We spoke with actress Alicia Witt amid the release of her outstanding new film Longlegs, which centers on her character’s FBI agent daughter investigating a serial killer tied to a string of bizarre murder-suicides. Directed by Osgood Perkins and starring Maika Monroe (It Follows), Longlegs spins an intricate satanic tale that sticks with you long after the credits roll — and star Nicolas Cage isn’t the only reason you should show up to the theaters this weekend. Witt delivers a powerful, chilling performance that becomes wildly unexpected to thrilling effect. “Prayers don’t do a goddamn thing” is just one of the chilling one-liners dished by Ruth, Witt’s conflicted motherly character who is placed in a darkly difficult predicament in Perkins’ story that we won’t spoil here.
Longlegs thrives off its supporting performances, and despite how you may perceive Witt’s character — the mom to Monroe’s protagonist Agent Lee Harker — by the end, there’s no denying it’s a showstopper of a performance. In fact, it was so intense for Witt that she refuses to watch it. As she told MovieWeb:
“Full disclosure,
I have made a choice
, more of something that came to me at a certain point later last year, that
this movie is not for me to see. It was such a personal, intense and also very cathartic experience
to channel Ruth. So I haven’t seen that, and I think I’m going to let this one be for you to see.”
“But I would say that what I loved about the script and what I love about what NEON has rolled out for us as teasers so far,” continued Witt, “and what I love about the story is the fact that to illuminate the light, the divinity in life, we must be, I think, aware and in touch with the dark. It lives among us. It is here. Good outweighs dark, and I think we fully embraced the dark [with Longlegs]. We allowed ourselves to inhabit and convey it, and at least for my sake, having brought this out and left it there, it makes way for the light.”
Related
Longlegs Review: Nothing Scarier Will Descend Upon Us This Year, and It’s More Than Just Nic Cage
A never-better Maika Monroe and Kiernan Shipka heighten Osgood Perkins’ stunning thriller to unheard-of satanic levels.
Playing the Mom in Longlegs: ‘Cathartic’
Longlegs
4.5/5
Longlegs is a horror thriller film by writer-director Osgood Perkins. When FBI agent Lee Harker is assigned to a serial killer cold case, their investigation leads them down a rabbit hole riddled with disturbing discoveries and the occult at the center of it all. When the trail of evidence reveals a personal connection, it becomes a race against time to prevent another murder.
- Release Date
- July 12, 2024
- Runtime
- 1hr 41min
- Studio
- Automatik Entertainment, C2 Motion Picture Group, Neon
Alicia Witt often seems to match the intensity of her character, and her eloquent argument for why she won’t see the film is poetic and almost spiritual. Witt has an active spiritual side to her and told MovieWeb that she “prayed fervently” about getting the role of Ruth in the film:
I loved this character with a passion from the first read, in fact. I loved her so much, and I felt such a visceral craving to be the one to inhabit her that I prayed fervently that it might be mine.
“Meeting Oz [Perkins] on a Zoom, we had a beautiful, intense hour-long Zoom talking about the role and the film and hearing about his process,” added Witt. “I hadn’t seen his work at the time when I read the script, and then had the meeting with him. But I knew I could trust him. I knew we were on the same page. I knew that, who I thought Ruth was, was his vision for her. And then watching his previous three movies, once I had been offered the role, I was blown away that I would get to work with a filmmaker of this caliber. And every day on the set was a dream.”
You can see it all unfold in theaters now with NEON’s release of the excellent film, Longlegs. You can watch our video interview with Alicia Witt below:
