Sophie Thatcher on ‘The Boogeyman’ and the ‘Yellowjackets’ Scene That Cost Her the Most Sleep
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In early 2022, Sophie Thatcher was everywhere. The Chicago native broke out as teenage Natalie on Yellowjackets, the buzziest new cable show at the time, and it led straight into a recurring role on The Book of Boba Fett. She was also the talk of Twitter since she reminded so many people of Juliette Lewis, circa Natural Born Killers, who she happened to be sharing a role with on Yellowjackets. Well, the creative team behind 21 Laps and 20th Century’s The Boogeyman took notice and offered Thatcher her first lead role in a studio film.
“I didn’t have to go through so many processes and have to prove myself again and always just prepare myself for rejection, which is totally a part of the job and a part of life. So this felt very refreshing to have people that believed in me and trusted me,” Thatcher tells The Hollywood Reporter.
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In Rob Savage’s The Boogeyman, Thatcher and Vivien Lyra Blair play the grieving Harper sisters, who are quickly preyed upon by a monster that seeks out such vulnerability. Ultimately, Thatcher’s Star Wars experience would come in handy in creating a sisterly bond with the 10-year-old Blair, who had just come off of her top-secret role as young Princess Leia on Obi-Wan Kenobi.
“She told me little secrets because [Obi-Wan Kenobi] hadn’t come out yet, so I felt very special that she trusted me and told me about her playing Princess Leia,” Thatcher shares. “It’s a weird, crazy world to be in, and while she was in a very different part of the Star Wars universe, that was our first point of connection.”
Thatcher spoke to THR in support of The Boogeyman shortly before Yellowjackets’ season two finale, and so her comments take on a whole new meaning now that the fiery ending has aired.
“Oh, the cabin set … There’s so many memories, and honestly, the first time I went inside it, I was like, ‘I would rent this as an Airbnb,’” Thatcher recalls. “So it’s really cool, just aesthetically … but that place is haunted. Towards the end, I was like, ‘It’s haunted. There’s too much that’s happened. We need to move on.’”
In a season that got progressively darker, Thatcher singles out one fantastical scene in particular that cost her the most sleep.
“It was the baby-eating fantasy [in Yellowjackets‘ sixth episode]. Everything was just so gory and so morbid, and the darkness was getting into our normal lives, which wasn’t fun, especially when you’re trying to sleep. But that’s what happens when you’re working on a show like that,” Thatcher says.
Below, during a recent chat with THR, Thatcher also discusses how she related to her Boogeyman character’s feeling of isolation.
Well, Shawn Levy told me last year that they cast you in response to Yellowjackets. So, was this the first time you felt the effect of Yellowjackets, career-wise?
Definitely. I mean, the fact that this was the first time in my life … I’d gotten some offers where I had to meet with the director first, but for somebody to have that confidence in me was something that was very new. I didn’t have to go through so many processes and have to prove myself again and always just prepare myself for rejection, which is totally a part of the job and a part of life. So this felt very refreshing to have people that believed in me and trusted me.
To ask the obvious, were you ecstatic when you learned about the glowing test screenings and subsequent move to theatrical?
Yeah, this movie has to be theatrical, and I think people need to experience it in theaters with other people just so they can have that energy in the room. It’s also so beautifully shot that it needs to be on a big screen, and going to the theaters and seeing it is more of an immersive experience. You can’t press pause. You have to sit through this movie for an hour and forty minutes and put yourself in Sadie’s perspective. So I think most horror movies should be in theaters.
I’m ashamed to be one of a hundred people who’s going to ask you this today, but did you and Vivien Lyra Blair bond over your galactic adventures in Manhattan Beach? [Writer’s Note: The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi were both filmed at Manhattan Beach Studios.]
(Laughs.) Yeah, Manhattan Beach! Aww, yeah, that was our first [bond]. She told me little secrets because [Obi-Wan Kenobi] hadn’t come out yet, so I felt very special that she trusted me and told me about her playing Princess Leia. It’s a weird, crazy world to be in, and while she was in a very different part of the Star Wars universe, that was our first point of connection. It was her trusting me and telling me all these secrets.
Was your second point of connection when she swept your leg and knocked you to the ground?
(Laughs.) That was a scene that felt painfully awkward and pathetic. We had to keep reshooting it, and I was like, “Wow, a 10-year-old is beating me up right now. I feel really pathetic.” (Laughs.) But yeah, that was also a good point of connection. I was like, “Wow, she’s pretty badass.” Musically, she’s so talented. She’s a writer. She has so much going for her, it’s insane. She could go down any path that she wants, and it’s really exciting to see somebody who’s so young and so talented and so full of life and opportunities.
What were you frightened of as a kid? What was your version of the Boogeyman?
As a kid, I had these curtains in my room that were very Old English, very old-timey and kind of Victorian, and they had these elves on them that horrified me. So I only had them in my bedroom for two or three days, and finally, I was like, “They’re haunting me, Mom. You have to take them down.” So elves are a lot of things, but they are pretty scary. Dark elves are really scary. (Laughs.)
So how good is that Nilufer Yanya song that plays when Sadie returns to school? I’ve been playing it on loop for a while.
I didn’t know what they were going to do there, so I actually tried to pitch some songs based on what I actually put into my AirPods when I was her age in high school. So I was like, “She would just be listening to My Bloody Valentine.” That is the most isolating, I’m-in-my-own-world type of music, so I was rooting for that. I really need to check out the soundtrack, because I was so surprised by it and I wasn’t able to look up the song after. But I think it worked perfectly and it’s totally the world that she would live in. [Writer’s Note: Oddly enough, Nilufer Yanya is heavily influenced by My Bloody Valentine.]
Sadie is obviously not having a very normal high school experience at the moment. Did you have a typical high school experience? Or did you miss class a lot to hang out on [Prospect] sets with Pedro Pascal?
(Laughs.) I missed a lot of classes. Half of it was home school and then private school and public school. Early on, I was good at creating my core group of friends, and that’s what kept me grounded. And Sadie had that to some extent. But it’s sad when people move on or move on to different phases or let other things get in their head. So she gets thrown away to some extent and abandoned twice in her life. But I naturally felt isolated like she did and kind of removed from people, because I had something outside of school that was just always on my mind. I was always just focused on acting and music, and it would take up all my time. So people sometimes didn’t understand the drive that I had and why I was missing school and why I was taking it so seriously. So it felt like a disconnection.
You have enough of a sample size now to know, but actors will either say that the process of shooting horror borders on comedy or that it can get quite creepy. Which is true in your experience?
It could definitely go either way. It really depended on the day and how ridiculous the scene was or how much you had to use your imagination. I mean, in reality, you’re playing out the climax of the movie to a ball [on a stick], and that’s ridiculous. But I learned through this experience that you just have to commit, and I’m taking this with me for the rest of my life. No matter what, don’t think too hard about anything and just let your body go through with it. You cannot be self-conscious or else you can’t go to those places that you have to go to in order to tell the story. And within this movie, I learned to just release myself.
[The following two spoiler questions were asked before the Yellowjackets season two finale.]
Well, between Javi’s (Luciano Leroux) death, the baby-eating fantasy and the Jackie (Ella Purnell) feast, which scene was the hardest to rinse off, so to speak?
I think it was the baby-eating fantasy. All these nightmares started accumulating towards the end, and then all of us started having nightmares towards the end. And it wasn’t even specifically about cannibalism; it was never about that. Everything was just so gory and so morbid, and the darkness was getting into our normal lives, which wasn’t fun, especially when you’re trying to sleep. But that’s what happens when you’re working on a show like that. (Laughs.)
In the fifth episode, you had a very brief, present-day moment with adult Lottie (Simone Kessell). Were you thrilled to get off the cabin set for a minute?
Oh, the cabin set … There’s so many memories, and honestly, the first time I went inside it, I was like, “I would rent this as an Airbnb. This is so cool-looking.” So it’s really cool, just aesthetically. It’s very Victorian and there’s so many old-timey things that you can take in, but that place is haunted. Towards the end, I was like, “It’s haunted. There’s too much that’s happened. We need to move on.” (Laughs.)
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The Boogeyman opens in theaters on June 2. This interview was edited for length and clarity.
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