Welcome to Our Nightmares

It's a collection of profiles, most of which are being published for the first time, of the process that today's top horror actors underwent before and during shooting to transform themselves into the people we saw on screen, from both the perspective of the frightening (i.e., the villains) and the frightened (i.e., the prey). It's about what they did to take a new step as members of one of the film world's oldest and most popular genres. The horror world is often full of impossibility - although many consider the realistic to be the most frightening of all - and taking on such a role requires a different sort of preparation than drama, romance, or others that could occur. The cornerstone of this book is preparation: what went into becoming these characters, so often trapped in impossible or at least unthinkable worlds, on the individuals' own, long before the cameras began to role? That's a question that hasn't been asked enough in writing, but it gets answered many different ways here, and often for the first time ever, even from those experienced with acting itself.