Get the latest gossip

Whatever happened to Billy Bibbit? The extraordinary life of actor Brad Dourif - from Cuckoo’s Nest to Chucky

He was Oscar-nominated for his unforgettable work alongside Jack Nicholson, in one of the greatest films of all time. It was the start of his career as the ultimate character actor. He discusses David Lynch, Ian McKellen and the joy of playing a murderous doll

“My friend who helped me build this thing gave it a once-over and he went: ‘Expensive cats!’” Dourif, 75, is enjoying retirement so much that it takes a nudge from his agent to pull him away from the fantasy novel he is immersed in to alert him to the fact that he is 20 minutes late for our call. Though his breakthrough role was as the vulnerable Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and he was nominated for an Emmy as the honourable Doc Cochran in the HBO television series Deadwood, he is probably best known for playing villains (the treacherous Gríma Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings, the psychotic Gemini Killer in Exorcist III) and creeps (the astoundingly weird Piter de Vries in David Lynch’s Dune). He recalls standing in costume by a wooden fortress in New Zealand, looking out over snowcapped peaks and deep valleys, while actors with capes and swords flitted around thatched huts.

Get the Android app