Damon Herriman on the nightmarish revenge tale Judy & Punch, and playing Charles Manson for both David Fincher and Quentin Tarantino

Australian actor Damon Herriman has been on an evil streak. For the past few years, Herriman has almost exclusively portrayed violent madmen, from his role as the conniving Ruse in Jennifer Kent’s brutal 2018 film The Nightingale to playing Charles Manson back-to-back in both David Finch’s Mindhunter series for Netflix and in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood last year.

Herriman adds another maniac to that growing list with his role as Punch in Mirrah Foulkes’ directorial debut Judy & Punch, a wild ride of a film that takes the traditional story of the Punch & Judy puppet show and smartly upends it for our times.

Punch and Judy (Mia Wasikowska) are a married pair of puppeteers in the town of Seaside, England, where they perform their violent puppet show centered around the character of Punch getting worked up enough to inflict violence on others, to the delight of the crowd. While they try to grow the audience for their show, Punch is often drunk and careless, and in a drunken stupor, he accidentally causes a tragic death that pushes Judy to exact her revenge on her partner.

An invigorating mix of black comedy and fairy tale horror, Judy & Punch is a pitch-perfect revenge tale that remains surprising throughout, with standout performances from Wasikowska and Herriman and a strong sense of tone and style from director Mirrah Foulkes. It’s a film that’s incredibly difficult to discuss without delving into spoilers, but one that’s definitely worth seeking out now that’s it’s readily available on-demand.

We caught up with the amiable Herriman from his home in Australia to discuss how Judy & Punch came about, his experiences working with legendary filmmakers David Fincher and Quentin Tarantino back-to-back as Charles Manson, his work on the upcoming Barry Jenkins Amazon show The Underground Railroad, and why he’s done playing the villain for a while. 

Judy & Punch is available on iTunes and VOD platforms now.

Bad Feeling Mag: How are you doing over there? How have these last few months of confinement been for you?

Damon Herriman: A little strange, obviously, as it has been for everybody. But you know, we’ve been very fortunate here in Australia with the COVID numbers and things like that.  There hasn’t really been anywhere near as many fatalities thankfully, as there have been in other places. But yes, we’ve certainly been very much in lockdown. And there’s something very strange about that. There’s also something not that strange for actors because being at home not doing anything is often a lot of what’s going on in our lives anyway. [Laughs] But, yeah, the sort of lack of social contact has been strange for us.

Have you received any sort of updates about when filming can begin there, or potentially in the States, depending on which projects you have coming up?

Yeah, not in the States. But here, it looks like it’s going to open up very soon. And I’m actually going to be doing a film in New Zealand quite soon, as well. They’re doing incredibly well, there. They’ve virtually — I think until a couple of days ago — they had no cases at all. So yeah, I think in terms of the industry, we will be opening up earlier than the States will for sure.

Can you tell us anything about that project that you’re going to be filming in New Zealand?

I think all I can probably say is that it’s a movie and it’s a comedy. I think that’s probably all I’m allowed to say. But yeah. I’m really looking forward to it.

Were you actively seeking something a bit more light-hearted than the roles you’ve played these last few years?

Definitely. Yes, definitely. Either something light-hearted or characters that were nicer people. [Laughs] I feel like I’ve done my fair share of horrible people for a while now.

What initially attracted you to the role of Punch? I read that you’ve been friends with Mirrah for some time; was it based on your friendship with her or was it something about the character or the screenplay that attracted you from the beginning?

Oh, definitely the character in the screenplay. I mean, I didn’t think for a second I had a chance of getting this role when I read it. I hadn’t really been doing lead roles in movies. You know, it wasn’t a thing that I would normally be cast in. I was normally the guy that came in and did three or four scenes in something. So when the opportunity to audition came up, I was really, really excited, but I also felt like, well, she’s probably just wanting to see me for one of the smaller roles and she’s using the Punch scenes because they’re bigger scenes, you know. I was beyond thrilled when I found out I actually got the role.

To play someone as evil as Punch, do you have to find a sense of humanity in that character? Or can you just lock into his circumstances and go from there?

Yeah, I think it’s always good if you can, because, you know, no human being is one thing. It helps when the script is as good as this too because the layers of the character were written in there really. But even when you have an opportunity to play someone who’s a villain where it doesn’t feel like it’s written in so much, I think it’s still good to try and show a glimmer of something other than just a mustache-twirling villain, even if it’s just a moment behind the eyes, you know? Because I just think for an audience, it’s more interesting to watch someone that feels like they are a complicated, layered person.

You and Mia do such a great job together, especially in the beginning parts of this movie where you really feel like a couple that you could see together, you see that there’s chemistry between the two of you. Did you two have to work on the dynamic and tonal shifts that you have to go through together in this film? It’s quite a big stretch from the opening scenes to where it ends up.

Yeah, we did. We did rehearsals and we talked a lot with the director, Mirrah, about how she saw that journey. And you know, there are lots of tonal shifts in this film. It is an unusual one. It is very much like a fairy tale in that way. It can be quite light and humorous and silly, but also incredibly dark and at times violent. So, there was a lot to discuss in that regard. But I think, you know, again, Mirrah, being the writer and the director, had such a grasp on what she wanted, and such a clear picture of what she wanted, that that made it that much easier for Mia and for me.

I saw an interview with Mirrah where she was saying that the filming was actually quite difficult, because of the scope of the film and all the different elements (a baby, dogs, puppets). What was the experience filming this like for you?

Well, certainly the babies, they were twins that we used. And the dog stuff, you know, it was as difficult as the saying goes. Yeah, you know, the babies were adorable, but they were a little scared of me. Especially once they were in scenes where I started yelling, then they really realized that this guy was not someone they wanted to be held by. And so there were lots of moments of, you know, mom coming onto set trying to calm them. And the dog, yeah, the dog didn’t always do the tricks it was supposed to do. So that stuff was the trickiest part, the rest of it was just pure joy really. You know, there were so many other wonderful actors to work with. And incredible design and costumes. It’s not often you get to immerse yourself in a whole other world like that.

The film subverts what traditionally happens in the puppet show; Judy ends up with the power midway through this film, and then everything shifts. Was that something that you all discussed in the early stages of this film, this film being a way of seeing that through a new lens?

We didn’t talk about that so much actually, I guess because it’s so evident in the script that that happens. And that is you know, essentially what makes the film separate from the old puppet show is the fact that there is that twist. I know that for Mirrah, she did talk a lot about not wanting the feminist elements to be the overriding experience when watching the film, she wanted it to be a film that was entertaining, but that other stuff would be always just under the surface so that you would take it away and think about it, but not feel like you were watching a lecture of some kind. She wanted to make an entertaining film first and foremost and have the revenge tale of Judy and how that resonates today to be something that was sitting just under the surface.

Did you film this just after your two Manson performances?

It was actually just before. I knew about Mindhunter around January and then we shot this between April and June or March and June. And then I shot Mindhunter in August. Yeah, so it was just before.

I know you’ve talked about a lot, but it’s such a fascinating turn of events that you end up playing this infamous character back-to-back in these two huge projects by two of our greatest directors. You’ve said you were really immersed and did a lot of research into Charles Manson and those times; did that leave you with a different impression of him than you had before? Or was he still sort of unknowable to you after that period?

Yeah, I gotta say, to a large degree, he still remained unknowable. And I, you know, I read and watched as much as was humanly possible. But it’s such a mix of moods and personalities depending on the day. I mean, he would completely contradict himself sometimes about whether it be his involvement in the murders, you know, from suggesting that he was completely involved, to [claiming] that he had nothing to do with it to suggesting that he was completely mad. I think he was probably schizophrenic, and that’s where a lot of the paranoia and the delusional stuff would have come from. But it was very hard, very hard to pin down exactly what was making him tick. I think, some kind of combination of probably some narcissism and schizophrenia, I would gather, and as you can imagine, that creates a pretty out there human being. Certainly very charismatic, you know, as you would have to be if you were five foot two and having all these people want to devote their lives to you. But yeah, I was hoping I’d get a grasp on exactly really who he was deep down inside.

Apart from the physical differences in those two roles, did you approach them both as sort of the same person? Manson seems to have changed so much in the time span that you’re portraying him.

A little, yeah, so it was kind of… obviously, it is the same person. So there are things that you want to keep the same. But what I discovered looking at the two different time periods were not only did he look a little different and then obviously in Mindhunter there were also incredible prosthetics involved. But yeah, amazing makeup. Not only was there the physical change, but he did seem to be a lot more bitter and angry at the world once he was in jail and really didn’t believe he should be there. Whereas in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he was kind of — certainly before he was arrested — he was living the high life, you know, as far as he was concerned, he was the king of the castle and everybody was hanging on his every word. He had drugs and sex at his disposal. And I think, you know, he was more like this kind of playful court jester kind of type and you really didn’t get so much of that sense later, when he was in jail. He was a lot more serious and really bitter.

You’ve said that Mindhunter was the most physically demanding of your roles. What was that process like? 

Oh, yeah, no question. The hardest, hardest role I’ve ever played from a physical standpoint, and just keeping the energy up really, you know. The makeup went for about four hours in the morning, I think we would start around 4:30 am. And then at the end of that, you’re kind of a little bit exhausted even though you’ve just been sitting there but it’s a long time to sit in the chair and have something applied to your face and then the day starts and you’ve got kind of a twelve-hour day of acting. And you’re doing this same scene in full, you know, the ten or eleven-minute takes over and over and over again. And they shoot a lot of takes on that show. And they shoot it from a lot of angles. So it was both sort of thrilling and also like some kind of acting torture chamber. [Laughs] Because, you know, you would get halfway through the day and I barely had the energy to lift a drink to my mouth, and we were still only halfway through the day. And I have to come back tomorrow. And the next day. There’s nothing that’s come even close from the energy required and the exhaustion that gave me.

At that point did you already know you were going to be reprising that character?

Yes. So two weeks before filming Mindhunter is when I found out about Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, and two weeks after Mindhunter was when I filmed Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.

And Quentin Tarantino and his team were okay with it? You were already signed on to do the film?

Yes, they were, they were absolutely fine. I was definitely doing Mindhunter, they’d already done all the makeup and everything that was happening. So when I got Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, they didn’t know when I auditioned that I was already playing it. But when I got the role, then we told them, I assumed that the role would go away at that point, I assumed they’d say, “Oh, we’ll cast someone else.” And luckily for me, Quentin didn’t mind, so I’m very, very fortunate that I was able to do both.

What can you tell us about the upcoming Amazon series The Underground Railroad that you did with Barry Jenkins? Were you able to finish filming that before the lockdown?

Yeah. So thankfully, I finished shooting that in late February. I think they might have had to pick up a couple of days that they didn’t get at the end. But pretty much that whole thing is in the can, which is great. That was an amazing, amazing experience. Barry Jenkins is one of the great directors working today. Every aspect of directing, he is just a master of, in terms of how he frames shots, how he moves the camera, how he talks to actors. That was an amazing experience. And an incredible role. The character is called Martin Wells, who essentially only appears in one episode and a little bit of one other, mainly one episode, but it’s an incredible episode, and I got to play someone relatively nice for a change.

Judy & Punch is available on iTunes and VOD platforms now.