From Springfield to Hollywood: Kevin Keppy finds true calling as a creature actor
Kevin Keppy is having quite a year. He’s been on shows you can stream on Netflix and Disney+. Even bigger, he appears in “Smile,” a low-budget horror film that’s become the fall’s biggest surprise hit.
Don’t worry, he won’t be offended if you don’t know what he looks like.
You see, Keppy is what the industry refers to as a “creature actor.” He face is covered in make-up and masks. The rest of him is outfitted to look like a beast or alien. A creature actor's primary job is to bring a human touch to non-human entitles on screen. It takes a lot of flexibility and contortion — and patience for the job.
He also hails from Springfield. I met him a few years ago, when he was performing as part of a local troupe helping with a charity’s trivia night. He and his fellow thespians were recreating scenes from famous movies. As Keppy embodied Jack Nicholson’s Joker, I watched his extended grin and his face twist in all sorts of directions.
Who is this guy, I thought, and what is he doing in Springfield? It was one of those moments where you see a performer who uniquely stands out, with the thought there might be something bigger and better waiting for him out in the stars.
Keppy was born around the Quad Cities, moved to Springfield when he was in high school, and never trained formally for acting.
“It was the mid-aughts and I was walking around the First Friday Art Walk in downtown Springfield,” Keppy recalled. “I just had a thought that I should try acting in order to be more fully artistic.”
In fact, Keppy never saw a stage performance until 2006 when he caught a local production of “Macbeth.”
From there, he took classes. Went to auditions. Given the expressiveness of his face, playing bad guys and supernatural beings was a natural fit. While he did stage versions of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Batman,” he would keep his day jobs doing graphic work for local businesses.
“Otherwise, I was on stage or performing," he said.
Keppy received encouragement from his peers to head west, but it wasn’t until he turned 40 that he made the decision.
“I knew if I stayed, I would need to settle in. Buying a house and so forth. It was then or never,” Keppy said.
As a creature actor, Keppy said the process of finding work isn’t the same thing as a “regular" actor.
“You find FX shops and write them hoping they will bring you in. There’s a lot of networking rather than auditioning,” he said.
Keppy was able to build some good relationships, but then COVID hit and the entire industry shut down.
“It’s tough but the industry figured out how to go back to business after a few months and we just adapted," he said.
Keppy’s big leap of faith seems to be paying off. This summer, he appeared in “The Quest” on Disney+. It’s a reality show/science-fiction hybrid where contestants are dropped in a “fantasy world” and compete with challenges.
He also appears in several iterations throughout “Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities” that dropped on Netflix last month.
“Smile” is catching a lot of attention right now. Shot on an $18 million budget and destined for streaming, positive test audiences convinced the studio to put it in theaters where it has made over five times its cost in the U.S.
It's the story of a young doctor (Sosie Bacon) trying to track down a curse that is causing people to kill themselves with a big grin on their face. "Smile" has plenty of scares, but never resorts to exploitation. It’s a tense, fun watch.
Keppy appears at the end in a part that feels much more pivotal than the credit “Nightmare Mom” gives it. The ending leaves room for a sequel and, whatever it is Keppy is playing here, it wouldn’t be surprising if that being showed up again.
While some visual effects were used, most of the work was filmed practically with what can only be described as “movie magic,” he said.
“I shot for two days on location in New Jersey,” Keppy said. “I was there with the lead and we had to go through a lot of trust exercises since it is such an intense scene.”
That’s an understatement.
After he shot it, Keppy saw part of the scene through post-production, but the experience didn’t really hit him until the premiere. “I was sitting there and I am still amazed by how lucky I am,” he said.
But, for a working actor, he’s back looking at new projects and new opportunities.
It’s a pretty amazing story. You work in local theater in a smaller market, then decide to go be in the movies when you hit the big 4-0. Plus, it has a happy ending. Just don’t expect Keppy to start appearing in rom-coms anytime soon.
James Owen is the Tribune’s film columnist. In real life, he is a lawyer and executive director of energy policy group Renew Missouri. A graduate of Drury University and the University of Kansas, he created Filmsnobs.com, where he co-hosts a podcast. He enjoyed an extended stint as an on-air film critic for KY3, the NBC affiliate in Springfield, and now regularly guests on Columbia radio station KFRU.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: From Springfield to Hollywood: Keppy finds true calling as creature actor
