Like a host of legendary Hollywood figures (think James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Jackson, and Martin Scorsese) Alec Gillis got his Hollywood start thanks to the inimitable Roger Corman, whose mountain of cult and genre films launched the brightest stars in New Hollywood. Gillis worked in special effects, working with the legendary Stan Winston and co-founding the Oscar-winning Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc. Gillis went on to work on a variety of top-shelf horror films of franchise in his career, from Pumpkinhead and Starship Troopers to the Alien, Predator, and Tremors franchises. Now, he gets to honor the man who provided his Hollywood start.

Shout! TV’s new series Double Take sees celebrity guests curate themed double features. In celebration of Roger Corman’s birthday, Alec Gillis is hosting a double feature of the classic Corman sci-fi epics Battle Beyond The Stars and Galaxy of Terror. We sat down for an exclusive interview with Gillis about working with Corman, his subsequent career highlights, and more. We first asked about his Hollywood start, working with Corman on Battle Beyond The Stars.

How Alec Gillis’ Collaborations With Roger Corman Started

Working on Corman’s Battle Beyond The Stars was formative for Gillis, and it started his history of collaboration with both Corman and James Cameron.

“It was very special. That film’s near and dear to my heart because it was the first film I worked on, and I was 19 when I interviewed and got the job,” said Gillis. “I had been turned down, rejected by USC film school, but that wasn’t gonna stop me because, you know, you just immediately dislike the people who reject you, so that’s fine, a little fuel. I got an opportunity for an interview through a friend of a friend. A friend of my sister’s actually was working on the movie, and he had seen my mother’s garage in Santa Ana where I had all of my monsters hanging from the rafters. I was doing stop motion, and he said, ‘I could get you an interview.’ ‘Oh, really?’ …  And I don’t think I had heard of Roger Corman prior to that.”

Gillis was a little nervous as a young teen without a portfolio.

“I’m trying to put a portfolio together, and I was very insecure about that. But I had met someone who was five or six years older than me, an artist who had a great portfolio and he was making films and all that stuff,” Gillis recalled. Corman’s team agreed he could bring a friend, “so I brought a friend to my interview to make me look better. And as it was, that friend was James Cameron. I had met James Cameron through a high school art teacher.”

James Cameron Almost Kept Alec Gillis From Getting Hired

Gillis had known Cameron for about a year prior to that interview.

“He was trying to make a feature film, because he’s that way,” Gillis said. “He is a force of nature.”

The pair interviewed with Corman’s SFX supervisor, Chuck Comisky, “and the Kotak brothers who were the tabletop miniature geniuses who would later go on… Cameron would bring them onto Aliens, and they got an Oscar for that and for The Abyss, I think. Genius guys.”

And then Gillis waited six months in relative silence.

“Jim and I didn’t get hired by Roger for about six months after that interview, and we were like, ‘wonder what happened? I guess there goes that opportunity, oh, well.'”

Clearly it ultimately worked out for the pair, but it turns out there was a small complication… James Cameron. Gillis explains:

“We did get hired, and then it was years later, Jim told me, ‘Hey, I found out why it took so long for them to hire us… it’s ’cause they thought I was a jerk.’ So Cameron was a little too self-confident, and a little too self-possessed, but they couldn’t deny the talent.”

After they were hired, the rest was history.

“Once we got in there, he proved himself. But that was great ’cause I was working sort of as his right hand guy,” said Gillis.

It sparked a history of collaboration for Gillis and Cameron, as well as starting Gillis’ collaborations with Corman.

Working With Corman On Battle Beyond The Stars

 After hearing the call to join Corman’s team, Gillis dropped out of film school entirely. He explains:

“I realized that the best film school was Corman’s, best film school in the world. So I ended up getting right to the point of graduation. I think I was one unit away. They told me I needed to take an extra French class and I’m like, ‘no thanks. I’ll just go back to work for Roger and get a paycheck.’ So that’s what I did, and I made a lot of lifelong friends.”

Funny enough, working on Battle Beyond the Stars didn’t actually involve a lot of working with Roger.

“ I was probably in Roger’s presence only about five times in the nine months that I worked on Battle Beyond The Stars. One was very early on, when I had just gotten hired and we went in to meet him. He wanted to meet the new hires.”

Gillis and Cameron both visited Corman’s office.

“It was me and Jim, and we sat with him, and that was pleasant. He had a big giant glass desk that he sat behind. But most of my experiences with him were in the halls, and he was an intimidating guy ’cause he was tall and he had a very booming voice, a commanding voice.”

Gillis went on to work with Corman again for Galaxy of Terror, cementing his position with Corman and Cameron, and sparking a lifelong career in SFX mastery.

Catch Shout! TV’s Battle Beyond The Stars and Galaxy of Terror double feature on Shout! TV at 5pm PT / 9pm ET, with Alec Gillis cohosting! Also check out Gillis’ newest project Wellwood, produced by Amalgamated Dynamics, and see more from our interviews with Gillis soon at That Hashtag Show.

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