13 Things You Didn't Know About Friday The 13th Part III

7. The Casting Of Richard Brooker

Friday the 13th Part III Richard Brooker Jason Voorhees
Paramount Pictures

With police officer-turned-stuntman Steve Daskewisz, aka Steve Dash, playing the masked version of Jason Voorhees for Friday the 13th Part 2, a decision was made to feature a quicker, more agile Jason in Friday the 13th Part III.

In the case of Richard Brooker, he was a stuntman in Los Angeles at the time, but more importantly, his background was as a trapeze artist in the circus. Having seen a casting call for an imposing figure in an unnamed Steve Miner movie, the 6'3" Brooker had no idea it was actually Jason he was auditioning for.

Given his lean, toned frame, Brooker wore plenty of padding during the shoot to make Jason look bulkier. As for direction, the actor was given zero instructions from Miner other than to think of Jason as a human version of the shark from Jaws.

As for Richard Brooker the man, he led quite the extraordinary life. In addition to his acting work, the Englishman was also a sailor, an expert polo player, a horse trainer, an amateur photographer, a director, a producer for sports TV, he created his own website design company, and he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development in 2006.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.