Devon Sawa. Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
When it came to playing a “douchey” cop in his new horror-comedy Heart Eyes, Devon Sawa was all in — and knew exactly where to turn for inspiration.
“I’ve played some [bad] guys in the last few years for sure,” Sawa, 46, exclusively told Us Weekly. “This guy came from my internet algorithms, specifically on X. I made the mistake of starting to watch [videos of] when the cop rolls up to the car and their camera is on and they try to do some stuff that isn’t right and then the person calls them on it. That’s where this cop came from. It’s those cops that think they’re just above the law, [who] may have watched too many Dirty Harry movies back in the day. That’s where this guy came from.”
From director Josh Ruben, Heart Eyes — which hit theaters on February 7 — follows a vengeful serial killer who has some serious issues with Valentine’s Day and expresses his anger by ruthlessly murdering anyone in love. Although Ally (Olivia Holt) and Jay (Mason Gooding) are determined not to let Heart Eyes ruin their first date plans, things quickly take a turn for the worse when the titular character sets his sights on the new couple.
Sawa, for his part, portrays detective Zeke Hobbs, an officer attempting to track down the Heart Eyes killer alongside his partner, Jeanette Shaw (Jordana Brewster). And while Sawa pointed out that there are “a lot of great cops out there” in the world today, his fictitious Hobbs is definitely not one of them.
“There are a few [cops] that think they’re [Sylvester] Stallone from some ‘80s cop movie, and so that’s where this guy came from,” he explained. “It was that douchey, kind of, ‘I’m above the law. Men do it better.’ That guy. And so it was fun to play for a month.”
If you found yourself hating the moments when Hobbs was on screen, prepare yourself for any future director’s cut or deleted scene. Sawa revealed that his character was capable of even more douchebaggery when Ruben allowed him to “spitball” while playing the character, allowing for even cringier dialogue than what eventually made the final cut. “He got really douchey,” Sawa confessed with a laugh. “I’ll leave it at that.”
The opportunity to play the world’s douchiest cop on screen, it turns out, wasn’t the only reason Sawa was drawn to Heart Eyes. The actor grew up loving both the horror and romantic comedy films of his era, and jumped at the chance to be part of a project that blended the two genres seamlessly.
“Horror was my first love when I was a kid growing up — when I was renting movies, when I was seeing movies, it was always horror. But I was also a big fan of those ‘90s rom-coms, especially as a teenager. The Sleepless in Seattles, the You’ve Got Mails, the Cocktails, all these romantic movies I loved,,” he explained. “And so when I read the script, it felt like one of those movies, but we’ve inserted a killer into it. And so it had both of those worlds and I fell in love with it instantly and I knew I had to do it.”
Sawa himself is a major pioneer of what the horror genre has become today, but the Idle Hands star credited Ruben and stars Gooding and Holt for making Heart Eyes what it is — a balance between jump scares, gore, humor and heart that he said felt “perfectly executed.”
“This could have been way over the top, but Josh comes from a world of comedy,” Sawa said of the director. “He’s also a huge horror fan. He was able to keep it at a certain level that made it all work. It never got too heightened. It never got too scary. I mean, it’s scary, but it was all done at the right level. It felt like a fan did this. A fan of horror and a fan of comedy.”
Sawa also gave a shoutout to Mary Vernieu — the casting director behind last year’s The Strangers: Chapter 1, The Fall Guy, Alien: Romulus and more — for knowing Gooding and Holt were the right choices for their respective roles.
“They’re both electric, even on their own, even when you hang out with them,” Sawa gushed of the two leads. “Mason is intoxicating. He just makes you smile and he says all the right things and he feels genuine. And Olivia’s the same. They’re both super talented.”
Both Gooding and Holt have created their own respective legacies in the horror sphere over the past few years, with Gooding part of the next gen in the Scream franchise and Holt starring in 2023’s Totally Killer and the first season of Freeform’s anthology hit, Cruel Summer. Sawa, for his part, got to witness the pair make magic up close: “I really just stood on the sidelines and did a lot of watching,” he said. “I’m very fortunate that the two leads of the movie are as good as they are because I’m going to benefit from all of it immensely.”
Although Sawa didn’t get to film much with the duo — instead sharing most of his screentime with the “phenomenal” Brewster — the cast were able to spend some downtime together while shooting on location in New Zealand. Sawa told Us the group would often play “board games,” “have dinners” together and eventually created a bond that he won’t soon forget.
“I hope [Mason and Olivia] stay the way they are now,” Sawa added thoughtfully, sharing that Gooding in particular recently wrote him a heartfelt letter “that, like, almost made me cry.”
Gooding and Holt may be stars on the rise, but Sawa has already made his own legacy via his decades-long career. After making a name for himself in films like Casper, Now and Then and Final Destination, the actor recently garnered an even larger cult following for his role on the Chucky series, which saw him return as a new character for each of the show’s three seasons.
Being murdered, it turns out, can actually be fun — and Sawa is fine with not always being that Final Guy. So when it came to (spoiler alert!) getting brutally murdered by the Heart Eyes killer, he was completely down for the experience.
“It was nuts. The older I get, the more people want to kill me. I love it,” he said with a laugh. “Especially with [Chucky creator] Don Mancini. I wasn’t supposed to go on to season 2, but I guess he enjoyed murdering me twice in one season [so] he thought, ‘Look, let’s bring you back so we can murder you again.’ It’s a lot of fun to die and come back.”
Now that both Chucky and Heart Eyes have wrapped — at least, until the hopeful sequel — Sawa is looking ahead for what’s next. While horror will always be in his veins (“I want to keep coming back to horror at least once a year,” he promised), there are plenty of other genres he’d like to visit, too.
“One of my guilty pleasures is watching mob documentaries on YouTube. I think I’ve run out of them to watch. I’ve watched them all. I’d love to visit some really grounded crime stuff. And romantic comedy,” he told Us. “I just want to keep doing what I love doing. Like, what would I watch? That’s what I want to do.”
Heart Eyes is in theaters now.
