In an Austin Chronicle interview with Tobe Hooper, he stated that "...too much time was spent with the chainsaw family. You got to know the family and their insanity too well". Personally, I've always felt that particular intimacy made The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 the cult phenomena that it is (mainstream be damned!).. What are your feelings on the matter?

For my money, I'm glad Tobe spent all that time with the family- we beat Oprah Winfrey to the punch re dysfunctional families by about 20 years! It was all about the Sawyers anyway, so why not concentrate on em?

Given the number of scenes that were cut from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 pre-release, are there any that you would've kept?

In one of the earlier versions of the script, Lefty has a mescal hallucination of chainsaws cutting through the walls of his hotel room- I'd have liked to have seen that! The other stuff was actually on the laser disc- the Joe Bob Briggs "saw foo" scene, the "croo-sant" sandwich scene in the parking garage where Bubba cuts off a football geeks hand, etc.

According to Tom Savini in an interview with Fangoria magazine (issue #56 ~ Have Chainsaw, Will Travel), the exposed plate in your head wasn't a special effect.. True or false?

Not exactly sure what that means. It was a real plate made of real silver and molded to my head mold. Sean McEnroe glued it on my my bald pate every morning, and Bart Mixon took it off every night. Sean and Tom Savini have the only two original plates. It was real; it warn't no special effect, if by that you mean put there by a computer or painted on the film. That sucker was cold when they glued it on my skull at 4 in the morning!

What was it like to see yourself on the big screen in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 for the first time?

I first saw myself in "Saw 2" in Times Square in the heart of my then-hometown, New York City. It was pretty weird seeing myself, but I kinda liked what I was doing up there on the big screen. After the movie, when everybody was walking out of the theater, my buddy turned to the crowd and shouted, "Hey, everybody, this is Choptop!" A scary long-haired guy in a black leather jacket came up to me, said "I really liked your work," and offered me not a hand to shake, but a cold steel hook! I got to admit, that fired me up!

Assuming that you're a fan of the horror genre, what are your 5 favorite horror movies of all time?

The list changes, but as of 4/13/2003:

1) Texas Chainsaw Massacre
2) Evil Dead 2
3) Todd Browning's Dracula
4) Suspiria
5) original Night of the Living Dead

Any new projects in the works?

I recently starred in a movie down in Alabama called "Home Sick." It was originally called "Solace," but they had to change the name 'cause someone else already had it. I play a crazy motivational speaker called Mr Suitcase-lots of screams n blood blood blood!. I play Otis, the evil albino head of the Firefly clan in Rob Zombie's "House of 1000 Corpses." And lately my day job has been working as Possum, the cook, on a new HBO series called "Carnivale" which is due to debut in September.