Influential performers: Kevin Peter Hall
“Gentle giant” Kevin Hall is perhaps best known for being no fewer than 7 feet and 2 inches tall. Most people know that he was the Predator, but probably not what he actually looked like.
Kevin was born in 1955 in Pennsylvania. He was apparently the tallest of six brothers, who were all over 6’5″. His parents were also both over 6 feet tall. During his high school years Kevin was – perhaps unsurprisingly given his height – a star basketball player. He went on to study theatrical arts at George Washington University. He then had a bit of a detour into Venezuelan basketball.
While known for being a phenomenal creature actor, Kevin also had some human roles, often guest parts on TV, and of course, at the end of Predator itself, as the helicopter pilot. But I think it’s safe to say that his true calling was monster movies.
Kevin clearly thought hard about how to convey the world of his characters through their movement. His training in ballet, martial arts, and mime no doubt gave him the tools for this. He used his silhouette, posture, gait, to tell the story. Movements are economical, calculated, non-animalistic. Steps are weighted deliberately. The torso is rigid and controlled. When he stands motionless, you can still feel the cogs turning in the intelligent alien brain.
His first creature role was actually that of a mutant bear in the 1979 film Prophecy. I haven’t seen it yet, so cannot comment much on the performance, but from clips and images, it seems Kevin was always adept at moving in a creature suit, even when the character was far from graceful.
As research for this post, I took the opportunity to watch the 1980 film Without Warning. Unfortunately, it didn’t show a whole lot of Kevin’s alien performance. It sure did show a lot of little limpet-like alien sucker creatures, I guess they were more important than the actual big alien. But from the little I could glance (it could just be that Plex has a weirdly-cut version), Kevin once again uses his powerful presence as part of the performance.
Kevin also went on to portray Bigfoot in Harry and the Hendersons (1987), but movement choices here are much more comedic, yet still imposing. The posture is softer, the gestures gentler, those of a friendly, somewhat absurd forest creature, in contrast to his performances as menacing extraterrestrials.
Kevin was in a serious car accident in Los Angeles. He received a blood transfusion during emergency surgery. Unfortunately, that blood was contaminated, and Kevin soon died of AIDS-related Pneumonia at age 35 in 1991, just a month out from his 36th birthday.
I probably don’t need to say much about the impact that Kevin had on creature acting and movement work in general. He will not be forgotten anytime soon. And he may seem an odd source of inspiration for me, given that we are opposites in many ways; I am a 4’11” female wheelchair user who spends much of life needing to sit down. But Kevin imparts a lesson on the importance of propelling the energy of your character towards the audience, with only stance and movement.
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