Chris Jericho On Starring In Dark Match, Why He Doesn’t Do Many Wrestling-Related Films

Chris Jericho is starring in the new horror film Dark Match hitting Shudder tomorrow, and he recently talked about starring in the film and more. Jericho plays The Prophet, the leader of a group in the 1980s that hires a struggling independent promotion to come out and perform for them, in the film. He spoke with the CBC about the movie and more; you can see highlights below:

On appearing in a wrestling-themed film: “I don’t really like doing wrestling-related movies because I wrestle, and I find that they’re a little bit clichéd most of the time. And frankly, a lot of them aren’t very good… I was pleasantly surprised at how well-written the script was and how deep the character of The Leader was… We worked really hard to make people forget that it’s Chris Jericho. It’s just this wacko cult leader murdering people in the ring.”

On the film reminding him of his independent days: “The first few years, I was travelling in vans, up and down the roads of Saskatchewan and Alberta and Manitoba. I never stumbled onto a satanic cult, but there’s quite a few shows that were just weird. You’d go to a town where it says, ‘Population: 250’ and there’d be 500 people. Where’d they come from? They came down from the mountains. Like, you don’t think there were some creepy people there?”

On being a horror fan since he was a kid: “I can remember being a kid and there were late-night horror movies on TV, like pre-VCR. My mom would let me watch the movies, but I had to sleep first. “I got up every time. You don’t have a chance to see Dracula A.D. 1972 if you sleep in. You can’t go rent it or stream it the next day. It’s gone! So that’s where my whole horror movie obsession started.”

On balancing acting and wrestling: “I’m not going to wrestle forever. I don’t want to wrestle forever, but right now, I still enjoy it. I feel great. I can still contribute and still perform at a high level, so there’s no reason to stop. But if the right [acting] opportunity came up, I would do it. I love playing characters. I’ve been playing the character of Chris Jericho and all its different iterations for 34 years now. So any time I get a chance to do more, I’m going to do it, because I really enjoy it. It’s what I’ve been doing since I was a kid.”