See The Shining Twins Now: The Iconic Pair Say They Are 'Naturally Spooky'
The iconic twins from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining are all grown up, but have retained the aura that made them unforgettable in the 1980 classic film.
Louise and Lisa Burns, now 51, were 12 years old when they were cast to star as a pair of twins that were murdered in the Overlook Hotel and whose ghosts are witnessed by the film’s protagonist, Danny.
“We’re naturally spooky,” the twins told Cosmopolitan. “But we did practice our timing — saying things in unison — and we worked on saying our lines in a hollow, other-worldly kind of way a number of times.”
The film focuses on Danny and his parents Jack and Wendy Torrance as Jack is hired as the off-season caretaker of a hotel that is haunted by ghosts.
Based on Stephen King’s 1977 novel of the same name, the movie was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and is regarded as one of the most influential horror films of all time.
While the Burns twins brought part of King’s horror to life, they told the magazine they weren’t scared while filming.
“We saw people in scary makeup, but it always felt more like we were at an elaborate fancy dress party,” the two said. “It just wasn’t that freaky.”
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The two may not have been scared, but that didn’t mean they were allowed free rein on the set.
“We had to be escorted all the time,” they said. “But our parents were never worried or thought that we should stop shooting the film. They were and are very supportive of us.”
The Shining is now 39 years old, but it’s still watched every year around Halloween. A sequel to the film, based on another King novel, Doctor Sleep, follows a grown-up Danny as he struggles with the trauma that he experienced at the hotel.
Starring Ewan McGregor as Danny, Doctor Sleep is in theaters on Nov. 8.
