Wyatt Russell's life in horror, from “The Walking Dead” to “Black Mirror” to “Night Swim”

The actor's horror projects have found him facing zombies, cannibals, and now a haunted swimming pool. Russell talks about it all.

The just-released horror film Night Swim stars Wyatt Russell as a former baseball player who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. After he moves with his wife Eve (Kerry Condon) and their two children into a new home, Russell's character discovers that using the house's pool dramatically, and spookily, alleviates his symptoms.

"His family comes across a house with a pool and they decide that it would be sort of the American dream and what they need in this time in their lives," says Russell, 37, who himself played professional hockey for several years in the aughts. "It ends up that the pool actually has magical powers and can heal the sick, but in order to heal the sick, [it] needs to take someone who’s healthy."

Russell's father Kurt starred in 1982's iconic horror movie The Thing, while the young Wyatt briefly appeared alongside his dad in 1996's horror-adjacent Escape From L.A. But the actor's real introduction to the horror genre came via his actor half-brother Oliver Hudson (2006's Black Christmas) and childhood pal John Stalberg Jr., a director-in-the-making whose upcoming crime thriller Bad Hombres was produced by the siblings.

"They would show me Suspiria and The Shining and Pet Sematary and Evil Dead II, and they would make movies in our backyard," he says. "John would direct them, and Olly and I would be in them, or Olly would direct one. These are home movies that they cut together in-camera, and I’d play ‘the dying kid’ or ‘the kid who got eaten by a dog.’ We always had fun making our own home video horror movies."

In between those early onscreen appearances and his starring role in Night Swim, Russell racked up an impressive terror tale filmography with appearances in the Walking Dead universe and on Black Mirror, as well as the movies We Are What We Are, At the Devil's Door, and Overlord. The actor now looks back on his life in horror with EW.

'We Are What We Are' (2013)

We Are What We Are filmmaker Jim Mickle, who had previously directed the 2010 vampire-apocalypse movie Stake Land, cast the then-little known Russell as a cop in his restrained but effective remake of a Mexican cannibal movie. The actor describes the film as "a turning point" in his life. "I was ready to be like, I don’t know [about acting]. I hadn’t gotten a job in a while, I wasn't very good at auditioning," he says. "The script came along, and it was this cannibal remake. I remember even agents were like, 'Are you sure you want to do this?' I rent [the original film], and I’m like, 'This is a f---ing good movie.' Then I watched Stake Land, which Jim Mickle did for five cents, and I was like, 'This guy’s really good. I definitely want to work with this guy.'"

Mickle shot We Are What We Are in upstate New York with a cast that also included Julia Garner, Bill Sage, independent-horror notable Larry Fessenden, and cowriter Nick Damici, the latter playing another cop in the movie. Russell recalls the thrill of being "shepherded into this indie family," adding, "Everything about it was so what movie making should be. It was one of the most special experiences of my life, and I have them to thank for me being an actor."

'The Walking Dead' (2010-22)

Russell and The Last Exorcism actress Ashley Bell played a pair of zombie apocalypse survivors who seek medical help at a hospital in 2013's three-part webisode "The Oath," which was released online to promote season 4 of The Walking Dead.

"That was a really good experience because Greg Nicotero directed them," Russell says, referring to the makeup effects legend and Walking Dead executive producer. "It was only a week or whatever of work, but it was a really great learning experience. With horror, you have to have heightened emotions and heightened tension, but it all has to be done with sleight of hand. You can’t hit it over the head too hard, otherwise it ends up being flat or hokey. So it was a good introduction into just, how far can I push this? How far is too far? How far is not enough?"

'Black Mirror' (2011-present)

On "Playtest," from 2016's third season of Charlie Brooker's routinely unnerving anthology show, Russell portrayed a character called Cooper, who is escaping problems at home by traveling the world. Short on cash while visiting England, Cooper agrees to test a new VR horror game at a remote mansion with nightmarish consequences.

Another career highlight, Russell says of shooting the show, "I got to work with Dan Trachtenberg [director of Prey and 10 Cloverfield Lane], who is one of my favorites, and Charlie Brooker obviously stands alone. Also, it’s a bit of a man-on-an-island episode where there wasn’t really anybody else. Hannah John-Kamen and Wunmi [Mosaku] were in it, but mostly it was just me in a room with an [ear piece] dealing with a lot of effects and things that aren’t there. It was a 'put up or shut up' moment for me, honestly. Either this works and it’s good and you can do this, or you can’t. So it was a nice trial by fire."

'At the Devil's Door' (2013)

In writer-director Nicholas McCarthy's tale of demonic possession, Russell has a supporting role as the one-night stand of the late Naya Rivera's artist heroine.

"That was a very small bit part where there was almost no horror involved," he recalls. "I was almost like this weird comic relief, a naked guy walking through the room of Naya Rivera. I felt very sad for her family when the news of her passing came. I remember her being very sweet and very kind to me. That’s what I remember from that movie."

'Overlord' (2018)

Directed by Julius Avery (The Pope's Exorcist) and produced by J.J. Abrams, the World War II-set Overlord concerns a group of paratroopers who are dropped behind enemy lines and stumble across a Nazi laboratory set up to create undead superhuman soldiers. Russell, who was cast as a corporal named Lewis Ford, admits he was initially concerned about how the movie would turn out.

"Nazi zombies? Okay. What’s that going to be like?" he remembers thinking. "And Julius Avery and J.J. Abrams were able to assuage my concerns."

The really horrifying aspect of the shoot for Russell? "I had to do half that movie with mono," he says. "So that was fun.

'Night Swim' (2024)

While Night Swim has its fair share of disturbing moments, Russell has happy memories of shooting the film, which was directed by Bryce McGuire and produced by James Wan and Jason Blum. The actor says that, through his previous experiences working in the horror genre, he has come to learn that the more fun you have on set, often times the better it becomes. "You usually deal with such dark subject matter. If you live in that for too long, it becomes so exhausting that you can’t necessarily play the moments as you’d like or with the energy that they need," he remarks.

Even so, Russell admits he did get tired of getting wet. "Oh yeah," says the actor, who is also currently starring on the Apple TV+ show Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. "Definitely got sick of being wet. I got sick, of course. I had bronchitis, and then you just have to grind it out. I was ready to get out of the pool when we were done shooting. No doubt about that!"

Night Swim is playing in theaters this weekend.

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

Related content:

• Can ghosts swim? Night Swim director answers our silliest questions

• Kurt and Wyatt Russell are the real big beasts of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

• Wyatt Rusell's house has a haunted pool in the chilling trailer for horror movie Night Swim

• Ghost children are possessing giant robots in Five Nights at Freddy's trailer

• The Exorcist Legacy: The most head-spinning revelations from history of horror franchise
  

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.