Betty Gilpin joined The Grudge to prove she could 'be in a horror movie and not pass out'
There’s a reason why you’ve never seen Betty Gilpin in a horror movie…until now.
The GLOW star is about to star in the upcoming reboot of The Grudge, and she stopped by EW’s New York Comic Con video studio — along with costars Lin Shaye and Andrea Riseborough, and director Nicolas Pesce — on Thursday to reveal why this is the first horror movie she’s ever done.
“I can’t watch horror movies,” Gilpin says. “This is the first time I’ve been in one and I cried at the clip you sent me of this movie [gesturing to Pesce]. It was a personal goal to be in a horror movie and not pass out. And I didn’t pass out.”
Gilpin also revealed that it was “a great conversation” she had with Pesce that helped convince her to join the 2020 reboot of the popular franchise. “We talked about how, as long as there’s a scare every eight pages, we get to make a movie that they don’t let you make anymore, about just quiet adult, dramatic themes,” she says. “We’re trojan horsing a really good movie into a horror movie.”
And that’s because the new R rating allowed Pesce to explore themes he wouldn’t normally get to in the past with a movie like this.
“The biggest difference is it’s very much rated R. We got to be gorier with it for sure,” he says. “But also what came with the R rating was allowing us to be a bit more serious with the subject matter outside the scares as well. All of their storylines are a lot more intense, a lot more adult, just by nature of being rated R we’re allowed to cater to an older audience so that brings a special energy to this movie.”
Check out the director and cast’s full interview above now.
The Grudge, which also stars Demián Bichir, John Cho, and Jacki Weaver, hits theaters on Jan. 3, 2020.
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