Actor Quinn Lord captured the attention of horror audiences forever with his mischievous portrayal of Sam in perennial Halloween favorite Trick ‘r Treat. Now he’s back in coming-of-age fantasy adventure comedy Iké Boys. The debut feature by director Eric McEver sees a magical anime transform two Japan-obsessed teenage friends and a shy foreign exchange student into superpowered underdogs that must save the world ahead of Y2K.
Lord plays Shawn Gunderson, an Oklahoma high school student obsessed with Japanese culture and anime. He even takes karate lessons at the local dojo, taught by Newt Grafstrom (Billy Zane). When Shawn gets his hands on a rare anime, it winds up changing his life.
The actor shared why he was drawn to the project, “It was set in the ’90s, which is something I wanted to do because I haven’t quite been on the screen in the ’90s before. Superheroes were something that I was itching to do. There were a whole bunch of different factors. One of the other main ones was speaking a language other than English on-screen and having that language also be Japanese because when I was around nine or 10, I wanted to visit Japan.
“I grew up with Robotech and Transformers because my dad grew up with them, and he thought I should grow up with them as well. I’ve become a big fan of the G1 Transformers TV show, all the way up until the movie. Then Robotech: The Macross Saga, I liked the character of Rick Hunter. I felt so close to Rick Hunter with this because he also turned into a Mech. Yeah, I enjoy playing that character.”
In other words, Lord’s role felt tailor-made for him. Lord acted opposite Zane, who provides a lot of the film’s comedic relief as the karate sensei that seems to make up moves. When asked what it was like to share scenes with the actor, Lord shared, “There were so many takes. He’d whip out a witty one-liner, and it would be a different way each time. I don’t know how many he’s got stored up in that brain, but oh my. It was such a blast to film that.“
There’s a handmade quality to Iké Boys that makes this one of Lord’s favorite projects yet, citing one particularly unique element. “The animation, because it was done by two animation studios, and it was hand-drawn. They literally did the whole hand-drawn thing all the way through. Eric oversaw it for all the post-production. It took a while, drawing each and every frame of the 2D animation, but it hit home with the nostalgia for a lot of people, myself included.”
Iké Boys only mildly touches on horror in the final act, so we asked Lord if he’d ever like to return to horror proper. He had a specific answer, “Well, I couldn’t say no to a Trick ‘r Treat sequel, but I’m not really in charge of that. You have to ask Michael Dougherty about that.”
