1 of 4 | William Sadler’s “The Yeti” is now available on Blu-ray and digital platforms. Photo courtesy of Well Go USA
Salem’s Lot, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey and The Shawshank Redemption icon William Sadler says starring in The Mist back in 2007 was excellent preparation for his role in the new monster movie, The Yeti.
“It was another creature film where you don’t see the creatures [until late in the story]. People keep getting bitten in half and picked off one after another by this horrifying thing,” Sadler, 76, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“I’ve spent a lot of time working in Stephen King movies, and others as well, but you bring everything you learn from all of them. The things I picked up along the way, I use,” he added.
“You learn how to work for a camera and you learn how to act better. As good as you thought you were when you were 30 and 40, there’s a lot more to learn and you just get better — as long as you still have your marbles.”
Now available on Blu-ray and digital platforms, The Yeti was written and directed by William Pisciotta and Gene Gallerano.
“In some ways it is like Jaws because it’s much more frightening that you hear it or you’re worried about seeing it,” Sadler said.
“You’re worried it’s going to show up, rather than see it. In full daylight, it’s much less scary. Our imaginations start to play with us.”
Set in 1947 Alaska, the film stars Brittany Allen, Heather Lind, Eric Nelsen, Jim Cummings and Corbin Bernsen. It follows a rescue team hunted by an elusive, deadly beast.
Sadler plays Hollis Bannister, an adventurer whose daughter Ellie (Allen) treks out into the wilderness to find him and oil tycoon Merriell Sunday Sr. (Bernsen) after they go missing.
“He’s got this sort of colorful history. But he also has a relationship with his daughter that’s kind of unexpected in the film, but Britney Allen plays my daughter and she’s brilliant,” Sadler said of Bannister.
“There’s this really nice human element to the character. He is flawed and there are things that have to be straightened out. There are things that have to be said to his daughter in the middle of being chased around by yetis,” he laughed.
“That was a large part of why I wanted to do the film. I thought the character was fun and more complicated, more interesting than simply a sort of cardboard, two-dimensional figure.”
The actor also enjoyed exploring the falling-out Bannister had with his business partner Sunday Sr., they ultimately puts all of the humans in mortal peril.
“Sunday goes in a direction that my character finds completely horrifying and they end up at opposite ends of the plot,” Sadler noted.
“By the way, Corbin is wonderful,” he added. “He’s very, very good in this film.”
Despite the fact that they have both worked in the movie/TV industry for decades, this is the first collaboration for Sadler and Bernsen.
“It turns out that we live about five miles away from each other in New York. But I’ve never worked with him before. We never had a relationship. So, it’s really the magic of movies that we got thrown together in this one.”
Speaking of movie magic, Sadler also memorably got to reprise one of his most famous roles — the Grim Reaper — in the 2020 sci-fi comedy, Bill & Ted Face the Music, the sequel to Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter.
“I loved revisiting that character,” Sadler said.
“The minute I had the makeup on and the robes and the scythe and the Czechoslovakian accent, he just came back,” the actor recalled. “The scenes with Keanu and Alex, with Bill and Ted, it was like we had never left the set back in Bogus Journey. We picked it up exactly where we left off and it was just great fun.”
The actor credits the trilogy’s humor and heart for its longevity.
“I go to Comic Cons and things like that and there are people dressed up like the Grim Reaper and quote the Grim Reaper,” Sadler said. “He’s a beloved creature.”
