When John Larroquette got paid in weed to narrate ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’

Los Angeles, Jan 14 (IANS) American actor John Larroquette gets high with a little help from his friends. And, in return, he narrates their horror movies.

The actor, who returns as Dan Fielding in the new ‘Night Court’ revival, confirmed the long-standing internet rumour that director Tobe Hooper paid him in weed to narrate the prologue to his 1974 film ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, reports Entertainment Weekly.

“Totally true,” he told Parade. “He gave me some marijuana or a matchbox or whatever you called it in those days. I walked out of the (recording) studio and patted him on the back side, and said, ‘Good luck to you!'”

As Laroquette tells it, he and Hooper struck up a fast friendship when he was working as a bartender in Colorado back in 1969. When he headed to Hollywood to kickstart his acting career four years later, Hooper reached out to ask for his help on a little project that would change the horror genre forever.

“Tobe heard I was in town and asked for an hour of my time to narrate something for this movie he just did,” Larroquette recalled. “I said, quoted by Entertainment Weekly. ‘Fine!’ It was a favour.”

Filmed in the summer of 1973, ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ saw a group of young adults tormented by the cruel, chainsaw-wielding hands of ruthless serial killer Leatherface and his family. It was a box office smash hit, earning over $30 million dollars on its $100,000 budget and becoming one of the top 20 highest-grossing films of the year.

Since then, Larroquette has gone on to narrate the franchise’s numerous sequels, most recently 2022’s ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’.

And he has been getting paid in actual cash lately. “You do something for free in the 1970s and get a little money in the ’90s,” he said. “It’s certainly the one credit that’s stuck strongly to my resume.”

–IANS

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