Interviews
‘The Boogeyman’ Star Sophie Thatcher Bonded with Director Rob Savage Over Shared Love of Horror [Interview]
The Boogeyman, directed by Rob Savage (Host), is out in theaters this Friday, June 2, 2023. The adaptation of Stephen King’s short story stars Sophie Thatcher (“Yellowjackets”) as Sadie Harper, a grieving teen at the center of the supernatural horror.
Sadie begins the story still reeling from her mother’s unexpected passing, compounded by her father’s emotional detachment and her younger sister’s extreme phobia of the dark. All provide fertile ground for terror when the Boogeyman permeates their home.
Ahead of The Boogeyman’s release, Bloody Disgusting spoke with Sophie Thatcher about her first trip into the Stephen King Universe. Above all, it was the character that drew Thatcher to the role. She explains of Sadie, “For me, as an actor at this point in my career, I’m just trying to find roles that I think will be challenging and that are layered and have something to overcome. They always have to have an objective, and that’s what keeps them going.”
Thatcher adds, “[Sadie] had a very clear objective, and it actually changes throughout the movie. In the beginning, you see her just wanting to feel that closeness with her mom, and I think there’s something so devastating about that, and immediately I just felt so much empathy for the character. To have that immediate reaction when you’re reading a script is strong, and it stuck with me, so I was like, this script is really well written.”
Sophie Thatcher as Sadie Harper in 20th Century Studios’ THE BOOGEYMAN. Photo by Patti Perret. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Sadie gets introduced as a character deep in mourning over her mothe*r, and that grief shapes much of her arc. Thatcher explains, “It was very important to build Sadie, who she was before, because there’s such a drastic shift. I think there’s a shift in the way she dresses, the way she presents herself, the way she talks to her friends because she’s kind of just shut off. I think she’s very, at her core, she’s just a very kind person. The fact that she just naturally takes care of her sister, I think she probably was that for her friends.”
Thatcher continues, “I think music was an outlet. I think she wasn’t outwardly as confident as some of the characters that I’ve played. But I think creating that, maybe a little bit of that lived-in insecurity, but just that kindness, and there’s something pure about her. I mean, it changes because she has to go through so much, but she’s always had a really good heart.”
Thatcher came to the project already a fan of horror, something that only deepened while working with director Rob Savage. The actor tells us, “We immediately bonded over our love for horror movies. Ordinary People is the biggest reference that he brought up. He brought up this movie, Lake Mungo, which is a mockumentary. Because I was just like, ‘What do you think is the scariest movie? You’ve seen everything.’ And he said that. Then I watched it, and it was terrifying. It was like a slow burn but so terrifying. I thought I’d seen everything and thought, ‘I’m not going to feel anything.’ But that movie stuck with me.
“I mean, I feel like for prep for horror movies, you can’t watch a movie and do prep. I feel like we also bonded over Don’t Look Now, which is a movie that I re-watched. I was obsessed with it when I was younger, but then I re-watched it because it also covers motifs of grief and such.”
The Boogeyman will be unleashed in theaters this Friday.
Interviews
‘The Death of Robin Hood’ Director Michael Sarnoski on Brutal Violence and Reinventing the Legend
Michael Sarnoski (A Quiet Place: Day One, Pig) gives a darker spin on a classic ballad in The Death of Robin Hood, which sees a legendary outlaw confront his own violent legacy.
A24 releases the dark reimagining of the classic folk tale in theaters this Friday, June 19.
Hugh Jackman stars as a grizzled Robin Hood, who begins Sarnoski’s latest in a grim place of death and violence before a grave injury presents a rare chance at salvation.
In 13th-century grit and squalor, the violence in The Death of Robin Hood is especially brutal, setting up a stark contrast for the outlaw’s thematic journey in his final days. Speaking with Bloody Disgusting ahead of the film’s release, writer-director Michael Sarnoski explained that the visceral brutality at the film’s outset was both a reflection of period authenticity and in service of Robin’s story.
“It’s always a little bit of both,” Sarnoski explains. “The initial idea for the movie was I wanted to humanize these characters from this old legend and really understand them. So, part of that is understanding the authenticity of the period and studying the brutality of the old ballads. Both things evolved at the same time, because then it became this story about this person who was grappling with their own legacy of violence and their own folklore.”
Photo Credit: Aidan Monaghan/A24
He continues, “It was a little bit of a chicken and the egg thing where it was like, ‘Okay, the authenticity is where we’re going to access the humanity.’ But then, through that, we also have to access how these people felt about that violence. And because of that, we really have to make that violence feel human and real and brutal and not Hollywood-ized at all.“
But don’t expect The Death of Robin Hood to be too beholden to period accuracy; the filmmaker never wanted to lose sight of its characters or their humanity. “I was more trying to capture, in my mind and soul, what it might have felt like to live at that time. When you’re steeped in nature and all of its brutality, but also all of its divinity and spirituality, what would that just feel like on a deeper soul level? A lot of the research was focused on just trying to capture that human side of existing back then.”
The Death of Robin Hood avoids retreading the familiar origin story of the outlaw and his Merry Men; the past is a distant memory steeped in blood for this iteration of Robin Hood. Save for Little John (Bill Skarsgård), very little calls back to the familiar folklore fixtures and iconography.
“It wasn’t straightforward,” Sarnoski says of his writing process and choosing which characters to incorporate. “It kind of happened organically. I knew I just wanted the pieces that I needed for that character, but then at the same time, I wanted to acknowledge that he’s grappling with what he believes his life was, and the violence of that life and of that time. But then at the same time, he’s also not a fully reliable narrator. He has been jaded for decades and has just been steeped in that violence. Even he and Little John especially aren’t 100% sure which of these things were stories and which were real in some way, because I think even in our own lives we have that, where our memories become these stories that we just tell each other.”
“I wanted to make sure that we’re doing some justice to that Robin Hood legend, and there are a lot of references to that. I wanted to use it sparingly and specifically, but then also acknowledge that no one in this world is 100% sure who this guy was, not even the guy himself.”
Photo Credit: Aidan Monaghan/A24
While Jackman commands the screen as the world-weary outlaw, it’s Murray Bartlett (“The Last of Us”, Opus) who steals scenes as the enigmatic leper standing vigil over the Priory.
Bartlett’s complex performance, buried under unrecognizable costuming and prosthetics, surprised even Sarnoski in more ways than one. “The initial surprise was finding such a great actor who was willing to completely disappear. And that takes a lot of ego death and bravery and excitement for the pure creative, emotional side, and also bravery in the performance side of, ‘You’re not going to have 90% of the tools that you usually use. You’re going to have to do this with your eyes, your voice, and just your physicality.’ So, I think just the surprise of finding someone who was like that was the feature, not the bug. He was so excited about that, and he found it very liberating.
“Then, it sounds kind of obvious, but the next surprise was just you write this character on the page, and you’re like, ‘Okay, he’s supposed to have this depth, he’s mysterious, but he’s also gentle, and he becomes this almost teacher.’ In your mind, you’re like, ‘Okay, I think this character can work.’ But then you see Murray embody it and you’re like, ‘Oh, this is so far beyond what I ever could have hoped for.’ And it’s so moving and so human in spite of all the limitations on the performance.”
Sarnoski notes this character acts as the ferryman, right on the cusp of life and death. That, along with the period, also informed the Leper’s look, “In those old monasteries, they had these orchard cemeteries that were also where they buried the body. It’s this place of graves and growth. He has subtly different outfits that he wears depending on if he’s ferryman or orchardman. There was a lot of thought that went into all of that.”
Credit: Aidan Monagha
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