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The cast of the new Hellraiser movie has been announced, and it includes Odessa A'zion, Brandon Flynn, Goran Visnjic, Drew Starkey, Adam Faison, Aoife Hinds, and Hiam Abbass. With all due respect to those actors and their careers, that’s not why I’m writing about Hellraiser today. They’re exactly the type of actor I expect to be in the new Hellraiser movie, because I’ve never heard of them. I’m writing this article because of Jamie Clayton, who is playing the titular Hellraiser - Pinhead themselves.
While Hellraiser as a series isn’t as highly thought of as the likes of Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, or even the horror-adjacent series like Alien or Predator, Pinhead himself is a top-tier siℱlver screen horror villain. While Doug Bradley is best known for the role of Pinhead, he has also been played by Stephan Smith and Paul T. Taylor. Jamie Clayton, the latest Pinhead, is the first woman to take the role, but more interestingly, she’s also the first trans person to take the role.
Trans people have come a long way in Hollywood over the past few years. While previously maligned freaks played by cisgender men - see Silence of the Lambs, Dressed to Kill, and Psycho - recent years saw trans people instead be s𓂃ympathetic, Oscar worthy freaks played by cisgender men - see The Danish Girl and Dallas Buyers Club.
Beyond that, trends are changing. Scarlett Johansson and Halle Berry both stepped down from roles in which they would have been playing tra💙ns men, despite the fact they are cis women. Tangerine, Assassination Nation, and Boy Meets Girl all feature trans characters played by trans actors. Alongside Jamie Clayton, we have Laverne Cox, Indya Moore, Michael D. Hunter, Hunter Schafer, Brian Michael Smith, Angelica Ross, Elliot Page, MJ Rodriquez, Emma Corrin, Asia Kate Dillion, Ian Alexander, and Amandla Stenberg as notable trans and non-binary actors.
Jamie Clayton is trans - but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Pinhead canonically will be. Laverne Cox, though best known for her role as a trans woman in Orange is the New Black, is not explicitꦉly trans in Promising Young Woman. Likewise, though Angelica Ross’ Candy is trans in Pose, the AGAB of her role in American Horror Story is not known. Emma Corrin plays Princess Diana in The C﷽rown - regardless of Corrin’s gender, they play a cis character.
So when I say Pinhead is trans, I don’t literally mean the character of Pinhead either has transitioned or will transition in ♌the film. But that such an iconic characꦓter is now connected to the old pink, white, and blue is a very big deal.
In some ways, it may do a disservice to Clayton to celebrate her casting for her transness. As a trans person myself, I consider myself defined, at the core, by my transness. When I became Editor-in-C🅺hief at TheGamer, I mentioned my transness in my first feature a♌s EiC, where I described the site’s biggest achievements in the time I’d been here as features editor and my excitement for the future.
As a trans wom𝕴an, in an industry where minorities are too often passed over for positions and platforms, being appointed Editor-in-Chief of a major outlet like this felt bigger than myself. Perhaps that’s delusions of grandeur, or perhaps it’s an understanding that trans peo☂ple are often inescapably defined by their transness.
Let’s take a moment though to celebrate Jamie Clayton herself. Best known for her role as Nomi in Sense8, Clayton has also shone in The L Word: Generation Q, Designated Survivor, The Snowman, and The Neon Demon. She’s not typically a horror actress, nor🧸 a villain of any kind, so Pinhead marks an intriguing new direction for her career. It’s fascinating not just because she’s trans, although as much asꩲ I admire Clayton’s talent, I can’t pretend her transness isn’t a factor here.
Pinhead being played by a trans woman makes the mythos around Pinhead trans, even if the character themselves is not canonically so. It’s a frontier I hadn’t even realised I wanteﷺd trans women to clear, but nowꦓ that we have, I’m firmly tuned in to the future of the Hellraiser series.