The technical term for his condition is hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia, but the net of that is that he looks a bit different from the lot of us. I’m sure most people that run into him on the streets are left with that nagging feeling that they’ve seen him before, and that he was a great big jerk. But that’s just the film legacy that Michael Berryman has left behind. My first exposure to him was when he played the principal in the Smokin’ in the Boys Room video by Mötley Crüe. You know, the guy who had his toupee yanked off at the end.
The role that he was in that would eventually mean most to me though was as a mutant biker in Weird Science, but he is better known for his work in the horror realm in such well-known horror flicks as The Hills Have Eyes and The Devil’s Rejects. He even has small roles in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
I recall seeing Michael Berryman at the 1997 Hollywood Show that I attended and had long regretted not getting an autograph from or photo with him. I finally had my chance to get this rectified when he appeared at the Fanboy Expo in Knoxville, Tennessee on October 26, 2012.
His sign indicated that he charged $10 for a photo with him, but I had heard from another fan that if you catch him away from his table he’d do a photo with you for free. So I kept an eye out for him when he was walking around and just as he was heading back to his table, I told him what I had heard. His response: “Where did you hear that?” I had a brief uh-oh moment, until I made light of it, and said, “that’s just the rumor.” He said, “Well, it’s true…”
That opened the door for a photo with him (taken my Paris Themmen, who just happened to be walking by at the time), and a nice long 20-minute conversation with him. We started by talking a bit about Weird Science and the fact that he didn’t have any photos from it. I opted to plunk down the $20 for a shot from The Devil’s Rejects, which I’ve never seen. The conversation eventually turned to restaurants and Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. I notified him that The Pizza Palace was just down the road from where we were.
Somehow the conversation turned to politics, and he espoused his staunch liberal views. I found the conversation pleasant, but conservatives would not have by any means. I refrained from a lot of comment, but he was fun to listen to. I recommended that he check out the documentaries Why We Fight and The Fog of War. He wrote them down.
I actually saw Michael Berryman again less than a months later at the Days of the Dead event in Chicago on November 18. I asked him if he had had the chance to check out those films and he told me he hadn’t yet – but that he had the names of them still sitting on his desk.
It was cool to finally get to met him for real, and even more pleasant to find him so nice and amiable. He may have been a mutant on screen, but in person he was a very nice and intelligent guy.
Celebrities of the 2012 Knoxville Fanboy Expo will continue…
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