Nick Castle played Michael Myers in the 1978 horror classic Halloween, directed by former USC classmate John Carpenter, being paid $25 a day. He is also reprising the role for the first time in 40 years in the untitled sequel slated for release October 19, 2018.

Castle’s film credits include Dark Star where he played the beach ball alien, Major Payne, Dennis the Menace, The Last Starfighter, and Connors’ War as a director. He wrote the screenplays for the films Escape from New York and Hook. He was also the writer and director of the film Tap.

Castle’s subsequent collaborations with Carpenter included his name being used as one of the main characters’ names in The Fog, co-writing the script of Escape From New York, and performing the title song of Big Trouble in Little China as part of the band The Coup De Villes, alongside Carpenter and another friend, Tommy Lee Wallace.

Castle’s most recent project as a writer is August Rush, a musical-drama directed by Kirsten Sheridan and starring Freddie Highmore, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Robin Williams, and Keri Russell, which was released in 2007. He also stars as himself in the 2010 documentary Halloween: The Inside Story by Filipino filmmaker Nick Noble.

Castle won a Saturn Award for Best Writing for The Boy Who Could Fly, a Silver Raven (for Delivering Milo), a Grand Prize (for The Last Starfighter), a Bronze Gryphon, and a Gold Medal of the Regional Council.