With Doctor Sleep currently haunting cinemas, Ewan McGregor (who plays Danny Torrence) has admitted recently that he was too scared to watch the original Shining.
Now, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that The Shining is an absolute horror masterpiece. It’s a true classic and one of Kubrick’s most well-known films, so to hear the star of its sequel talk about being too frightened to watch it just makes us adore McGregor even more.
There’s something so endearing about Obi-Wan himself opening up about it. He’s watched it now, he says, but it took him years to pluck up the courage, admitting that he’d “just heard it was too scary.” What’s even more interesting is that The Shining wasn’t even the first film which made him realize that horror wasn’t for him.
McGregor also spoke about the time he watched Halloween when he was a teenager. Apparently, upon walking out of the screening with some of his friends, they discovered that a few pranksters had hung a wet towel outside the door, which seemingly freaked out the soon-to-be actor and co.
We’re not quite sure how a wet towel would put someone off horror films for years to come, but we can only assume that it was one of those things you had to be there to experience. “F**kin’ sadists!” is what he reportedly called the pranksters.
Now that he’s – sort of – over his fear of horror, we’re very much looking forward to seeing how McGregor portrays the grown up Danny Torrence in Doctor Sleep. We’re almost certain it’ll be a worthy successor to that much loved Stephen King adapta–wait, sorry, we’re still trying to work out how a wet towel can freak someone out like that.