Annabelle: Creation – Exclusive Interview with Lulu Wilson
Staci Layne Wilson
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Young Lulu Wilson stars in Annabelle: Creation (review) as an orphaned girl who must contend with pure evil in the form of a possessed doll. Wilson plays BFF to Janice (Talitha Bateman) and is also close to Stephanie Sigman’s character, a young nun with a dark past. Wilson’s a very talented youngster, who’s even cooler because she loves acting in horror films! She was especially awesome in last year’s Ouija: Origin of Evil. She’s also been in Deliver Us from Evil. We got a chance to sit down with her to ask about being in Annabelle: Creation and working with up-and-coming director, David F. Sandberg.
Dread Central: We were lucky enough to be able to explore the set of Annabelle: Creation while you were filming. Every detail was so lush. Did being able to work in such a rich, detailed environment help your imagination?
Lulu Wilson: It did, because the way it was built, there was and upstairs and a downstairs, which is not very common, so you could really see the hard work and detail that was put into the set because you could actually feel like you were in a haunted house.
DC: Tell us about working with David.
LW: He’s just a great director because sometimes when you’re shooting a horror film, the scenes aren’t really that scary but when you’re shooting it with David, he makes the scene as you’re shooting it really scary. Opposed to when you’re watching it and it’s all special effects are done and stuff. He gives you that back story and the direction that makes you feel like you’re that character and this is actually happening to you.
DC: You play Linda, one of the leads. How did you got hired on, was it because he saw in other horror movies?
LW: I actually auditioned for Linda but I feel like it was kind of refreshing auditioning for Linda because I shot Ouija: Origin of Evil, and I was the bad guy, I was the possessed one. But it was just nice being the hero, being the good guy instead of the evil one. I feel like I got to play a very strong character and you don’t really see that nowadays because her being a strong character was awesome and also the relationship that me and Janice, that Linda and Janice had, a lot of times in movies, if there are two girlfriends they don’t – they’re usually fighting, usually not liking each other and being mean to each other, but this one they were so nice to each other and their bond is almost, like, sisterly and it was just amazing.
DC: You think the characters are a little different, because this is a period film?
LW: I don’t really know. That kind of friendship can happen now, it’s just a little more rare – but obviously I was not alive in the 50s (laughs).
DC: Linda also has a bond with Sister Charlotte. Tell us a bit about working with Stephanie – we heard that she was very much in favour of blessing the set with a priest before filming began.
LW: She was so nice. She sometimes got freaked out on set, which I kinda thought was funny, which isn’t that nice, but I thought it was funny. But me and Talitha kinda helped her overcome those fears, which I thought was really nice and probably how we formed such a great bond, that and also because we played these really gruelling, intense games of Uno on set every single day (laughs). It’s always nice because you get kind of worked up sometimes when you’re on a horror set, because you have to cry and scream but then just after the take, just to relax and do something that takes your mind off all of it is just really nice.
DC: Is the Annabelle doll actually scary to you?
LW: She’s really creepy! And I really don’t consider myself someone who gets scared at things like that usually, like at dolls in general. Working with Annabelle changed my perspective on things like that a little bit. Because she just looks so creepy, she looked like she was ALWAYS staring at you no matter if you turned her head, or looked away or tried to ignore her, she just was always there. You could feel her presence – it was really scary.
DC: We heard that Anthony LaPaglia, who plays the dollmaker, was actually in character even when he wasn’t on camera.
LW: Yes. He was. He was, which I thought was very cool. Sometimes I guess, it was very intimidating, because I thought “should I be in character all the time” – like “why am I not doing this” (laughs). But it was really cool because it made the connection more real when we were on set and shooting a scene.
DC: What’s David like?
LW: I feel like when you meet him, he just seems like that kind of guy who’d be a genius at making this kind of stuff. Who really knows what he’s doing and he’s very serious, but then sometimes he can be hilarious. Along with the other actors and actresses, he was a part of our family too. And it just was really awesome. He was just so great. I could see what he was seeing through his eyes. I could see he kind of felt like the camera – he would go like this and put his hands in front of his face, in front of his eyes and pretend to be the camera sometimes, and just look at different angles. But, he would look at the angles in ways that I’ve never seen anyone do before. He wouldn’t just glance, he would take a long time and he would look intently at the different angles and he knew, I really trusted him that he knew what was best.
DC: What did you like most about playing Linda?
LW: Well, like I said, my character now is a good guy, which is great and also being with these strong female characters was great! Because you don’t see that a lot these days, especially in horror movies. And all of the characters were fighting, fighting for their lives basically – not just two or three characters, but all of them. I thought that was just great and amazing. I feel like we created this chemistry just by meeting each other. We met each other and I feel like instantly when we looked at each other we knew that we would click, we knew that we would create this strong family and we knew that our characters would be amazing and just like you would imagine them.
DC: What’s the most intense scene you filmed?
LW: The scariest scene was probably the well scene. Because as I looked down into that well when I was not shooting – it was dark! They made it even darker but it was dark, you couldn’t see anything! It was pretty deep. They made it pretty deep and you couldn’t see anything beneath it. It was dark and you didn’t know what was in there, you didn’t know if two pairs of eye would pop up or six pairs of eyes! It was super creepy. But another intense thing is the dumb waiter scene! Because there really was no demon in the dumb waiter with me, as you probably may have guessed (laughs). So it was hard to imagine an evil presence with me there because it’s just such a small space, I was like “well how would it even come in here” like I was kind of doubting it, but then I just kind of tried imagining more, and using parts of my imagination and creativity that I wouldn’t use before, maybe not even want to use before, and that really put me into character and helped me.
David F. Sandberg directs from a screenplay by Gary Dauberman, who also wrote Annabelle. The film stars Stephanie Sigman (Spectre), Talitha Bateman (The 5th Wave), Lulu Wilson (Ouija 2, Deliver Us from Evil), Philippa Coulthard (After the Dark), Grace Fulton (Badland), Lou Lou Safran (The Choice), Samara Lee (Foxcatcher, The Last Witch Hunter), and Tayler Buck in her feature film debut, with Anthony LaPaglia (“Without a Trace”) and Miranda Otto (“Homeland”, the Lord of the Rings trilogy).
Annabelle: Creation has been rated R by the MPAA for horror violence and terror. Slated for release August 11, 2017, the film will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Synopsis:
Several years after the tragic death of their little girl, a doll maker and his wife welcome a nun and several girls from a shuttered orphanage into their home. They soon become the target of the doll maker’s possessed creation, Annabelle.
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