He is a filmmaker and actor whose big break in Hollywood was playing a knife-wielding killer who terrorized Jamie Lee Curtis for 91 minutes in a 1978 slasher film that became a cult classic.
Even creepier, movie viewers never got to see his face because he was wearing a mask, a face adapted from William Shatner’s Captain Kirk character in Star Trek.
But he wasn’t always the man behind the mask. He co-wrote a hit action/sci-fi film starring Kurt Russell before turning to directing.
The iconic star, now 78, was recently spotted on a rare outing in Los Angeles wearing an orange T-shirt, cargo pants, baseball cap and sunglasses.
He also had a white beard, which made him look almost unrecognizable.
Can you guess who he is?
He is a filmmaker and actor whose big break in Hollywood was playing a knife-wielding killer who terrorized Jamie Lee Curtis for 91 minutes in a 1978 slasher film.
Movie viewers never got to see his face because he wore a mask, a face adapted from William Shatner’s Captain Kirk character in Star Trek – can you guess who he is?
If you guessed Nick Castle, you’re right!
Castle has retired from directing feature films, but he is not completely retired and still works on the occasional project.
He remains active in the entertainment community by doing voice work and participating in fan events where he signs his name for hundreds of autograph hunters.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Castle for comment but has not yet received a response.
A native of Kingsport, Tennessee, Castle got his start in the movie business by simply being in the right place at the right time.
Castle had been hanging out on the set of Halloween in Los Angeles to learn more about filmmaking when the director, John Carpenter, a former classmate at the University of Southern California, asked him to wear the Captain Kirk mask and stroll around as The Shape.
He ended up playing the role of the murderer Michael Myers and was paid $25 a day.
Halloween was released in 1978 and set the trend for slasher films.
He is Nick Castle and his most famous and high-profile acting role was Michael Myers in 1978’s Halloween
Jamie Lee Curtis played surviving heroine Laurie Strode, whom the masked killer is obsessed with in the cult classic that set the trend for slasher films
Castle was recently spotted on a rare outing in Los Angeles with a companion
The acting legend was virtually unrecognizable in a white beard, baseball cap and sunglasses
Castle had been hanging out on the set of Halloween in Los Angeles to learn more about filmmaking when the director, John Carpenter, and a former classmate at the University of Southern California, asked him to wear the Captain Kirk mask and stroll around as The Shape.
He ended up playing the role of the murderer Michael Myers and was paid $25 a day
The film starred Curtis as the surviving heroine Laurie Strode and Donald Pleasence as the psychiatrist, Dr. Samuel Loomis. Myers continued to be outsmarted with his disappearing act.
Castle did not appear in 1981’s Halloween II, but he did have cameos in David Gordon Green’s sequel trilogy, Halloween in 2018, Halloween Kills in 2021, and Halloween Ends in 2022.
Carpenter named one of the characters in the 1980 horror The Fog after Castle.
Castle co-wrote the script for the 1981 independent film Escape from New York, which starred Russell as the rugged, eyepatch-wearing antihero Snake Plissken, and was directed by his fellow student Carpenter.
Castle’s directorial debut was in 1982 with Tag: The Assassination Game, starring Linda Hamilton, Bruce Abbott and Robert Carradine.
He subsequently directed The Last Starfighter (1984), The Boy Who Could Fly (1986), Dennis the Menace (1993) and Major Payne (1995).
Castle wrote the 2007 musical drama August Rush, starring Freddie Highmore, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Robin Williams and Keri Russell.
However, the role of Michael Myers remains Castle’s best-known and most high-profile acting role.
Director John Carpenter named one of the characters in the 1980 horror film The Fog after Castle. Above you see Castle on the set of 1984’s The Last Starfighter, which he directed
Castle co-wrote the script for the 1981 independent film Escape from New York, starring Kurt Russell, Adrienne Barbeau, Harry Dean Stanton and Ernest Borgnine, and directed by his fellow student Carpenter.
He subsequently directed a number of films, including Tag: The Assassination Game (1982), Dennis the Menace (1993) and Major Payne (1995). Above, he directs a scene for 1986’s The Boy Who Could Fly
Castle had a cameo as Michael Myers in the 2018 sequel Halloween
The 2018 sequel reunited him with Curtis whose character locked him in a room in her heavily fortified house.
‘The fact is that my performance in the first one got so out of hand. It was meant to fill a void. John needed someone to walk around with a mask on,” Castle said Filmweb in 2018.
‘John said how much he enjoyed my walk. Just the fact that it was what I normally do. The direction on the first was zero. It was basically just, “Go across the street and walk to me.”
“I’ve even mentioned this before in interviews, before I did the first take, John said, ‘Walk across the street and walk over here.’
‘I said, “John, this is the first shot of this character, what do you want me to do?” And he said, “Just go across the street and walk.” It was night, the sun was coming up, so he tells me to just walk.
‘If there is a lesson from all of this, it is that sometimes things happen for no reason and you have to have the right elements at the right time.
“I think I was only 150 pounds at the time, about six feet tall, thin, angular, and no matter what I did I ended up walking slowly and methodically. But without being robotic.’
Castle concluded, “All those choices were, I think, important in creating a degree of mystery.”
In his personal life, Castle has been married to Mary Charlene Napp since 1981. have one child together.
