SAMARA WEAVING

MBO It seemed like you sang, and we were all like “What’s the secret”?

SW No, it wasn’t me, but a beautiful Italian singer. I did learn though, I had singing lessons for ages because even matching her is really difficult. I had to sing on top of her voice doing the scene. I had to really belt it and I wanted the floor to swallow me. It was so nerve-racking, and there were crowds of people I sang in front of, there were so many singers on that set, Kelvin is a fabulous singer and I’m literally singing at him. But I remember I would go into the recordings of this fabulous opera singer who was singing for me, and there was one note she held for about 16 bars and I was thinking “I have to sing on top of that, I can’t hold my breath for that long!”. So I asked her “Is it possible to like, take a breath in the middle?” and she’s like “No, I would never, I’d rather die!”.

TG I feel like every take must’ve ended with laughter. I don’t know how you sustained such an emotional experience.  

SW It’s so dramatic, isn’t it? Thank God for my music teacher Michael Roberts, he saved the day and he made singing really fun that I kept going afterward, I want to learn properly.

TG Really? That’s awesome. Maybe Grace will sing an opera number in Ready or Not too. Who knows?

SW Yeah sure… The Opera is so hard.

TG It’s like a super human thing, I don’t understand how they do it.

SW We went to the Opera when we were in Prague, you hear them, it’s something else.

TG One of the things that Matt and I were talking about, was that we both really loved the movie, of course, the project as a whole, but you specifically, we felt a flavor that we had both pinpointed. Obviously, we know this flavor, having worked with you, but a movie like that, a period piece about classical music has a tendency to feel stuffy, but this weirdly felt like it had so much character. There is so much levity. It never felt like a down-the-middle version. It felt like your character specifically – and your superpowers – does the emotional thing but kicks the piss out at the same time. It felt so textured and so real.

SW Thank you, that’s very nice. Yes, Stephen really wanted everything to be super grounded, even if the stakes were really high. I think he liked that ultra-realism, he watched Age of Innocence and he kind of wanted to emanate that a little bit, you don’t want the audience to feel like this happened in another world. It happened a long time ago, but you still want to be able to relate to these characters and want the audience to care about these people otherwise be like watching a documentary about old times. It was written in this beautiful way, Stephanie just did an incredible job, I owe a lot to her, she made it really easy to relate to them and find that heart in it. I went into it like these are real people, they’re not mystical animals. I just tried to make them as more human as possible and in my mind, I asked myself what are the modern versions of what they’re struggling with. As a woman, she’s just so trapped and can’t do anything and luckily, it’s a lot better.

TG Yeah, We felt something so contemporary about his point of view, even though it was based on that certain period. 

SW Isn’t it wild? 

TG It’s really wild. I think that the magic of this movie is that it obviously exists in a very historical context, but everything that the movie is saying feels really modern. 

SW I know. It’s some unbelievable thing you can’t believe happened, but it’s still happening.

TG What was the path to your involvement in that project?

SW I actually auditioned for Marie Antoinette like five years ago because it was around for a long time. It was so long ago I completely forgot about it, I didn’t know what happened to it, I thought they already filmed it and was probably already out somewhere. Then I got a call out of the blue saying “Do you want to play Marie Josephine?” and I couldn’t remember so I was like “What is that again?”. I read the script and it was phenomenal, like she’s (Stefani) a master and I’m obsessed with her movie What we do in the Shadows.

MBO Do you have any good backstory to tell us on What we do in the Shadows?

SW I got all the juicy gossip, I don’t know if I have facts though, but I went to Stefani’s birthday party and the guy who plays Guillermo (Harvey Guillen) was there and I was just staring at him. I still get so starstruck I need to work on that.

TG We got a little starstruck by you today.

SW Stop it, I got starstruck when… can I say who’s in the movie?

TG Yes.

SW When I saw Courtney Cox, if I ever see her in real life.

TG You’ll see her in real life. She’s a legend, she is the 80s status to us.

SW She seems so cool and she steals the scenes in the previous Scream. She can set those stakes really high but with ease.

MBO Who did you look up to when you were starting out acting?

SW The first movie I saw, I was thirteen and it made me angry that this happened without me, you know? Why wasn’t I involved?

TG (Laughs) You didn’t get invited to the party.

SW Yeah exactly, it was Pirates of the Caribbean. I saw it in Italy when I must have been twelve, and I was furious for a week that I hadn’t been involved in some way. More than acting, I think it was more the immersive world of it, you know? Then I saw Toni Colette in Muriel’s Wedding. I hadn’t really seen a woman play sloppy and crazy before. I grew up watching Clueless and these 90s movies where all the women looked very amazing and were kind of put together, or you could play the funny friend. Seeing her being the star of it by just being so insane, I was obsessed.

TG It’s amazing. I was just thinking back to all of your work and how much that is a part of it. I mean, you are obviously so beautiful and that’s a huge part of your life, but you’re not ever afraid to do the weird part. I remember before Ready or Not, Searchlight (Pictures) sent us some material of you from Guns Akimbo, where you were like, bleached eyebrows, face tattoos, and we were like “How are they pitching her?”. And then we met you of course, and you were both of those things. I think that we can see the influence of Toni Colette’s weirdness in your performances.

SW Yeah, that’s my happy place, like not having to care about looking a certain way and just being mental.

Read the full interview on Muse September Issue 61.