Halloween: Every Michael Myers Actor Unmasked

Halloween 5 (Dimension Films)

Don Shanks

Dimension Films obviously loves to employ skilled stuntmen to portray Michael Myers. For safety reasons, it makes sense. Potential victims are always trying to fight Michael off, so you need someone who knows how to take a bump or two to play “The Shape”. A true professional stuntman would be able to protect those he was working with as well as himself.

For Halloween 5, Cherokee stuntman Don Shanks was brought in to play the role. Playing Michael Myers might be Shanks’ most well-known role on screen, but it’s actually not the only time he would play an iconic killer. For I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, Shanks stepped in as the Fisherman, the main antagonist of the franchise.

Shanks was on the TV series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, and has had plenty of parts in movies as well, apart from working with stunts. This includes other horror films like Silent Night, Deadly Night, The Crow: Salvation, and Urban Legends: Bloody Mary. He continues to appear in films to this day, and also has a role in the upcoming video game The Alone.

Here’s a more recent photograph of Shanks in the 2015 film Like Son, in which he plays a sheriff:

Don Shanks in Like Son

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