Madelaine Petsch & Froy Gutierrez Discuss The Strangers: Chapter 1

We're here to talk about The Strangers, Chapter One. Hello, how are you? Hello, doing great. I'm a little... You're a little tied up. Yeah, I don't know about this. This is not comfortable. And you got some... I'm looking at the scariest things behind me. What was it like looking at that for hours on end? Scary. It's definitely scary. The actors who played The Strangers also never took their masks off around us to like not break the illusion, which I thought was so respectful and kind, but also absolutely terrifying.

You get used to it. I wasn't scared. Yeah, totally. Right, right, right, right. Yeah, 100%. How is it acting against people who are in masks? Because so much of acting is not only acting, but reacting. So how were you able to do that with just looking at the scary masks? I feel lucky because the people, the amazing actors we hired to play The Strangers were able to emote and create personalities with a mask on, which is the craziest thing ever to me.

Just through their body language. Yeah. Even in scenes or moments where they can't really emote with their body, there's still that thing of what makes The Strangers so unique, which is like, you're seeing these characters trying to interface, trying to like, get a response, trying to convince these people to change course in any way and getting absolutely nothing back.

That's the kind of terror. And I think there's a piece of watching them enjoy it as well. Because it feels like a cat and mouse game, especially watching the three films back. It feels like you're watching this really interesting game of cat and mouse and power dynamic shifting constantly. So it is three films. We do know that. What can you tell me about two and three?

Well, I'm in them. So that tells you that. We know that one. Well, the way that I've been describing it is the first film is a retelling of the 2008 version with Tyler and Scott Speedman. But we look at it as a launch pad into a huge emotional arc and character driven saga of this character, Maya, being pushed beyond her breaking point and being left with the question, who is she at the end of the day?

So it's not only jump scares. It's psychological. And I had that conversation with Renny a little bit earlier. So how did he get you into that mindset as actors? Hmm. I feel like so much of what we did was in prep. Yeah. I think in a lot of ways, we're just trying to focus weirdly enough on who these people are as normal people and what they're like at their happiest and what they're like when things are going well.

And then the environment is just providing the absolute opposite of that. Right. And so you're constantly feeling that contrast as the character. And the whole time I was just thinking about how can I preserve the joy and the peace in this backdrop of things just going progressively worse and worse and worse. And that's just the most terrifying place to be in.

Wanting to be happy, but finding you're going down a downhill slope. Exactly. Wanting to be safe, wanting to make a safe environment for your partner and just watching things cascade out of control and out of your hands. That's really horrifying. So as actors, having to do the same thing over and over again, the jump scares or just being with these faces, it really is disturbing.

How do you do that? How do you bring that energy every time? Where do you go to as an actor to bring out that terror? I try to make it feel as authentic and genuine as possible to myself. So the most important thing to me is that I don't ever feel like I'm in a horror film when I'm shooting it. And so I allow myself to believe the current stakes and then usually whatever happens will actually genuinely scare me.

But also, Rennie is really great at dialing things in quickly. So he's not somebody who's shooting 10, 15 takes of something. It's one, two, three, and we're done. So it does make it pretty easy to stay. Yeah. I think a thing that I kept coming back to is the character doesn't know that they're in a horror film. Right. So I just kept coming. I kept approaching it as he thinks he's the hero.

This is an action movie. He's going to save the day. Right. And so when you're reacting to loss after loss, that's like devastating. But in the back of my mind, I'm just like, it's all about perseverance. It's about survival. Yeah. That's a great way of thinking of it. I never thought about it that way. He doesn't know he's in a horror movie. That's fantastic.

Well, I jumped a lot and I am psychologically disturbed at this point, but I do want to see chapters two and three, so I can't wait. Thank you both for your time today. I really appreciate it. You. Okay. Okay, okay.