erratic and repulsive. This is accentuated by his peculiar habit of heating up the end of a hanger with his lighter, scratching his scalp with it, and nibbling on the dry flakes that come off. When his wig, or “plate cover,” slides off, we see a chrome metal plate inserted into his scalp snug between irritated red skin, earning his nickname Chop-Top. He had gotten this wound via a machete during the war and was given a metal plate to replace that section of his skull. We also discover that he is the twin brother of Nubbin Sawyer (the hitchhiker in the original film, played by Edwin Neal), whose corpse he transformed into a marionette-style puppet and carries around with him as if he were still alive.
Writer Seth M. Sherwood told Bloody Disgusting that the original Leatherface script actually included Chop-Top in it. However, he decided that instead of trying to follow up on Moseley’s impeccable interpretation of the character, he would pay homage to him instead. As a huge fan of Chop-Top, Sethwood “decided to scratch that itch with one of the gang by making a female version” of him. As such, Clarice was born. “Originally she had a plate in her head and was an albino – and she may have told Stephen Dorff to lick her plate,” Sherwood says. “[But] when we got into our first round of revisions it started to feel like a cheat cause it was actually more of a rip-off than an homage.” Though Clarice is definitely a far cry from the brother-obsessed metalhead we know, she does have his ability to abruptly flick from manic to enraged in a matter of heartbeats instilled into her character. As such, she is an original character who carries the essence of Chop-Top within her, allowing his legacy to spread over a single film, especially considering his spin-off, All American Massacre, was never released.
Jessica Madsen Nailed the Psychopathy of ‘Leatherface’s Clarice
Out of all the escaped inmates, Clarice is by far the most memorable and “out there” character, feeling like she would seamlessly fit into the bizarre and sadistic Sawyer family. Her boyfriend Ike (James Bloor) is far too much of a stereotypical tough guy, Bud (Sam Coleman) is essentially a protective teddy bear, while Jackson (Sam Strike) seems too moralistic and, well, sane. As we know Leatherface is a bonafide psychopath, Clarice becomes the character we are initially drawn to. This perfect balance of giddiness and violence is masterfully performed by Madsen, as her constantly changing behavior captures the spotlight every time she is on-screen.
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This is especially prevalent in the diner scene where the gang stops by for food and rest. Clarice and Ike sit together at a booth, eyeing and giggling over pieces of bacon while checking for a gun on the police officer behind her. Her demeanor instantly sobers as they hatch a plan to retrieve it, then returns to a haunting glee as she tells the waitress “We ain’t got no money” in a singsong voice. As chaos breaks down, Clarice whips around with a butter knife in hand and stabs the officer’s neck, completely expressionless. In a mere matter of seconds, Madsen twirls between emotions and personalities as if she were flicking light switches on and off, creating a thrilling choreography of horror.
As such, Madsen’s fluidity between these emotions, mixed with the overall tone of sadism, plays a huge role in the tribute to Chop-Top, all while maintaining the authenticity of the original character. In the same interview with Bloody Disgusting, Sherwood also notes her ghastly performance as a standout on set. “Of all the characters, Jessica Madsen’s portrayal is the most dead-on to what was in my head when I wrote it,” he recalls. “Not to say anyone did a bad job – I think the cast all killed it… she just somehow tapped right into my brain.”
Clarice’s Backstory Was Cut Out of ‘Leatherface’
When inspiration struck Sherwood to make Clarice an homage to Chop-Top, a very specific image was conjured in his mind’s eye. “In thinking of her backstory in terms of the ’50s, I thought of The Bad Seed and thought, if she wasn’t stopped, how far would that little girl go?” he told Bloody Disgusting. “That gave me an image of this little girl in pigtails burning down her house with her parents inside, and that became the start of Clarice.” With this image of a child pyromaniac in mind, Clarice’s more eccentric traits and eyes that light up whenever something remotely violent occurs make sense. We can almost imagine her feverishly lighting a fire and obsessively watching the flames dance in crazed bliss. However, this backstory never makes it to the final cut of the film.
Sherwood further elaborates on this backstory in an interview with Dread Central, reminiscing on the shots of Clarice explaining how she had watched her parents disappear and even a scene where she lights her first fire since being hospitalized. These scenes were omitted to render Clarice into a more subtle tribute to Chop-Top, but it also ensures the character remains relatively grounded. Instead of creating a kitchen sink of all the psychotic traits they could think of, Sherwood opts for hinting at subtle pyromaniac personality traits while really zoning in on her mercurial temperaments and behaviors. By focusing on this distinct characteristic while also excluding her backstory, the ambiguity of Leatherface’s identity throughout the bulk of the film increases, allowing Clarice to be a contender for that spot.
We Could Have Had a Female Leatherface
During Frightfest 2017, filmmakers Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maurytold the audience that they had considered making Leatherface a woman (via Bloody Disgusting). Maury later explained this statement to Bloody Disgusting: “We loved that idea that the audience could think that even her [Clarice] could be the boogeyman in the end in people’s minds. And it wasn’t a so crazy idea to have regarding the passion Leatherface had for dresses and makeup in the previous movies…” While Leatherface has traditionally been cast as a bulky, domineering man in most Texas Chainsaw Massacre films, playing around with theidea of a female Leatherface could have been interesting, especially with the deliciously psychotic Clarice up for the position.
Although erratic, Clarice is portrayed as feminine throughout Leatherface, wearing a yellow floral sundress with long blonde hair. Being an inherently dark character with a light appearance is already jarring during the film, but if she had also become Leatherface, it would have further set up a unique dynamic between her and her human mask. Leatherface is known to have occasionally adorned his masks with makeup, especially lipstick, and has also indulged in wearing dresses. Having Clarice behind those masks could almost imply a hidden urge to return to her outward feminity and lightness. But like the contrast between her internal darkness and light appearance, the mask being a removable layer would emphasize that same jarring disconnect. This is especially true since traditional feminity is essentially seen as the antithesis of violence, which is likely why we rarely see female villains being portrayed to this gory and gruesome extent. As such, Clarice had the potential to flip the script on how we generally see female villains represented and completely redefining the brand and complexity of one of cinema’s most notorious killers, thus leaving a significant impact on Texas Chainsaw Massacre‘s legacy and lore.
Leatherface is available to rent on Apple TV in the U.S.
This article was originally published on collider.com