21 "Midnight Mass" Facts That Everyone Needs To Know After Binge-Watching The Entire Series
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To celebrate the highly anticipated release of Midnight Mass, Mike Flanagan's latest Netflix show, we sat down with Zach Gilford, Kate Siegel, Hamish Linklater, Samantha Sloyan, Kristin Lehman, and Annabeth Gish to chat about crafting the series.
Here's everything we learned:
🚨There are spoilers for the ENTIRE series ahead, so if you haven't finished yet, you might want to come back later.🚨
1.First, in 2016's Hush, Kate Siegel's character wrote the book Midnight Mass, and Kate said for a while it was just "Mike Flanagan's great unfinished novel."
"I always thought it was going to be a book," Kate explained. "I thought the only life it would ever have on screen was Hush and Gerald's Game."
2.At first, Midnight Mass was going to be a film before it was turned into a Netflix series.
3.While going through the casting process, Zach Gilford knew "basically nothing" about Riley's journey on the show.
"I had two scenes that were both in the first episode. And besides that, all I knew was Mike's work," Zach explained. "I won the job and I was really excited. Then, I got to read the scripts."
4.Meanwhile, Samantha Sloyan knew "quite a bit" before getting the full scripts. However, she explained that until you read how Mike "makes it happen," you don't really know everything.
5.Kristin Lehman had one audition scene before being cast as Annie Flynn, and she knew "very little" until she got all the scripts at once.
She explained that before filming began, the cast was given all of the scripts so they knew the trajectory of the series. She said, "We knew immediately what we were creating, which I personally find way more beneficial as an actor."
6.Midnight Mass is the third time Annabeth Gish has worked with Mike Flanagan, and she said Mike sent her a text about a role in the show.
"I said I was definitely interested and probably in, and then he sent me a few episodes and I was hooked," Annabeth explained.
7.Zach and Hamish Linklater were good friends before they were both cast in their roles, and they didn't know the other person had auditioned.
"Hamish is amazing. I can't imagine anyone else in that role," Zach explained. "Literally, when I got offered the part, they were like, 'Yeah, and Hamish Linklater is going to be the priest,' and I was like, 'What?!' As soon as I heard that, I was like, 'That's genius.'"
8.When Hamish was auditioning for Midnight Mass, Kate "begged to be the reader" in the room because she just needed to see what he would bring to Father Paul.
Kate recalled, "Whether he got this part or not, I wanted to see him do it. I dropped a bunch of his cues because the second he started talking, I was just like, 'Hamish is good at this.'"
9.Zach and Kate were together for the first two weeks of shooting, and that is when they filmed all of Riley and Erin's monologues from Episode 4 and the finale.
Kate said, "We did all of the Erin and Riley stuff at the beginning. We would talk about 'monologue day. Monologue day's coming.'"
10.When the day came to film their monologues, Kate and Zach just sat down, looked at each other, and went for it. Kate even said she doesn't think she "could have done it with any other human being but Zach."
"The thing about Zach Gilford is he's this incredibly grounded, generous, and self-deprecating person, and I would look at him and he would just be waiting for me," Kate said. "It was this feeling of, we're going to go on this journey together. For all of the shots we take at each other off set, we're going to be gentle and kind with each other."
11.Zach recalled filming Episode 4 with Kate, and said even when she wasn't on camera, Kate was "sitting on the dolly with the camera doing the one tear."
Kate joked, "I love the one tear."
12.Zach and Kate filmed Riley's tragic death in Episode 5 on the second day of filming.
Zach recalled, "To go in and shoot your death scene your second day of shooting for a seven-episode show is difficult. You don't know your scene partner [that well], and luckily she was Kate and she was there for me."
13.In order to get the position for the special effects shot of Riley burning in the sun, the Midnight Mass team created a "wire dummy wearing Zach's clothes rigged up to some strings" and they cut the strings so the dummy would collapse in the boat.
![Before filming Erin's scream, Mike and Trevor [Macy] showed Kate the dummy and she could not stop laughing. She said,](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/VTqWRLsSTlPm00PLjoH8HQ--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTEyNTc-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/buzzfeed_articles_778/624b4450ef712292324a9b1781d5df85)
Before filming Erin's scream, Mike and Trevor [Macy] showed Kate the dummy and she could not stop laughing. She said, "They cut the strings and it just collapses like Pinocchio. I was weeping. Just like crying with laughter because it is the funniest, most insubstantial death. In reality, it turned out to be this incredible special effect that was heartbreaking and all these things."
14.Bev and Annie's big confrontation in the finale was actually the first thing Kristin filmed.
"Before I'd shot anything, we shot that," Kristin said. "It happened right on the heels of [Annie] saying farewell to her only living son in the middle of these very real, insane circumstances. The weight with which I wanted to lean into."
15.And Samantha said it was super windy while filming the Bev and Annie scene, and because the town is burning, the crew had to keep repositioning the scene because there were "embers flying through the air."
"None of that was faked," Samantha explained. "The wind was whipping through everything. They had to position and move trucks so that we could try and make this happen before we shut down for the night. We actually had to pull the plug. Nature conspired to help us and it was fabulous. I loved it."
16.Annabeth felt "a lot of pressure" to deliver the scene when Sarah is explaining all of the medical stuff to Erin and Mildred just right.
"I have a whole bunch of medical jargon that I have to deliver that's explaining and expositional," Annabeth continued. "I felt a lot of pressure to deliver that with the right tone and medical accuracy."
17.One of Samantha's favorite scenes to film was Erin and Bev's confrontation, and then when Erin is taken by the angel and Bev acts like nothing is wrong.
"Kate is one of my favorite people in the entire world," Samantha said. "I love Bev's face as she gets taken. Like everybody watches her go and she's being torn apart in the background, and life carries on."
18.Hamish's favorite scene actually happens in Episode 1, and it's when Bev calls out Father Paul for wearing the wrong colored chasuble.
He said, "That was one of the few scenes that we got the day before or something like that." Samantha said while they sat with the scripts for months, there were a few small moments that were created later, and this was one of them.
19.Kate's favorite behind-the-scenes memory was from filming the scene between Erin and Bev in the school's supply closet.
20.Zach loved any scene he shared with Henry Thomas because Zach "couldn't keep a straight face."
"There's this one scene where the whole family's at the dinner table," Zach explained. "Henry's just like, 'No. Ugh. Nope.' And he was just so ridiculous."
21.And finally, one of the scenes Zach is most proud of is when Riley and Ed talk on the boat. He knew they did a good job when the crew remarked on how great it was.
"There were plans of having this huge crane on another boat, but we're on the water in the middle of the ocean. So, the cranes couldn't get a shot," Zach explained. "Mike was like, 'Alright, just get rid of that. We'll just have one camera on the boat with someone holding it.' After we did it, and this is what I always feel like is the sign of a good scene, is when your crew comments on it. Our focus puller goes, 'That was really cool.' And then our cameraman goes, 'It's like the awkward conversation we all wish we could have with our father.' It made me realize we did a good job."
Check out our full video with Kate, Zach, Hamish, Samantha, Annabeth, and Kristin below!
And be sure to watch (or rewatch) Midnight Mass, which is now streaming on Netflix.
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