Scream Queen Maika Monroe Returns: The ‘Longlegs’ Star on Facing Off With Nicolas Cage and How She Leaves the Darkness on Set
variety.comMaika Monroe is not a fan of the dark arts. Though one of indie horror’s most respected scream queens, she’s not of that genre: She laughs easily and talks animatedly with her hands, often starting sentences with the word “Yes!” “Going Method doesn’t work for me,” she says. “As soon as we’re done with the day, I go back home and watch ‘The Kardashians’ or something to shake it off.” The fact that she’s so personable is partly what got her the notably cold role in Oz Perkins’ terrific new horror film “Longlegs,” in which she plays Lee Harker, a shutdown, haunted, high-strung FBI agent on the hunt for an occult- obsessed serial killer, played by Nicolas Cage.
Perkins says the “irreconcilable difference” between Monroe’s personality and the characters she embodies is what drew him to her.
He was particularly inspired by her evocative performance in the 2022 thriller “Watcher,” in which she plays an isolated woman in eastern Europe convinced she’s being stalked by a serial killer. “‘Watcher’ was in my mind when I met her, and I found that to be a very reserved, stoic, serious performance,” he says. “Then I meet her, and she’s very much the opposite of that.
The way she sits and fidgets and laughs a lot is kind of silly. It’s very not what she gives on camera, and there’s a lot of real estate between those two poles.
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