Blind, deaf, and carrying 17 pounds on your head - what filming is like in a Five Nights at Freddy's suit

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Thankfully, nobody in Hollywood knows what it's like to be the ghost of a child trapped in an animatronic mascot body, however, Jess Weiss and Kevin Foster come close. Reason being; they're in the costumes for Chica and Freddy Fazbear in Blumhouse's Five Nights at Freddy's, and at GalaxyCon New Orleans 2025, they gave fans an (admittedly bleak) picture of what that job entailed. 

For starters, being inside those hydraulics-equipped suits meant that the actors could hardly hear what was going on around them. Asked by an audience member what surprised him about being in the costume, Foster said that it was "the noise," that took him aback the most.

"There was there's so many servos and animatronics in the helmet," Foster continued, "Or in the heads that, when they were working [...] I wanted to go, 'Please just stop moving it!' Because I can't hear anything. The director would be talking to us and I can't hear what she's saying, because they're working the servos and it's so loud in there." 

"It kind of felt like an old DSL modem to me," agreed Weiss.

Next, there's the issue of being able to see what was around you, and if you'll recall watching the practical suits operating in the FNAF movie, you'll remember that there weren't eyeholes to speak of. 

"I could not see at all in mine," Weiss said of her birdlike Chica costume, "If the puppeteer had left the beak open, I could see just probably just like a couple inches. We couldn't see what we were doing in the suits. A lot of times that when we were in rehearsal, we would do it in front of a mirror and then, yeah, you would remember your body movement. But you know, and we would also have an earpiece in, and then [the filmmakers] would tell us, okay, move a little to the right, a little to the left, one little step. Things like that."

And as if the loss of your sense wasn't enough, the heads they were wearing were enough to work as actual workout equipment.

"The heads were 17 pounds," recalls Weiss, "So we were really concerned about that. When we first started, it was 15 [minutes] on, 15 minutes off." 

"The 15-minute timer went on," clarifies Foster, "and we never stopped at 15 minutes."

"No, by the end it ended up being about 45," Weiss responded, "I think it was the longest 45 that we were in. Yeah, I think it was longer than 45."

"I think it was 49 on the first movie," Foster concluded, "And then there were two separate times in the second movie I was in for over an hour. Yeah. And I had body parts going numb."

Even though Weiss and Foster got to play some of the most iconic horror villains of modern pop culture, we have to admit, all this sounds pretty grueling. That said, we should note that this experience didn't stop either of them for returning to the roles in Five Nights at Freddy's 2.

Five Nights at Freddy's is currently available to stream on Starz. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 comes to theaters December 5.

The Five Nights at Freddy's phenomenon is lasting longer than five nights. Get up to speed, with how to play all the FNAF games in order, why Five Nights at Freddy's is the ideal starter kit for a kid wanting to get into horror, details on the characters and lore, getting to know the FNAF movie animatronics, how the movie fits in the canon of the games, and how Chuck E. Cheese is responding.

Can't get enough? We have recommendations for five movies to watch after Five Nights at Freddy's.