By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Young actress Madeleine McGraw made an indelible impression confronting the terrors of 2022’s THE BLACK PHONE, in which her character Gwen has frightening dreams of the child-killing Grabber (Ethan Hawke). Now she’s confronting the Grabber face to face in BLACK PHONE 2, and she discussed the experience with RUE MORGUE.
BLACK PHONE 2, now in release from Universal and Blumhouse, catches up to Gwen and her brother Finney (Mason Thames) four years after the events of the original. Both are still haunted by the experience, and when it becomes evident that death has not stopped the Grabber from viciously pursuing them, they travel to a wintry camp called Alpine Lake to uncover his secrets and put a stop to him once and for all (see our review here). It’s a reunion between the three leads and director/co-writer Scott Derrickson and co-scripter C. Robert Cargill that had McGraw more directly involved in the violent, scary action–which was something she relished.
BLACK PHONE 2 gives your character more to do than the previous one did; Gwen is kind of at the center of it all. Did you work with Derrickson and Cargill during development, or did they bring the completed script to you?
They definitely brought the completed script to me. I’m pretty sure it was based on Joe Hill’s concepts. He wrote them a long list of ideas he had, and they kind of took things from that and made it a masterpiece, in my opinion.
Where is Gwen at when the film begins, and what kind of journey does she go on?
BLACK PHONE 2 takes place a few years later: Finney and Gwen are now in high school, and they’re both dealing with trauma from the Grabber and all that went on in the first film. Gwen definitely feels more like an outsider here, because everyone now knows about her dreams and the visions she has. She’s dealing with a drastic change from how she felt in the first film to the second one.
How was it reuniting with all the key people behind the camera and in front of it–even a couple whose characters did not survive the first one?
It was great. It’s so awesome getting to work with people you’ve worked with in the past, because you’re already so comfortable with them, especially on set, and you have this unspoken trust. It all played very, very well, and I am so excited for people to see all of us together again. But BLACK PHONE 2 was also really cool because I didn’t get to work with Ethan on the first film, and I did that quite a bit this time. I feel like I learned so much just being on set with him as an actor, and as the icon that he is.
Was this a situation where he kept separate from you so when you were on camera together, there was a tension between you two, or were you friends behind the scenes?
[Laughs] I would like to say we were friends behind the scenes, but it was funny, because there were times when he literally couldn’t take off his mask because of all the prosthetics he was wearing underneath. So if he’d be talking to me or Scott, he would sound scary and muffled because he had the mask on, and it was hard for me to differentiate him being in character with him being himself [laughs].
How about off-camera with Thames? Was it easier this time, because you knew each other from the first film, to get that brother-and-sister vibe going?
It was definitely easier, because we’ve known each other for a while now, so we just slipped back into our characters and the sibling dynamic they have. Finney and Gwen care about each other so, so much, and their sibling bond is so strong, and I feel like that is truly the heart of BLACK PHONE, and what the movies are actually about. It’s not just about the Grabber and him being a serial killer, you know?
Do you find that Gwen’s growing up since the first movie mirrors the way you’ve grown up as a person?
Yes and no. I feel like Gwen and I are definitely very similar in a lot of ways, but are very different. She is really introverted now, and I’m a very extroverted person, I love talking to people. But I feel like that’s how she was in the first film, so I feel like even as we’ve grown up together, we’ve kind of grown in separate ways, but also some of the same. You know, she cares so much about her brother, and I care so much about my siblings. It was just very, very nice to dive into Gwen again because the longer you play a character, the stronger a connection you have to them. So I was blessed to get to return to her.
Gwen is still suffering nightmares, and they’re getting worse this time. How did you approach playing that level of fear and intensity?
It’s so great getting to learn more about Gwen’s dreams and everything, especially since we didn’t learn a lot about them in the first film. Now that it’s kind of the focus, I feel like it’s going to be very interesting for fans to find out more about how her dreams work and why she has them. And when it came to the scenes where Gwen has her nightmares, I wanted to make sure that every single time she wakes up from a dream, they’re all different. Because when you wake up from nightmares, I feel like you have a different reaction every single time. So I just wanted to make sure that it came across as accurate as possible on screen.
I love BLACK PHONE 2’s snowy locations. Was it actually shot on wintry areas, or was a lot of that done with digital effects? How much were you out in the cold and the snow for real?
It was all real snow. There were several feet of snow that we were filming in. And I remember Mason, Jeremy and I were filming this really important scene, and every time we’d go out to film it, it would start pouring snow. It wasn’t supposed to be snowing in the scene, it was just supposed to be leftover snow from the past days. And Scott was adamant about there not being any snow falling during the scene, so we had to push it off for like three days. Mason and I would come to set, get in our wardrobe and would be waiting in the green room, and then they’d tell us we could go home because it just would not stop snowing.
So yeah, all the snow was real. We were all freezing our butts off the entire time. Whenever I was wearing my pink PJs, they were short-sleeved, so I was kind of freezing at times, but the wardrobe team made sure they covered me with a heat blanket, and gave me so many hand-warmers. That entire crew did a great job of looking after all of us kids.
Was the frozen lake all real?
It was completely frozen over, but we did not film out on the ice. We actually filmed that on a soundstage, because it would be a little too dangerous for the equipment and the actors to just be chilling on the frozen-over lake.
You also dealt with a lot more physical effects and stunts this time. What was that experience like?
Literally my dream. I love getting to do stunts so, so much. I actually got to get SCUBA certified for the movie, which was very new for me, but that’s one of my favorite things about acting–getting to learn all these new skills. I had a great time with the stunt team. I became very, very close to them throughout the shoot, and they did a great job of always making sure I was OK. Scott knows how much I love getting to do stunts, so he made sure to tell Branko, the head of the stunt team, that I could do as many as I wanted–besides the ones that were a little too risky [laughs]. Like the spinning. Those ones weren’t me. But other than that, I got to do all my own stunts. That was me being thrown against the walls, but the spinning, that was my amazing stunt double, Torianna Lee. I love her so much.
How was it dealing with the makeup effects on set? Was it ever actually scary for you, working with all that?
That’s some of my favorite stuff. That’s one of the reasons I love working in horror so much is the effects makeup, and all the gross blood and stuff like that. But I’m not gonna lie; there were times when I would see the Grabber’s prosthetics just sitting on a table near my chair, and they looked disgusting. There were times when I was completely grossed out, but I pushed through, and honestly, it helped for the scenes.
You and your sister Violet (the M3GAN films) have done quite a bit of horror; do you ever talk about doing a movie together, like playing sisters in a genre film?
We actually did get to play sisters twice. We play sisters in a horror movie called THE CURSE OF THE NECKLACE, which is on Tubi. It takes place in the ’60s, and it shows the dynamic between this family, and once again, the focus is definitely on the bond between my and Violet’s characters, along with their mom. It shows how we all have to stick together through a very traumatizing experience. We got to be executive producers on that, which was an insane, insane experience. Getting to work alongside Violet was so much fun and very interesting, getting to see our different approaches to getting into character. We also got to play sisters in another movie we executive-produced called HIGH STAKES HOLIDAY; I’m not sure when it’s coming out, but it’s a Christmas movie. That was definitely very, very different from the stuff we’ve done in the past. It was nice, honestly, not to have to scream and cry on set for once [laughs].
I feel like I’m definitely trying to do other things besides horror. As much as I love that, I am trying to portray characters in other genres. I’m actually going to film a thriller soon. It’s definitely got some similarities to horror, but I can’t say anything about it right now. And I would love to do more coming-of-age movies, for sure. Movies that spread important messages, especially about mental health and things like that. I would love to play a character like that, for sure.
Do you have any ambitions to go beyond acting and get into directing or writing or some other area of filmmaking?
One thousand percent, yes. That is one of my dreams. I would love to direct something. Actually, writing is one of my favorite things; I’m constantly jotting down ideas in my Notes app or just on a computer in Google Docs. Maybe one day I’ll actually refine one of them and get it made.
Are you a horror fan yourself? In particular, the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET films, which were an influence on BLACK PHONE?
I am a huge, huge fan of horror movies, and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is actually one of my favorites, the original. And I do love getting to work in horror so much because it has kind of made me less scared of the genre itself. Like, there are still things that definitely gross me out and make me sick to my stomach, and things that jump-scare me all the time. But I feel like the more horror movies I watch, the more immune to it I become.
