Meet ‘The Nun’ Star Bonnie Aarons, Who’s Been Giving You Nightmares for Nearly 20 Years
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Whether you even realized it or not, Bonnie Aarons gave you nightmares long before The Conjuring 2 turned her into the most terrifying demon-nun in horror movie history.
It’s kind of wild that Valak, who gets her own spinoff prequel courtesy of this year’s The Nun, has become such a memorable horror icon, because she actually wasn’t even originally supposed to appear in The Conjuring 2. Initially, Valak was embodied by a devil-like creature, but James Wan brilliantly came up with the concept of the evil nun very late in the game. According to many reports, the Nun was actually added into the movie during reshoots, her design based on an account relayed to Wan by the real Lorraine Warren.
Valak the nun was played in The Conjuring 2 by actress Bonnie Aarons, who reprises the role in Corin Hardy’s The Nun. At this point, it’s safe to say that Aarons has become something of a modern day horror icon, but what you may not realize about the actress is that scaring the shit out of audiences is nothing new for her…
Remember the nightmarish “Bum” from David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive? Many consider the character’s brief jump-scare appearance to be one cinema’s most genuinely terrifying moments; back in 2015, Indiewire named the shocking appearance of the filthy vagrant one of the 40 Scariest Movie Moments of all Time, coming in at a respectable #10.
Yes, it was Bonnie Aarons who played the Bum before becoming the Nun!
Elsewhere in the film world, Aarons made her feature debut in 1994’s Exit to Eden as “The Prostitute,” subsequently appearing in films such as Dear God, Shallow Hal, Wristcutters: A Love Story, I Know Who Killed Me, Hell Ride, Dahmer vs. Gacy, The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook. Outside the horror genre, Aarons is most known for playing Baroness Joy von Troken in both The Princess Diaries and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. Aarons even appeared briefly in Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell, during Sylvia’s “death feast”!
According to her bio on Wikipedia, “Aarons attended acting school in New York City, but was frequently told that she would not have an acting career, due to her look and her nose.” Of course, it was Aarons’ unique look that eventually won over both David Lynch and James Wan, the two visionary directors casting her to give the rest of us enduring nightmares.
Bonnie Aarons imparts more fear as Valak in The Nun, arriving September 7.
After pulling in $28 million at the worldwide box office this month, director (and star) Dev Patel’s critically acclaimed action-thriller Monkey Man is now available to watch at home.
You can rent Monkey Man for $19.99 or digitally purchase the film for $24.99!
Monkey Man is currently 88% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with Bloody Disgusting’s head critic Meagan Navarro awarding the film 4.5/5 stars in her review out of SXSW back in March.
Meagan raves, “While the violence onscreen is palpable and painful, it’s not just the exquisite fight choreography and thrilling action set pieces that set Monkey Man apart but also its political consciousness, unique narrative structure, and myth-making scale.”
“While Monkey Man pays tribute to all of the action genre’s greats, from the Indonesian action classics to Korean revenge cinema and even a John Wick joke or two, Dev Patel’s cultural spin and unique narrative structure leave behind all influences in the dust for new terrain,” Meagan’s review continues.
She adds, “Monkey Man presents Dev Patel as a new action hero, a tenacious underdog with a penetrating stare who bites, bludgeons, and stabs his way through bodies to gloriously bloody excess. More excitingly, the film introduces Patel as a strong visionary right out of the gate.”
Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, Monkey Man stars Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
Monkey Man is produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions.
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