00:00and she hissed at me
00:01and it was the most terrifying moment of the last ten years of my life
00:05even with my generous warning
00:07you're going to continue to ingest my words
00:12I love Colleen's novels because I feel like the houses
00:15always kind of have their own personality
00:17they're almost like their own character
00:18talk a little bit about that setting
00:21and how it influenced how you portrayed your character
00:23I think for Lowen it was you know
00:26unlike anything she's ever seen in her life
00:28and what's interesting is the house is a tai chi retreat
00:31so when you're in there it's actually really peaceful
00:33and lovelyand it's beautiful outside
00:35but it was also quite dark in the house when it was night
00:40so when there's these moments where she's kind of being a freak at night
00:44she's it was easy to feel spooky
00:47when i first saw it like uh
00:49it was just about the time that i signed on
00:52and michael sent me a picture of the house like immediately
00:55and i was like that's not at all what i expected
00:57but it's so much more elevated
00:59like i was expecting like a victorian house in the outs
01:04on the outskirts of some you know
01:06vermont town you know and this was just something else entirely
01:10i was imagining a victorian house too
01:12i think just because the idea of gothic
01:14so when michael showed me the house
01:16i was like oh i'm just i'm just surprised
01:18because colleen described something completely different
01:20and he goes no she doesn't
01:21i'm like i think she did and then we actually went back to the text
01:24i read all the bits about the house and i realized that what michael had
01:29chosen contradicted nothing about what colleen had said it was just my
01:34my imagination filled it in differently than his imagination
01:38we got to the house and the house that they chose like it went so far beyond what i imagined
01:44like it's the most gorgeous location that i don't feel like the house was as much of a
01:49character in the book as it is in the movie you know the roofline is a v and
01:54the inside
01:54the roof looks like canoes like it was just mind boggling how it felt like the
02:01house was built for
02:02this movie it doesn't actually go into much description in the book of what the house looks
02:06like um and i don't know if that was intentional or not and that's good because it kind
02:11of gave us a
02:12little bit of a blank slate to work with i like the idea that there were sort of rooms
02:16that you didn't quite
02:17know where you were like this idea of this office i almost pictured this kind of womb-like environment
02:23very feminine almost like it's almost a boudoir and the idea that this would be this like
02:30very sacred
02:31almost like like a like a like a like a tomb and so i thought yeah there's like
02:37she that's what verity
02:38has this kind of secret pod that she exists in in the creation of the house wanting to make something
02:46that
02:46felt sort of scary but also alluring and beautiful um and yeah we're very excited about the location
02:56that we found this is your final warning only darkness ahead and we need to talk about the voice
03:05how did you land on this ethereal haunting voice that you have the minute you started talking in
03:11the film i was like oh my god is that her do you mean i don't sound like that
03:14in real life
03:15no it's it i there was like a featurette thing that we had and it's me doing
03:20an interview and
03:21then it cuts with the voiceover and i go down like an entire register i don't know i
03:26think i was just
03:26imagining verity as like there's just something very velvety about her writing there's something
03:33really seductive about it and i think she enjoys reading her own work and so much of the
03:39so much of this the time that you spend with verity in the story is actually from lowen
03:43's
03:43point of view reading her writing and so i wanted it to have that kind of slightly artificial narrated
03:50voice and then i wanted her voice in the letter to be slight different a little bit more raw um
03:55i
03:56wanted to sound a little bit more like a person and so yeah i don't know you know it
04:00's just you you
04:01make these choices and hope they're the right ones that is interesting i didn't think about that that
04:05the
04:06voice that she has in the flashbacks it's actually what lowen is imagining her voice would sound
04:12like
04:12all of it such a good all of it and that's why that's why we leaned into like
04:16making everything
04:16just feel annoyingly perfect like her hair is always annoyingly perfect like she's wearing makeup even
04:23when she like just that girl that you're just like oh god just stop you know and i i
04:27wanted her to be
04:28completely irritating to lowen that's the beauty of a great performance she created all these different
04:35sides to the character um these layers i found it fascinating just you know after all the
04:41different films she's done this year to then have this one where she almost plays as many different
04:47characters in this one movie it's it's she's so talented verity is a master at manipulating
04:53the truth
04:54is there a scene for any of you that genuinely unsettled you the end scene i really didn't
05:00like that
05:01i didn't like not liking children i really like that was all like i really really hated that whole
05:10section of like even though there there weren't real children when i was like looking at them with
05:15murderous intent um still still did not like going to that imaginary place was very happy to leave as
05:21quickly as a good but there was also something else that was a lot a little bit more fun was
05:24it there was
05:25a scene in which uh you know lowen and i are making out in the kitchen and we think
05:29we see
05:30verity and she thinks she sees verity and so she sends me off down the hall and ann
05:34ie wasn't even
05:35supposed to be there that day she jumped out from behind the corner or to really worse but we didn
05:39't
05:39know where i didn't know where you were going to be and she hissed at me and it
05:43was the most terrifying
05:44moment of the last 10 years of my life do we have the b-roll of that i don
05:49't know i should have set
05:50it up that way because we had to work out like how i was going to disappear from the camera
05:54view
05:55quickly enough that it could all happen in one shot and so i found this like little alcove
05:59and
06:00i was like pressed up in it and josh was rehearsing his part of seeing the walk down
06:03and he was so
06:04locked in and focused that i was like he has no idea in here and i thought i can't
06:09jump out and scream
06:10because that'll scare too many people it has to be a very private scare just for josh so
06:15i just waited
06:17so i waited until he like passed me and i just went oh my god and as you as you
06:24know the house
06:24is a little bit elevated as well and uh yes it has a nice tai chi sort of feel to
06:29it but who knows
06:30but maybe a tiny bit haunted and then josh what was cracking me up was that josh then
06:35like reacted
06:36and stared at me and he said you just scared me i haven't been scared like that in years
06:42you were just you narrated it so articulately from your place of like nervous system overwhelmed
06:49terror yeah
