Clown 'burned out' while directing Officer Downe

Slipknot’s Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan says he almost burned himself out while directing upcoming film Officer Downe.

The movie – based on the Man Of Action comic books – is Crahan’s directorial debut and is scheduled for release in mid-2016. It stars Sons Of Anarchy’s Kim Coates in the lead role – an LA cop who is killed in the line of duty but repeatedly resurrected and sent back to work.

Officer Downe also stars Tyler Ross, Lauren Velez, Reno Wilson and Bruno Gunn. The screenplay was penned by Man Of Action writer Joe Casey.

Crahan tells 103.9 The Bear: “I got to make my first motion picture. It was PhD in six weeks. I made a Hollywood movie that is going to look like a very, very expensive movie. And I did in 21 days, 18-hour days for six weeks – the hardest artwork I’ve ever done in my life. It’s awesome.

“I burned out, I gave all I’ve got. Hopefully it’s a breath of fresh air for everybody. I’m giving everybody something that’s a little extreme on the art, but nothing where you’re like, ‘Clown, you’re taking too much artistic liberties to screw us all over.’

“I’m working with a great, great bunch of people. Joe Casey wrote the comic. I’m working with Skip Williamson and Mark Neveldine, who created the Crank series.”

Crahan believes fans of the comic book series will appreciate his interpretation of the story. He adds: “I wanted to represent the story. That was my first prize — to make sure that it has justice. That people that are in love with the comic book and in love with the writer watch the movie and go, ‘Yup. That was the story. And Clown brought the visual and brought these crazy outfits and this crazy way of acting and these techniques.’ So I think the world’s gonna like it.”

As well as his musical contribution to Slipknot, Crahan creates artwork for the band and he previously said much of his art is inspired by the band’s late bassist Paul Gray.

Slipknot recently announced five arena shows in the UK for February next year.

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.