The Three Actors To Portray Jason Voorhees In 'Freddy vs Jason'
Friday The 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan was the first film in the franchise to shoot in Canada, and because of that fact, producers started searching for an actor to play Jason that resided in the country. In fact, they had found their guy, Ken Kirzinger, to play the iconic killer and were ready to begin shooting. It wasn't until Kane Hodder was made aware of the eighth film and called producers to express his desire to reprise the role of Jason that he was ultimately brought back to kill more Crystal Lake teens. This, of course, left Ken Kirzinger without the main role in the film, however, he had an extensive background in stunts and was kept on the production to help in that capacity.
Ken would ultimately get to play Jason Voorhees in a few small scenes in Jason Takes Manhattan as well as get killed by Jason by being thrown into a New York diner mirror. His contributions to Part 8 would not go unnoticed, and when production for Freddy vs Jason was taken to Canada, Ken auditioned for the role of Jason Voorhees again and this time he landed the role permanently.
New Line Cinema did not want their main guy playing Jason to be injured throughout the production of the film, however, and decided to enlist the help of fellow stuntman Glenn Ennis to assist in some of the more dangerous scenes of Freddy vs Jason. Ken Kirzinzer has laughed at that idea while discussing his role in past interviews, expressing the silliness of hiring a stuntman to protect another stuntman from injury. Nonetheless, Glenn portrayed Jason Voorhees in a number of scenes throughout the production of Freddy vs Jason with the most notable being the rave scene with Jason on fire!
After production had wrapped on the film, a test screening was shown with the original ending having Will and Lori at home in bed and suddenly Will becomes Freddy and slashes toward Lori with the infamous glove. The ending did not sit well with the audiences and the decision was made to re-shoot the ending with a more satisfying way to send off both characters.
Since everyone involved with the film was back in Los Angeles, it was difficult to get Ken Kirzinger to come to the United States either due to monetary concerns or scheduling conflicts. So it was decided to enlist someone who was local and had also auditioned for Jason in the film during pre-production, and that was Doug Tait. As Doug mentioned in our interview from a few years ago, he had indeed auditioned for Jason Voorhees along with Ken Kirzinger to fight Freddy in the film and now he was given a chance at a dream job of his to become the Crystal Lake slasher!
Doug filmed the difficult water sequence in a couple of days in the water as well as some green screen work to help complete the film. Freddy vs Jason became a smash hit at the box office in 2003 and it took a true team effort to bring Jason to life on the big screen. Now, three actors can live in infamy as playing the iconic film maniac Jason Voorhees.
