EXCLUSIVE: Vivien Lyra Blair Chats Making Her New Horror Movie, ‘The Boogeyman’
Last month, the new horror movie, The Boogeyman was released to theaters. Based on the short story by the King of Horror, Stephen King, to celebrate the movie we sat down with one of its stars, Vivien Lyra Blair.
Playing Sawyer Harper, we talked how she got attached to this movie, what it was like making a horror movie, prepping for the role, and so much more. Check out what she had to say below.
How did you become attached to this movie?
“Well, it came in as a regular audition. It took a while, so we were kind of like, ‘Oh, I probably didn’t get it.’ But then my agent figured out that the director actually hadn’t seen my tape originally. And so then Rob [Savage] saw my tape and he just really loved it. So we met on Zoom and we immediately hit it off and then a week later we got a call that I booked it and I was going to New Orleans.”
Were you a little nervous to be making a horror movie?
“A little bit. It’s Stephen King, it was a horror movie. It was also a little bit, ‘This character feels like a bit of a scaredy cat and do I want to play that? I want to play more adult characters,’ kind of thing.
But Sawyer’s really so much more than that. She’s such a brave character and you see her in the beginning as kind of a kid who’s scared. But then you really see, once you figure out it’s real, what she’s seeing, she becomes a hero and it’s just such a fun arc to portray.”
How do you prepare for making a horror movie?
“Well, I had a few things that I did. I wrote a journal in the voice of Sawyer and I made a playlist with music that I thought Sawyer would like and I would listen to the music while I was writing. What was really fun was in the journal I was writing, I was taking the beginning of the story and kind of expanding on it a little bit. And there was this one part where Sawyer has these red headphones that she buys. And what was really fun was Rob showed it to our set director and in the hallway scene there is a pair of red headphones sitting on the desk outside Sawyer’s room. It’s a fun little Easter Egg that was actually referenced to the preparation I did for the character.”
Did you know that the headphones would be there?
“I didn’t, no. I was just like, ‘Hey, that’s so funny.’ And Rob was like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s not a coincidence. I showed Set Dec the journal and they’ve been including little things like that.’ So that was really fun.
How exciting was that to hear? You came up with this idea, and they added it to the movie?
“It was just really amazing. It happened on Obi-Wan as well, but that’s a story for another time.”
Let me ask you this. What music does Sawyer listen to?
“Well, funnily enough, I think there was actually some Blink 182 on there. I think there was some Billie Eilish, she’s got a few more emo artists. And then she also does rock. I also included a piece where she’s definitely the kind of kid who doesn’t tell her parents that the music she’s listening to has curse words in it and then just doesn’t acknowledge it and never plays it for them. I think she was totally that kind of kid. So I had some music like that. I think there was even some Justin Bieber on there or something. It was very much a mix of things that I think Sawyer would like.”
What about the journaling? It sounds like you also might have done some journaling for Obi-Wan. Is that something that you’ve always to prepare for a role?
“Not always, but I think it’s usually only a few entries. What I like to do is come back to it after a while. I just recently did almost like an epilogue where the journal kind of abruptly cuts off and then I almost wrote it as an epilogue to what I had written before.”
Can you tell me a little bit about the epilogue?
“I was doing Google Docs, so I did a different font and it was a year later, Sawyer’s now turning 11 and Sadie’s planning her big 11th birthday party and she’s making it super cool. It’s a gift for Sawyer and she got her headphones back, she got a new moon ball since the first one got crushed by the Boogeyman. And she gets a cat who sleeps on the side of the bed closer to the closet. So she has her cat who protects her. A big new house. So just as a little extra piece that’s like how the family is doing better after this experience that brought them closer and a new house. I brought things in, she wrote it on the day that her dad’s leg cast is coming off from his leg breaking and she talks about how her scar still hurts every once in a while, but she can barely even see it any more kind of thing.”
What would you say was the hardest scene for you to film?
“I I think the whole end of the movie was a difficult thing to do because the basement, there’s so many moving pieces to it at a time. Even though it’s all going on in the basement, it’s all its own thing. It took four or five days, maybe a week to film, probably more actually.
And the thing with the Christmas lights, they couldn’t just leave me with the Christmas lights on, so they had to keep taking them off and putting them back and there was a specific order you had to remember to put the Christmas lights on. It was a whole thing for sure.”
What did you do when you would be off set?
“Well, New Orleans was just such a fun city to film in. It’s amazing. We went to the Big Audubon Zoo three times. It’s an amazing zoo. The aquarium was right down the street. We went there constantly, which was really fun. We lived two streets down from Bourbon Street. So we would walk around there, get fun souvenirs, and stuff. We found this little ice cream place where I tried rainbow sherbet for the first time and I loved it so much that we would walk down there almost every night and we got a big tub of it. It was just a really fun little city
We also got to do a lot of stuff, me, Chris [Messina] and Sophie [Thatcher] because Rob really wanted us to have bonds, like a family. So we went bowling together with some of the producers as well. We went to the aquarium together, me and Sophie went to the arcade that was next door to our hotel, which was really fun. We had these little almost family memories that we did. And then me and my mom just got to do some fun stuff by ourselves. So it was just a really fun shoot and a really fun setting to be shooting in.”
New Orleans is a great city. Filled with a lot of rich history, especially dark history.
“I know. I feel like I’ve gotten five horror movie auditions since The Boogeyman that have all been filming in New Orleans.”
Really?
“It’s like the new city to film horror in. It’s the city. And also we were filming right during the Mardi Gras season, which was just, it was amazing. We were there mid-February through all of March to mid-April. So it was around two months probably altogether. But it was just the perfect time to go to New Orleans because everything’s open. There are tons of parades. Those people will find anything to put a parade for, I promise you.”
I love a good parade!
“It was really fun. They would throw stuff out in the crowd and you get a bunch of cool souvenirs. When we came back we had this whole bag that was so heavy and it was just filled with Mardi Gras stuff. It was just so amazing.”
Let’s go back to talking about you and your cast mates. Was there anything on set that you guys would do to make sure your bond came through?
“Well, me and Sophie had this little joke that we would do, which was avocado toast. I don’t know why neither of us really liked it. It’s just that kind of stuff that just happens when you’re around people. Sophie really was like a big sister to me on set and it’s such a fun thing to get to do as an actress because I’m an only child in real life. Getting to play pretend of having an older sister or younger sister or an older brother or a younger brother, or a twin kind of thing, which I’ve had multiple times.
But yeah, it’s just been really, really cool. It was one of those things where it just randomly became a thing between us. I got her avocado toast socks and then she got me avocado toast knee high socks, and then I got her little avocado toast plushy and I like to make bracelets. So I made her little bracelet that said, avocado toast. We had things like that. It just really brought on the sisterly bond. As I start to remember it, I was probably very annoying, which came off as very little sistery. But I think we had a lot of fun times together and it was really cool having…”
Now I want to know, did you get to see the final movie?
“Well, there were many chances for me too, but I just didn’t want to, because it’s a very scary movie and it’s PG-13 and definitely should be R and I’m only 11, so I have not seen the full product, but I have seen scenes here and there and it’s very scary.”
It is scary!
“Yeah, I was asked in an interview, wWhat words that would you use to describe The Boogeyman?’ And I was saying, ‘Just go into synonyms.com and then just type in terrifying. All of those applies.’ Every result that comes up applies”.
Do you think horror is something you want to continue doing or do you want to still branch out into other genres?
“Horror and sci-fi have been the roles I’ve been getting. And I think it could definitely be very fun to mix it up and do a comedy or a drama or a more realistic kind of movie or TV show. But for now, I think sci-fi and horror just so fun to do. I feel like, as an actor, it’s always going to be the more fun stuff to do that’s going to be like sci-fi or horror because it’s very unrealistic and it’s something that would never happen in real life. You really get to play with it. Whereas with a realistic family movie, you’re like, ‘I could just live this every day. Why? This isn’t like a stretch for me.’ And as an actress, you really want to have a challenge. And doing something that is completely impossible to ever do really gives you a challenge of acting like it’s really happening. And so I think doing those are always just such a fun little challenge. But of course I would love to mix it up once in a while.”
Do you think maybe down the road we could also see you writing or directing?
“Oh, absolutely. I already have scripts in progress. I definitely really want to be a writer and a director. And someone who I really look up to is Joseph Gordon Levitt. I’ve worked with him once on this show called Mr. Corman. I did. And he’s a successful actor, he’s a director, he’s a writer, and he enjoys doing all of it at once. And he’s really someone who I would love to have a similar career to him because I think he’s just a really successful person who I see really loving what he does and that’s really awesome. I really look up to him for that.”
For my final question for you, why should people go see The Boogeyman?
“I think you should definitely see it in theaters because you get the real experience in the theaters, especially with the sound systems, which make it even more terrifying. I think being in a dark crowded theater is going to be terrifying to watch it. But watching it at home is going to be terrifying because then you have to be next to your closet while watching it the entire time, which is not something you want to do. So I think anywhere you want to watch it’s going to be terrifying. And I definitely know people who find that appealing. I do not. But if you want to be really scared, definitely watch this movie.”
Photo credit: Storm Santos
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity