Casper Van Dien Interview

Before the Hollywood premiere screening of Starship Troopers 3: Marauder, star Casper Van Dien sits down with Richard Elfman to talk about film, life, and career. 

Richard Elfman:  Hi, Casper.  What can you tell us about your new Starship Troopers movie and the return of your original Starship Troopers character, Johnny Rico?

CVD: Well, Ed Neumeier wrote Starship Troopers and Robocop, and he wrote Starship Troopers 3 and also got to direct it.  He had been editing various versions of Starship Troopers 3 the last few years, and he handed me about five different scripts on this, so I had the opportunity and privilege to read all that, and it was just really exciting.  Ed said that the studios came to him and said, “Hey, we’d like to make another Starship.  What do you need to do it?” And he said, “Well, first of all, I want the Johnny Rico character back, which needs Casper Van Dien,” and they said, “That’s fine…can you put the humor back in it?” And he said, “Yeah,” so it’s back.  It’s 11 years later.  The war is not going so well and has turned out to be really long, we’ve lost a lot of people, and a lot of new characters are running the Federation – and it’s a fun cast – new bugs.  Rob Skotak, who won Academy Awards for Aliens and T2 for Special Effects did our bugs.  And the gentleman who did the music for Pirates of the Carribean [Klaus Badelt] did our music, and the editor was Stephen Kemper, who does all of John Woo’s American films and Mission Impossible 2, so we’ve got good behind-the-scenes talent and some really interesting characters in this.  And the humor is back, which I think is really the star of Starship Troopers, in my opinion.

RE: Tell us some of the trials and adventures about making the film.

CVD: Well… I read the script and it says, “Johnny Rico takes off his shirt and is in better shape than all the young cadets…” and I’m like, “Aw, man!” So we have to strip down totally naked in the scene where we get scanned.  So three months before we shoot it, I’m working out and finally went on a just sashimi and sushi diet – no rice past 1:00 pm…just protein and vegetables, and worked out twice a day – cardio and weights every day.  I didn’t have one piece of candy, not one drop of sugar for the entire two months we were shooting in South Africa – and we shot that scene on the very last day, thank God! So I was probably in the best shape of my life, which was nice to be able to do. It’s harder when you won’t do the drugs like some people do to get in shape, because I can’t manage that.  I’d go nuts, with my brain.  So that was probably one of the craziest things that I had to do for that.  I also took my whole family on a safari right afterwards.  We’re staying in these Ralph Lauren tents out in Port Elizabeth at an elephant park…

RE: Port Elizabeth, South Africa?

 CVD: South Africa.  And it was beautiful.  As you’re sleeping in your tents at night, you’re hearing lions go by your tent.  They just go [*Roar…Roar*].  It’s not the normal roar that you’d think it is because they don’t really do that other thing.  I mean, they do, but it’s not like… It was just the most magical thing.  We got chased by a black rhino.  It just came after us and we were in the Jeep and it almost hit us, it was so close.  And I had all my kids in there!  

RE: Well, Casper, you’re married to the lovely actress Catherine Oxenberg, and tell us – you have how many children?

CVD: Catherine and I have five children, both together (and from our previous marriages), ages five to 17 – so we have a whole brood.

RE: What is next on the horizon for you, Casper Van Dien?

CVD: I have Starship Troopers: Marauder coming out next week, and then I have an episode of Monk coming the first week in August, which was a lot of fun to do – I love that show, and Tony [Shalhoub] is just absolutely wonderful to work with. And Catherine and I, right now, are writing a script called “Royale Exile,” about her grandfather, Prince Paul of (formerly) Yugoslavia who had been forced to deal with Hitler and Mussolini during the early part of the war and afterwards was exiled.  His name just got cleared and vindicated through the English press and also through Serbia.  He was really an incredible man.  It’s a magical story and we have all this great footage, and we have the five-hour conversation where, as head of the state, he had to meet with Hitler personally.  And in this meeting it was just him, Adolph Hiltler and Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (later hanged for war crimes) – but just the three of them for five and a half hours.  Prince Paul said he was terrified because the Allies wanted him to go to war against Germany and he’s like, “Are you nuts? I can’t declare war on them!  They’re going to wipe our little country out!” And he tried to sign a non-aggression treaty… Hitler wanted him to sign a trifecta (with Mussolini) and Prince Paul fought for his country to be protected, and then he got sold out by the allies and was exiled, and Hitler went in and demolished the country in six days.  The film is partially financed and we’re presently setting up filming locations in Serbia.

RE: Wow!  What an exciting project!  But before we go -the screening’s starting in a minute – can you give our readers a hint about the reported political and dark social satire in Starship Troopers 3, and how it compares to Starship Troopers 1.

CVD: Ed Neumeier has a very dark, sick, perverse way of writing.  He is a genius.  I love him for that.  I really enjoyed the political satire of the first Starship Troopers.  I think it holds up well to this present day.  I think Ed writes about what he knows.  He correlates it to other wars and also to what’s prevalent to today’s issues.  I just wanted to add the new film not only has the political satire, but it adds a darkly comic religious-political-social theme that is, in my opinion, extremely funny.  I think people will really enjoy the comedy as well as the adventure of Starship Troopers 3.