For David Naughton, the early days of filming An American Werewolf in London (1981) were deceptively simple. Little did he know, he was being lulled into a false sense of comfort before the real work began.

“That sort of fooled me,” said Naughton during an interview with the Calgary Herald. “It was like, ‘Hey, this is going to be easy.’ Then we get out there.”

Filming took place in London, where extra effort was required to create the film’s spooky ambiance.

“We were in England, and it wasn’t raining, so they made it rain,” said Naughton. Why would you make rain in England? We’re out there on the moors with these rain machines. It was so cold that the rain machines were freezing. ‘Hey, wait a second, that’s not fair. If the rain machines are freezing, then we shouldn’t have to be in the rain, should we?’”

Naughton was also forced to endure a laborious makeup process in order to turn him into a creature of the night.

“After the makeup experience, I was so over the idea of sitting in a chair for hours on end,” said the actor. “And I had worked with the best, or the person who would soon become one of the top makeup artists. So yeah, I was not in any hurry to go out and do anything related to hours of makeup, prosthetics, any of that business.”

Naughton acknowledged that the film wasn’t a “smash” when it immediately hit theaters, though as the years passed, people have warmed to the movie.

“People are very upfront about the film and how much it meant to them and where they are in their lives in terms of the impact it had on them,” said Naughton.