By MICHAEL GINGOLD
One of the best-known cases of actual exorcism comes to the screen this Friday, June 6 as THE RITUAL dramatizes the true story of Emma Schmidt, a.k.a. Anna Ecklund. She’s played by up-and-coming actress Abigail Cowen, while Father Joseph Steiger, one of the priests who purged Schmidt of the demon infesting her, is portrayed by Dan Stevens, who’s been all over the horror scene in the last couple of years. The two actors sat down recently to discuss the movie with RUE MORGUE.
Al Pacino stars in THE RITUAL (being released by XYZ Films) as Father Theophilus Reisinger, a man with exorcism experience who is called in to assist Father Steiger with Emma’s possession. Written and directed by David Midell, from a story by Midell and Enrico Natale, THE RITUAL gives Stevens his fourth genre role in a row after ABIGAIL, GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE and CUCKOO, while Cowen has previously been seen in 2021’s WITCH HUNT, in the co-starring role of Dorcas on CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA and in a pair of episodes of STRANGER THINGS, among others.
Did either of you do any research into the real-life case as preparation for making THE RITUAL?
DAN STEVENS: Well, that really was the preparation for the film. The whole movie is the real-life case of Emma Schmidt, and Father Steiger’s notes. So for both of us, it was pretty necessary, and very useful.
What did you find out from your research that might not have been initially contained in the script?
ABIGAIL COWEN: Emma was older than I am; she was actually in her 40s, I believe, when this was happening, and officially cured when she was around 46.
STEVENS: It was a long exorcism!
Are either of you religious, and if so, did that play into how you approached your roles?
STEVENS: I’m not, personally.
COWEN: I was raised in a Lutheran church, so I definitely had some background in the religious atmosphere. And honestly, it gave me some respect for this topic, and what everyone in the film goes through.
How was it working with Al Pacino?
STEVENS: Terrific. He’s an absolute sweetheart, and a real actor’s actor, incredibly enthusiastic and funny and engaged. He was a delight.
COWEN: Absolutely amazing, yeah, and a dream come true. Just watching him care so deeply about this role and about his work was really, as a young actor, awesome to watch. Especially after all the years he’s been doing this, and the level of care that’s still there.
STEVENS: He loves to rehearse, and get into the text and see what can be improved and brought out of it. He was full of ideas and suggestions.
COWEN: A few hours a day, sometimes before, and even while we were filming, we would meet and talk it through, and rehearse on the set as well, before we shot. There was a lot of rehearsal time, which I was very grateful for, because I feel it was necessary for this type of project.
Abigail, how did you prepare for the physical side of your role, because it looks like it was pretty grueling.
COWEN: For that part of it, again, with the rehearsal time, we would walk through the steps beat by beat. Like, OK, at this moment she’s going to contort this way, or her breathing is going to slow down or speed up. That really helped me with the physicality of it, just knowing, almost like a choreography, when and in what moments this was going to happen. Quite frankly, I feel like that was necessary, and that preparation really helped me when we were filming.
How was it dealing with the special makeup involved?
COWEN: [Laughs] Oh gosh, it was a lot! I would go in for…how long?
STEVENS: A long time!
COWEN: I would be in hair and makeup sometimes for two hours.
STEVENS: And it would get longer as the movie progressed. As Emma deteriorated, the process would get more and more…
COWEN: Yeah, a lot of prosthetics, and it ended up progressing to all over my body. It was a pretty grueling process, but an interesting one.
STEVENS: There was an escalation in terms of Emma’s condition, and also the things that were coming out of her, so to speak.
Did you shoot in a real church, and if so, did that contribute to the performances?
STEVENS: Definitely, yes. We shot in the crypt of this cathedral in Mississippi, and I found it a very creepy environment to shoot in. It had a very haunting atmosphere around it.
A lot of people who have worked on movies like this have recalled strange things going on during the shoot. Did either of you experience anything like that?
STEVENS: We had some freak weather events. There were some weird ice storms at the beginning; there was a tornado on Super Bowl weekend, I remember that. That was weird; I mean, maybe it’s not that weird for that part of the country, but it was for me!
COWEN: Haunted stuff? Yeah, someone in hair and makeup had that happen at their Airbnb, and they ended up moving out. I think Natchez [Mississippi] is historically haunted…
STEVENS: It’s very haunted, yes.
COWEN: And they had something very weird happen. They saw someone, or something, and then the Airbnb host was like, “Oh yeah, that’s the ghost!” Like it was normal. And then they all moved out.
STEVENS: “We charge extra for that!”
There’s been a long cinematic history of priests dealing with possession, and women being possessed. How did you approach making your characters distinctive?
COWEN: I personally wanted to lean into Emma’s vulnerability at certain points, and portray the pain that she was going through realistically. The pain that built up over time, and the traumas that she went through as a child. I didn’t want to just emphasize the possession side of it. I also wanted to hopefully raise the question of, is this demonic possession or is this mental illness? And find the in-between there in different moments, and hopefully show a side of her that was, aside from the demonic possession, relatable to people.
STEVENS: The fact that we were representing a real story, I think, and what was also interesting for me was Steiger being a skeptic turned believer. That arc was quite an interesting one to track.
