‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ Star Madelaine Petsch Talks Shooting an Entire Trilogy in 52 Days
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With Riverdale now in her rearview mirror, Madelaine Petsch is kicking off her post-Cheryl Blossom era in ambitious fashion. This Friday, Petsch returns to the big screen in Renny Harlin’s The Strangers: Chapter 1, the first installment in a trilogy that is already shot and slated to release in full by early 2025. Now, one would think that Petsch was able to shoot an entire trilogy of films by virtue of no longer being tied to a TV show for most of the calendar year, but she actually shot and executive produced the saga of films in between Riverdale’s concluding sixth and seventh seasons. So with little time to spare, she felt the pressure both on and off camera during the 52-day shoot.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 is a reimagining of Bryan Bertino’s 2008 horror classic, The Strangers, as Petsch plays Maya, an aspiring architect who lands a job interview at a prestigious firm in Portland, Oregon. So she and her five-year boyfriend, Ryan (Froy Gutierrez), decide to make a cross-country road trip out of it, and they end up stopping in the tiny town of Venus, Oregon, where Ryan’s virtually brand-new BMW SUV suspiciously won’t start after having lunch at a diner. So the friendly diner staff recommends they stay at a nearby Airbnb cabin while their vehicle takes too long to get fixed.
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As established by the previous two Strangers films, the evil trio of masked Strangers known as Man in the Mask, Dollface and Pin-Up Girl love vacation homes, so they quickly target Maya and Ryan’s secluded rental home. Similar to Liv Tyler’s character in the original, Maya has a stretch of time where she thinks she’s alone in the cabin, leading to a frighteningly well-staged scene in the bathroom that Petsch herself created.
“[Producer] Courtney [Solomon] and I had kind of cracked movie two and three, but we were sitting in my trailer, saying, ‘There’s something missing from the beginning of movie one when she’s alone,’” Petsch tells The Hollywood Reporter. “And I was like, ‘Man, every time I have shampoo suds in my eyeballs, I am sure there’s a serial killer staring at me right when I can’t look.’ And we were like, ‘Let’s put that in the movie.’”
Unfortunately, her own creation would come back to haunt her during her one day off a week.
“I shot the shower scene about halfway through our shoot, and ever since then, when I was alone in my apartment in Slovakia, I was convinced that there was somebody watching me,” Petsch admits. “And although it sounds silly, it actually did stick with me a lot more than I thought it would while I was shooting the entirety of the project.”
Harlin block-shot the trilogy according to location, so Petsch and co. would shoot scenes from each movie on any given day. But to Petsch’s benefit, the three-film story takes place in just five days’ time, so she approached the project as one continuous film.
“I was sent a 290-page script that we broke up in three chapters. So if you look at it as an abnormally long film, it feels as usual as any other project you do, and that’s the mindset I tried to have,” Petsch says.
Petsch is also previewing what to expect from The Strangers: Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, which take a hard left turn from the welcomed familiarity of Chapter 1.
“[The Strangers: Chapter 1] is a retelling of the 2008 original that is very beloved, including by me. But it’s also a launch pad into chapters two and three, which are a departure from anything you’ve ever seen,” Petsch reveals. “It becomes more of a character study, mentally, emotionally, and physically. What happens when a person is pushed far beyond their breaking point?”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Petsch also explains why it was necessary for her to isolate herself from the actors playing the Strangers, before teasing her most memorable scene in Chapter 2.
So when I heard you were making a trilogy of Strangers films at the same time, I assumed this was a result of no longer filming Riverdale in Vancouver nine months out of the year. But that wasn’t really the case. Did you go back and forth at all?
I didn’t! I worked every single day of this shoot. We cross-boarded all three films, and it fit absolutely perfectly into my window between season six and seven.
There were days where you’d be filming scenes from each film, or at least two of the three. How tricky was it to jump around your character’s three-film arc like that?
To shoot three movies at one time, I got very lucky because of the fact that they all take place over the span of five days. So it felt like one long film, which is the way that it was sent to me. I was sent a 290-page script that we broke up in three chapters. So if you look at it as an abnormally long film, it feels as usual as any other project you do, and that’s the mindset I tried to have.
Did the hair and makeup team get pretty obsessive about helping you keep track of where she was supposed to be in that 5-day period and what she’s supposed to look like at any given moment?
Yeah, I really let hair and makeup do their job. That’s their department, and I couldn’t possibly try to do it better than they did. So they really took control of continuity and things of that nature. But I was very lucky to come in quite early and do some pre-production with Renny Harlin and Courtney Solomon, our producer. So I rewrote the three films with the two of them along the journey, and I was so well ingrained in the fabric of the story at that point. I felt like I really knew where Maya was at any given time, and they allowed me the autonomy to do that and really take her on.
There’s a disturbing scene in the bathroom where Maya doesn’t know she’s being watched by the Man in the Mask, but you still know she’s being watched by this masked Stranger. So is it difficult to play that moment as if there’s nothing to worry about?
Well, it’s so funny that you bring that up. Courtney and I had kind of cracked movie two and three, but we were sitting in my trailer, saying, “There’s something missing from the beginning of movie one when she’s alone.” And I was like, “Man, every time I have shampoo suds in my eyeballs, I am sure there’s a serial killer staring at me right when I can’t look.” And we were like, “Let’s put that in the movie.” So that’s been such a fear of mine, and I feel like a lot of people also have that fear. Hopefully they do and they will resonate with the film. (Laughs.) So that made it even more bone-chilling for me, but a man in a mask watching me shower, it doesn’t matter if it’s a film or not, it’s creepy regardless. So it wasn’t hard for me to separate what Madelaine knows versus what Maya knows. I also wore a producer hat on this film, so I had to be able to do that quickly.
Some actors say that filming horror movies can be pretty silly at times, especially with a crew standing around you, but then others insist that it does get genuinely creepy from time to time. Where do you weigh in on it?
I don’t think we had the luxury of time to be silly. I had so much fun with Froy [Gutierrez], Courtney and Renny that we would’ve if we had time, but I had to get back to Riverdale. So we had to be fully on every time the camera started rolling in the morning until the time that we yelled cut at the end of the day. I shot the shower scene about halfway through our shoot, and ever since then, when I was alone in my apartment in Slovakia, I was convinced that there was somebody watching me every time. And although it sounds silly, it actually did stick with me a lot more than I thought it would while I was shooting the entirety of the project.
I’ve also been told a lot that fear is the most difficult emotion to play, because it manifests itself in a variety of ways like crying, screaming, laughing, worrying, etc. Would you agree that fear is the hardest emotion to play?
I actually would. That’s a really wonderful callout, and it’s also interesting because it’s the emotion that I really don’t think you can manufacture. You actually have to feel it on camera, and your body doesn’t know the difference between acting and it actually happening. So my adrenaline was really pumping. I was really in fight-or-flight mode for these movies, and it was the only way for me to properly be fearful.
When Maya runs to lock the door and an ax ends up right near her head, did that go down exactly as it appears without compositing anything?
It was not a composite. It was a practical effect, which obviously means that they put the ax right through the door where my head was. And looking back on it, it feels a bit like a fever dream that I don’t even remember. I feel like it was some sort of trauma response where you don’t remember what happened when you were doing it. There was a very particular mark I had to hit in order for the ax to not hit my head, but our stunt coordinator on the other side of the door also had to hit a very particular mark. So I felt very safe knowing that Vlad [Orlov] was the one putting the ax through the door, and then he would step away and let Scarecrow [Man in the Mask] step in. So it was very mechanical, but it was so well rehearsed that by the time we got to it, it felt very effortless.
Did they keep the Strangers separate from you and Froy? Did they try to create that dynamic in between takes and setups?
I made it a point to be separate from the Strangers for a multitude of reasons. One being, I’m shooting three movies at once, and it would be insane to try to then separate the person from the actor in these intense circumstances. Froy, on the other hand, would go out with them on weekends and do things, like go to the lake. But I think I worked six-day work weeks every week, so I’d usually sleep on my day off. But it was important to me [to keep them separate]. I guess that’s the small piece of method that I am, and when it’s something like this where I have to have this innate fear every time I see them, it’s just easier if I don’t see them without the masks on.
What cryptic tease can you offer regarding chapters two and three?
So this first film [The Strangers: Chapter 1] is a retelling of the 2008 original that is very beloved, including by me. But it’s also a launch pad into chapters two and three, which are a departure from anything you’ve ever seen. It becomes more of a character study, mentally, emotionally, and physically. What happens when a person is pushed far beyond their breaking point? Who are they left with?
We’re given a look at Maya’s bank account information, and her boyfriend drives a BMW SUV. There’s also a thread involving a businessman with a nice watch. How much should we be paying attention to this socioeconomic theme?
Personally, I didn’t pick up on that. I believe that the bank account shot was product placement, which is why it was there. Sorry to blow that up, but maybe it’s [a theme] for Renny and Courtney. That wasn’t really top of mind for me, and her need for a job is throughout the whole movie.
But you definitely do find out. I won’t say why, because I actually don’t think that it’s a question we want answered, but you definitely get a little bit more insight into the machinations of the Strangers.
Decades from now, when you think back on this experience, what day will you likely recall first?
Oh boy, that’s such a good question. Honestly, there’s a scene in movie two, and I can’t wait until you and I can do this again so I can tell you exactly what that scene is. It was so emotionally, mentally, and physically challenging for me, and it’s something I’d never done in my career before. So I’ll probably think of that day first, but from movie one, I’ll probably think of the ax coming through the door.
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The Strangers: Chapter 1 opens in theaters nationwide on May 17.
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