HOLLYWOOD -- From Charlie's Angels to Dawson's Creek, Ray Wise has done them all.
"I started acting in TV series' in 1978 and have been there ever since. It's a great life. I've guest starred on more than 50 series," says Wise, who has also managed to sneak 50 feature films into his career.
In Jeepers Creepers 2, the horror flick that opens on Friday, Wise plays a farmer who vows vengeance on the demon who destroyed his family.
"The legend of the Creeper is that every 23rd spring, for 23 days he rises from Hell to feed on humans. It's the last day of his current feeding frenzy and I'm determined to end his reign of terror once and for all," he explains.
Made for just $10 million US in 2001, the original Jeepers Creepers grossed more than $100 million worldwide and on video and DVD.
"(Writer/director) Victor Salva had asked me to be in the first one but I had a conflict. I'd worked with Victor on his movie Powder in 1994. He's an incredible storyteller so I wanted to work with him again."
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Wise only wishes he'd had a little more time to consider the offer for Jeepers Creepers 2.
"The actor who was scheduled to play Jack Taggart had to drop out three days before filming was set to start.
"Victor told me the character is the driving engine of the film.
"He said I'd be like Captain Ahab going after the whale in Moby Dick.
"It was such a great pitch I said yes without reading the script."
Once on set, Wise discovered Jeepers Creepers 2 is "non-stop action and non-stop horror and my character participates in all of it.
"Taggart is a hard-working, sincere man on a collision course with the Creeper. He's determined to the point of obsession."
Wise was so excited by the final cut of Jeepers Creepers 2, he helped present the movie at Montreal's Film Festival Fantasia earlier this month.
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This is not the first time in his 25-year career that Wise has battled, created or even played monsters.
"I was the scientist who created Swamp Thing in Wes Craven's 1982 movie Swamp Thing and I was the one of the major bad cops in RoboCop.
"In 1993, Corbin Bernsen, Adrian Pasdar and I starred as vampire zombies in The Killing Box. We were these former Civil War soldiers who got turned into ghouls."
Wise had a rather surreal experience three years ago when he was filming Windfall in Romania.
His costars in the action thriller include Casper Van Dien, Gregg Henry and Robert Englund, who plays Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street films.
"On one of our days off, Robert and I visited Dracula's castle. It wasn't until I got there that I had to bend my mind around the fact I was visiting the castle of one of the most famous screen monsters with another of the most famous screen creatures."
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Wise is most associated with the role of Leland Palmer in David Lynch's cult TV series Twin Peaks and its 1992 movie Twin Peaks: Walk With Fire.
Leland was the father of the murder victim that brought the FBI investigators to the sleepy town of Twin Peaks.
"I think it's safe to say Twin Peaks played in almost every country in the world. I have yet to visit a country where people don't recognize me as Leland Palmer.
"I was in the Soviet Union and everywhere I went people recognized me. The show was the number one program during the time it aired."
His first TV role was on Charlie's Angels in an episode called Winning is for Losers.
"It was Jamie Lee Curtis's first TV appearance after Halloween had turned her into the scream queen.
"She was this golf pro and I was a crazed Vietnam vet who was stalking her. She was so sweet."
Not all Wise's costars have left such a favourable impression.
In 1985, he starred in an episode of Moonlighting aptly entitled Murder.
"I'd worked with Cybill Shepherd prior to that in a film we shot in Puerto Rico so I knew what to expect.
"I have some dandy Cybill stories but they can't be published until after at least one of us is dead."
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Wise, 55, was born in Akron, Ohio.
After graduating from the theatre program at Kent State University, he relocated to New York in 1970.
"I spent three weeks auditioning before I got a part on the soap Love of Life. I stayed for seven years and made 950 half-hour shows."
Wise is married to Julie Burr. They are raising his son Gannon, 18, and his daughter Kyna, 16, from a previous relationship with TV commercials producer Kass McClaskey.
"Looking back over my career I see I've played a lot of great fathers. It's a role I love playing offscreen as well."
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