Actor Casper Van Dien shot to stardom as Johnny Rico in the fantastic sci-fi action epic, Starship Troopers. Directed by Paul Verhoven, the film saw mankind at war with giant interstellar bugs, and charted Rico’s military career from high-school graduate to high ranking officer. Although released in 1997, the film has come back into focus again as the satirical propaganda portions of the film have taken on an entirely new meaning to audiences with their uncanny likeness to the world we now find ourselves in.
Outside of Starship Troopers, Van Dien has played two other famous Johns: Johnny Cage in web series, Mortal Kombat Legacy, and John Clayton II, aka Tarzan. Now he brings yet another John to life in new release, Dead Water. This John is a highly paid doctor who takes two of his friends, married couple, David (Griff Furst) and Vivian (Brianne Davis), aboard his new luxury yacht. Their dream getaway becomes a nightmare however, after a pirate sets his sights on the vessel. With tensions rising and hidden secrets revealed, can the friends work together to take him down?
Ahead of the release we sat down for a zoom call with Casper. He was in very high spirits and his passion for his work shone through. During our chat, we discussed what made Dead Water such a special project to shoot, how he’s handling the pandemic, several of his other recent projects, and of course how it feels to be living in the world of Starship Troopers.
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As an actor you must get sent a lot of scripts to read, what was it about this one that made you want to get involved?
At first I was all for the role of the marine, David. I always love playing those military guys, because of family – my father being in the navy for twenty years, my grandfather being a marine, my other grandfather being a medical foreman, and I went to Admiral Farragut military school. So I have this love for that discipline. The director was a marine, and four of the crew were marines, so we had a lot of marines around, which is a lot of fun. They’re very organised, they know how to get things done and you can count on them. So I liked the marine character, but then Chris [Helston] says, “No, I want you for the doctor.” It was an interesting role, just a totally different character role, and he [Chris] wanted me to go against what they normally cast me as, which was really interesting and fun to play.
He is a much darker role than those that you are more famous for having played. Is it fun for you to switch things up and get to embrace the dark side every now and again?
It’s interesting, it’s where I’ve been getting cast a lot lately. It’s a lot of fun to play those characters where they have something that isn’t quite right, they’re a little dangerous.
Your family has a history in sailing, was it nice to get back on the water?
Oh, it was a blast. My family, my mom and dad, owned an international sailing school for nineteen years. In all the sailing magazines, it was the number two sailing school for seventeen of those nineteen years, in the world. I love being on the water. I love being in boats, so this was a thrill for me.
It was interesting because me and my wife got married, and because we had had a tragedy in my family, we had to cancel my honeymoon. My wife said, “don’t worry about it, knowing you, you’ll get a movie and it’ll be on an island”, and about a month later I got that offer.
We went to this island and we were staying at the Buccaneer down there. We went down a week early, and then I had the weekends off, and some days and mornings off, and then we stayed for like five days afterwards. Everybody said it was like the longest honeymoon. Every night we’d have dinner together, and in the morning we’d wake up and play tennis. I’d go swimming with her. It was surreal. It was the greatest vacation / job I’ve ever had. Here I’d get to play this character, and we’d be on the boat doing all this work, and at lunchtime I’d just jump in the water.
I imagine filming on the water has its challenges, were there any hairy moments?
One point in time Griff [Furst] and I were doing a scene, we had to be in the water and I’m chasing after him going from one boat to another, and all of a sudden the water starts getting really heavy. The current gets really strong and we’re right out on the edge. There’s thirty, forty, sixty, a hundred feet where the boats are all anchored, and we’re in the part where we’re not anchored and we’re supposed to swim off. Then there’s a thousand foot drop right there, and he and I are swimming on that, but are going absolutely nowhere. As we’re swimming, we’re right over the dark, dark blue water where you can’t see anything and we’re swimming as fast as we can, but the current is pushing us out slowly. I wasn’t going to quit and he wasn’t going to quit. I wasn’t going to quit unless he was quitting, and he wasn’t quitting unless I was quitting, so we just kept swimming…they had to send a rescue boat to get us (laughs). We just kept going!
There’s a moment in the film where your character John discusses his grandfather, am I right in thinking that the name he uses is the name of your own grandfather?
It was interesting, we talked about my grandfather, which was so interesting because my grandpa was over there in WWI and he met my grandmother who was French. It’s kinda fun for me, the story I just changed it a little bit to match my families a little bit more. It was really interesting to do that, and for me to smoke a cigar, which is what my grandfather smoked. I don’t smoke, but it was nice to do that in remembrance of him. Some of the story was my dad, some of it was my grandpa, and some of it was what the marine had said. That was a fun scene to shoot, I liked talking about that. I like to talk about my family and get to bring them forwards. It was of a playful side of my character there I think.
How was the shoot?
This film was a lot of fun to make. I love Judd Nelson, he’s one of my nearest and dearest friends. I just spoke to him last night. I love working with him, and Griff is just a gem of a guy. We all had this great relationship with all these marines, so I hope that the energy that these guys put into it, how hard they worked to make this little film, comes across. The production value for me was… I mean you’re on a $2.2 million dollar yacht in the American Virgin Islands, we’re staying at the Buccaneer, which is a beautiful hotel if anybody ever gets the chance to stay there. It was just a joy to do. So much fun to be there and doing it. I went scuba diving and snorkelling and I think that fun came across on screen, some of the things that we did. There’s chemistry between everybody, which I know actors say a lot, but it’s fun when you like each other.
There were also just a lot of great gems and experiences. There’s a scene with some bodies, and one of them is my wife. These two people who we met whilst hiking on the island are the others. My wife is from Tennessee and this girl was from Tennessee. We were hiking and got lost up in the mountains. We got totally lost. Then all of a sudden these people came on their ATV’s and they were like, “what are you guys doing out here?” They were looking at me and I was wearing a Tennessee hat and they said, “well we’re from Tennessee”. Anyway, it turns out that my wife’s sister was the teacher of the woman’s kids that were in Tennessee. They lived down there now doing tours. They gave us some water and took us back. The guy was a marine, another one! We went scuba diving with them and then they were the other dead bodies on the boat. (Laughs) It was a lot of fun!
You’re usually a very busy and committed actor, how have you been handling the pandemic situation and not being able to work properly?
That’s been trying. I obviously feel bad for everybody, for the loss of lives and horrible consequences that people are going through. I think it’s just heartbreaking. I’ve just been super careful. Me and my wife stay home. My sister, her husband is a principal, and she has a kid; they’re back in school now. She calls us the cave dwellers because me and my wife don’t go anywhere. We just stay here. I work out here, we walk around the neighbourhood.
Basically what I’ve gotten to do is promote different projects that I have just coming out. I have a Western that’s out in the US on demand, called The Warrant. I have another one called G-Loc that’s a sci-fi that I shot with a guy over in England, Tom Paton; a lot of fun in that one. Then there’s one called The 2nd with Ryan Phillippe, that’s out right now, and now I get to promote this movie because it’s coming out in England. I get to do a lot of Zoom meetings and press. I do a lot of reading, writing, and hanging out. I’m in Florida so it’s always warm. I go swimming…I’m not suffering too bad, except for the fact that, and it’s nothing to complain about, I always feel more alive when I’m on a set. I feel more alive or whole when I’m doing my life’s purpose, I’ve been doing it for thirty-three years and that’s all I do. My kids know this and I say it to them too, I’m happiest when I’m on a set because it’s who I am. I get to be a better father, a better husband and everything when I’m working.
The struggle is sad, but it’s a simple, easy, benign struggle for anyone. It’s just the mental aspect that can be more trying and tasking. I think it is for everybody right now. We’re all forced to sit with ourselves and really do deep thinking, or maybe not, but I don’t know how not to when I have all this time. I have to reflect on things and some of it’s painful and hard, but I think it’s probably good.
When you read the script all those years ago did you ever think you’d end up living in Starship Troopers world, because that’s kind what it’s like now…
Paul Verhoeven and Edward Neumeier are geniuses. Ed wrote both Robocop and Starship Troopers, and Paul directed both of them. I still get in touch with Paul every now and again, but Ed and I are really close. He was in my wedding party and is just a dear, dear friend.
It’s amazing how I feel that we’re either in Starship Troopers or Robocop and both of them are terrifying! The political satire in both of those films is so funny and so on point for now. It’s like they had this vision, this pre-vision, an awareness of where we were going and how absurd it could be, and then how absurd it could be is exactly as absurd as it is.
I kinda hoped it might be a little bit more fun to live in the world of Starship Troopers or Robocop…
But they’re so violent. And not just violent with the shooting and the killing, but the propoganda and the putting down of people. Degregating their characters and the people willing to sell-out and stuff like that is so prevalent in those movies. You’re like, “oh my God, no one would ever do that!” Then we have it now and our President will do it, the politicians, both sides will do it. They could spend the money they spend on their political campaigns and fix all our problems, just put it towards that!
Starship Troopers has long been a comfort film of mine and at the start lockdown, when things were at their most uncertain, it was straight on the TV. It was insane watching it though and seeing these adverts and news stories that have always been so over-the-top and thinking, ‘this is just like the kind of news we get now’. It’s so insane!
It’s bonkers! But Verhoven and Neumeier, their satire and wit is incredible. What’s good is they gave an arguement for both the democrats and the republicans to talk about why they like that film. They both like it for their own purpose. Sometimes it’s absurd when I see one of them claim it so strongly as theirs. Humans were the bad guys in Starship Troopers! Some people just don’t get it. The English got it, when I was over there it was so much fun. We did a premiere in Clapham Common and it was a huge thing. They had all the propoganda war posters plastering all the tunnels. It was incredible. You guys have such a sick, dark, perverse sense of humour. You guys actually got the film. In America it went right over most people’s heads. They were like, “what? Bugs? I don’t get it.” Now they do get it. They caught up, they’ve grown into it. But still they didn’t understand the satire, which to me was just unbelievable, and if you know anything about the filmmakers, if you’ve seen Robocop, you’re like, “this is some dark shit”.
Now we live it. People have asked me this question and it’s a great question; literally we’re either in Starship Troopers or Robocop and it’s not the good part of either of those films. Which really is what those films are about. The joke really is on us because it’s like, “oh my God this is real.” I know we’re not really fighting bugs, but that’s not really what we were doing in Starship Troopers. What we were doing was, we were the bad guys. We were being facists and trying to force our will on other people and not give them the freedom that they had to choose. It was interesting.
You mentioned G-Loc earlier, it’s directed by Tom Paton whose work we’ve been following for the last few years. What can you tell us about that project and working with him?
I love Tom! I think he’s such a phenomenal director. He’s so smart. I love intelligent filmmakers, and he’s super creative. Talking about films that fit into society, G-Loc [is the same], he watched a documentary about immigrants and about people not being allowed in, and people trying to keep them out, and that gave him the idea.
The film shows us as the immigrants going into another world and we take this world over, and it goes years in advance. It’s like seventy years for every year on Earth, so by the time they go through the gate, now they’ve already been alive for so much longer, so when you leave Earth, when they’re leaving to come there, they’re not wanted by these people. They’re like, “we don’t want these immigrants”, which is like America. We don’t want immigrants even though we’re the immigrants.
He’s so smart, and he created something so good. It was a really solid…I love Tom Paton, great filmmaker, I hope to work with him many more times. I was in it with Stephen Moyer, I can’t believe we weren’t friends beforehand. He’s like the English version of me, and I’m like the American, not as smart or as funny version of him. He’s just a super great guy, a phenomenal man whom I absolutely adore and love. I hung out with him so much and we became dear friends. I just can’t believe I hadn’t worked with him before. He’s worked with two other Tarzans. I’m the twentieth Tarzan, and he’s worked with the 21st and the 23rd I think.
So he’s collecting Tarzans?
Yeah, he’s going through a lot of Tarzans. I haven’t even worked with those Tarzans! But he’s a good guy. Tom, I can’t say enough about the director, and I can’t say enough good things about Chris Helton who’s the director of Dead Water. This guy, this marine, he just put it together. He’s also just so smart. He created and financed a film in a whole different way. I love creative people that can pull something out that you don’t even know how they did it.
Filmmaking, you get all these people together who don’t know each other and all of a sudden they’re all doing all these different jobs, and you can come up with a product. Usually we can come up with something, sometimes it’s not as good as what you had wished for, but when they can make something, these little gems, these films that are pretty solid like G-Loc. I’ve been lucky lately. I’ve had some really good ones. G-Loc, I really like the Western, The Warrant, and Dead Water, I loved being part of that, and The 2nd. That one’s like a throwback eighties movie action. It’s all practical, the stunt guys were amazing. I have all these things that I’m really happy I got to be a part of and I get to talk about.
Dead Water arrives on DVD and Digital HD on Monday 5th October 2020.
