Alisha Weir is Abigail in 'Abigail.'
For Kathryn Newton, playing Sammy in the darkly comic horror-thriller Abigail was a role to die for, but only if certain pieces fell into place. Thankfully, they did.
"She was just a character that seemed like it was going to be fun if I had the support from a cast and directors who gave me a lot of freedom," the actress explained as we discussed the latest movie from the team behind the Scream franchise revival and black comedy horror film Ready or Not. "When I met Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, and producer William Sherak for the first time, I knew I would be in the best hands for this genre of movie."
Abigail follows a group of criminals who are given the job of kidnapping what turns out to be the 12-year-old daughter of a gangland boss and watching her for one night. In return, they get a share of the $50 million ransom demand. However, before too long, it becomes obvious that Abigail, played by Matilda's Alisha Weir, isn't the helpless child she appears to be, and things get very bloody, very fast. Newton plays a computer whizz who is part of the gang.
"I read the whole script and thought, 'What a great role. Sammy starts out as this girl that I can hopefully make unlikable, and then you fall in love with her a little,'" she gushed. However, there was work to do. "I came in with a lot of ideas, and in a cool way, Matt and Tyler never told me no. That's how the tattoos, the crazy outfit, and the dance were born. I'm not very good at asking for things, but they always come and ask me. I think that opened me up to a new experience. I'm grateful that they opened the door that way because I think everyone gives a better performance when they feel empowered to make decisions and supported to try things."
"It was through their curiosity as filmmakers and their openness. You do a genre film, and people don't know that it is really an art. That's an ode to them being real filmmakers and real artists. They say yes, and they get creative about it. That's how fun things get discovered."
Newton is no stranger to genre movies having already had success as the female lead in Blumhouse Productions' Freaky and, more recently, Lisa Frankenstein.
"The genre films have done a lot for my acting career. I've grown. My first horror film was Paranormal Activity 4, and that whole film was improv. I learned in horror how to tell a story with just your face and no words. Then, I started to do comedies and horror comedies," she said. "I have grown a lot because these characters are many steps away from reality, the reality of my boring day-to-day life, so it's fun to take risks on a set because I know I'm safe. I'm never going to shy away from doing a genre film. I'd love to continue to do them, and I think they draw people together in a way that not all movies do. Like with Marvel or DC, I think horror touches audiences differently because everyone can relate to what it is to be scared. That's why people like going to the movies together. It's a community and that human experience."
Newton continued, "I did Freaky, and then Universal had a haunted house at Halloween Horror Nights. We have Universal Horror Nights; we don't have Universal Rom-Com Night. Horror brings us together and we're all kind of weirdos deep down. The number one thing I've learned from being a part of the horror fandom is mostly like a family. They're open and kind, and I want to stay in the family. Hopefully, I get a chance to make another horror film. I don't have any horror films lined up at the moment, but I'm open to doing another genre film, whether it's a comedy or a straight-up horror thriller."
(Left to right) Abigail, played by Alisha Weir, and Sammy, played by Kathryn Newton, in 'Abigail.'
Abigail is a movie that also brilliantly lends itself to being turned into a haunted house at the annual event. What does it feel like to have a film you are in turned into a seasonal attraction at such an iconic event?
"It feels like my version of a Disney Princess ride at Disneyland," the actress revealed. I liked the Freaky maze and thought it was the scariest of the whole year because it was just a bunch of Kathryns running around with a chainsaw, and I was horrified. I think Abigail would be a great haunted house at Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights, and I would definitely be the first one in line. I would not go alone. I would need to bring all my friends with me."
Abigail boasts a tight and solid ensemble cast led by Melissa Barrera and supported by Newton, Alisha Weir as the titular vampire, Dan Stevens, Giancarlo Esposito, William Catlett, Kevin Durand, and the late Angus Cloud. The film is in theaters now and is dedicated to the Euphoria actor with whom Newton shares several scenes. Cloud passed away a few weeks after he completed his work on Abigail.
"I think I knew it was going to dedicated to him. Angus was the best," she enthused. "I feel like you'd never know why opportunities come to you, and working with him was a genuine gift. I think he's one of the best actors I've ever worked with, and I love him. I just have a lot of good memories with him and I hope you see in the movie that we had a great time making this film with him. It should celebrate him and his legacy and his whole career."
Kathryn Newton at the Los Angeles premiere of 'Abigail' at Regency Village Theatre in Los Angeles, ... [+]
As well as being impressed by Cloud, Newton was blown away by Weir right out of the gate.
"She's the sweetest girl. She's a phenomenal actress, and the consummate professional. Our first table read was very casual; it was not a test or anything, but she knew all of her lines and delivered them perfectly. We just knew it was going to be a great movie. We were like, 'Oh, wow, Alisha has got our back, so we all have to rise to her level because she's showing all of us up,'" she recalled. "I was a child actor, and I feel like it never really changes. I know she was 12, but when you step onto a set, it doesn't matter if you've done one movie or 200 movies; you're all the same, and she was a part of the team. She was just like me. We were all doing the same thing here, and it never really felt like, 'She's a kid,' except when she started cursing, it was just hilarious because she's adorable."
"It's amazing to be so young and have such a great role. She's not playing somebody's daughter; she's not just the kid. She's leading a film, and we're all there to support her. I wanted to be there, help her, and support her in the scene like our whole cast did with each other."
There are no spoilers here, but Newton has one scene in particular that showcases even more than she was hoping for and turns out to be a pivotal element of Abigail's third act. While audiences hear Danzig's Blood and Tears, that's not what the actress heard when she was planning it.
"They played me a super heavy metal version of Swan Lake," she said. "In the script, only one sentence says what happens as I turned into a puppet, and Abigail starts to make me dance while something happens. They asked me to show them a dance move or two so I sent them a two-minute video of me freestyling. I'm a dancer. I grew up doing ballet, so I did some ballet, some Madonna-inspired Voguing, and some Patrick Swayze from Dirty Dancing, so I tried to incorporate everything. I kid you not."
"I was like, 'Okay, what do you guys think?' and they were like, 'We're going to use the whole thing. Can we start working on it? We'll send it to Alicia, and she can start learning it.' I was like, 'What?' I'm grateful that I know how to dance a little bit because I think it turned the movie, but I don't know how. I'm surprised that it's in the movie and I can't believe I danced in this film. It doesn't make sense but that's why I love it."
(Left to right) Chad Villella, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, William Sherak, Dan Stevens, Melissa Barrera, ... [+]
However, one thing Newton hadn't accounted for was the trauma of some of the film's physical effects especially when she finds herself in a pool of dead bodies.
"It took about a day to film," she recalled. "They had done a couple of tests of the water and what it would be like, and the first one felt like what you might imagine it would be like being in an Icee, like a slushy, but it was warm. It was really easy to move in, and then they added all these rubber bodies that were beat up and made to look ugly; there was all this hair and chunks of stuff."
"All of a sudden, I could barely move in the water. It was like mud or gelatin or something. When you read something like that in a movie, you don't realize how it's going to come to life, and that is the magic of cinema. It was disgusting, but it was still magical. I still had to use my imagination and go to another place that was not like my real life, which is always fun."
She concluded, "My screams and my cries were genuine. I was completely freaked out because our art department is so talented. The bodies felt real, and they smelled terrible. Surprisingly, they use a lot of banana chunks to get you some growth texture. I had a lot of banana in my hair."
