The Big Picture

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff discusses
Abigail
with stars Melissa Barrera and Alisha Weir.
The movie stars Weir as a ballerina vampire tormenting a group of would-be criminals, which includes Barrera’s character, Joey.
During their chat, Barrera and Weir share some horror moviemaking advice, reveal their favorite ideas for
Abigail 2
, and more!

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett make horror movies that not only soak each scene with blood and gore, but that leave plenty of room for fans to theorize about possible sequels. With Ready or Not 2 in the works, and both Scream 2022 and Scream VI under their belts, is it any wonder Abigail stars Melissa Barrera and Alisha Weir have some pretty twisted ideas of their own for a sequel?

Abigail may start out as a crime thriller, but the kidnapping of a young girl (Weir) takes a sharp turn into a nightmarish bloodbath for this group of criminals. Tasked with holding the daughter of a very wealthy man hostage for 24 hours, a group of strangers is brought together to a sprawling estate where $50 million is on the line. It isn’t long before it’s revealed that Abigail is actually a vampire with her teeth set on some ne’er-do-wells, turning the job into a fight for survival.

During this interview with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, Barrera admits she was “constantly surprised” by her co-stars on set as the movie took on a new life going from script to screen, and credits Weir for that emotionally charged final scene. Weir, who Grand Jetés into our hearts in her first-ever lead role in a horror movie, shares some advice for other actors jumping into the genre for the first time, and also highlights a moment on set when Barrera helped her out during a challenging scene.

Check out the video above or the transcript below for more on their sequel ideas, and a sitcom spin-off we’re dying to watch.

Image via Universal

PERRI NEMIROFF: I have a silly question to start. If you two were vampires defined by your favorite hobby, what type of vampire would you be?

MELISSA BARRERA: It would be, like, a chip-eating vampire because I just love eating chips. That’s probably my hobby. I’m like a junk food eater, so it would be a junk food-eating vampire, which would be, honestly, amazing if I didn’t have to feed off blood and I just had to feed off of fast food and chips.

ALISHA WEIR: Yeah, me too.

BARRERA: That would be easy.

WEIR: I probably, on the food side of it, would definitely be noodles. I definitely would be noodles. A noodle-eating vampire. [Laughs]

BARRERA: Curry flavored noodles. It’s important to make that distinction.

Okay, so we’ve got curry flavored noodles, we’ve got chips, I’ll be a peanut butter vampire, whatever that means.

BARRERA: We should make a little sitcom about these vampires.

Alisha Weir’s Mantra on Set? “Embrace the Blood”
Image by Jefferson Chacon

Alisha, specific questions for you now because this is your first big lead role in a very, very bloody horror movie. Going into it, what would you say surprised you most about what it takes to make a movie like this?

WEIR: I think what surprised me the most was, I mean, the obvious one was how much blood there was. Reading the script, you don’t know how much blood there’s going to be because it doesn’t tell you on the script. So getting to be on the sets, I think the sets definitely surprised me, too. Everything, even in the big house that you see at the start, it was all set, like the decorations and everything, everything was so detailed, and it was amazing to see that. But I think the main one would be how much blood there was. It was just getting more and more and more, and honestly, I was just so used to it at the end. It was everywhere, and I didn’t even mind it at the end.

What advice would you give to another actor about to jump into their first horror movie with this much blood and gore?

WEIR: I would say just have fun. The blood’s gonna get everywhere, so you honestly just have to just let it be. It’s going to get there anyway, so don’t try to rub it off in between takes because it’s just gonna get loaded back on you. Just embrace the blood, honestly, because it’s gonna get everywhere anyways.

You learned a little something from [Melissa], didn’t you?

WEIR: Yeah. [Laughs]

[Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Abigail.]

Melissa Barrera Credits ‘Abigail’ Co-Star for That Bloody Good Finale
Image via Universal

I love asking this question. What would you say is the most memorable thing the other did for you as a scene partner, maybe even something that helped you crush a really tough scene that you might not have been able to without them?

WEIR: I know. I remember it was the first scene where you see Abigail show her teeth and transform. I had to do this on the bed, and I had to go like this [gestures], but the bed was so wobbly and I didn’t want to say. Nobody really realized that I was, like, wobbling all over the place, and every take I was so nervous that I’d fall off the bed or something. The only person who knew that something was wrong was Melissa. She just knew that the bed was so wobbly, so she asked if I could get a board to go under it so I could have the strength to stay up on that so I wasn’t wobbling all over the place. I remember I text her after just saying thank you for helping me out because I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it.

It’s your producer brain kicking in! I like that.

BARRERA: I could see. I could tell. I know the balance is hard, and I could tell. She had to do a full Cambré. She had to go back, and on a soft bed, I was like, “There’s no way.” And I think it was because we weren’t shooting you, maybe, that no one was like, “Whatever.” And I was like, “No, she needs a hard surface to stand on so that she can actually do this properly.” So, yeah, we got that done.

Looking out. I like that.

BARRERA: Alisha is just so incredible because she is giving you all of herself the entire time. I remember, I mean, it happened in so many scenes, but it was just so easy to connect with her. I almost felt like she was looking in me the entire time. In the final scene, once Joey’s like, “Okay, I’m going to leave,” we have this little beat where she says, “You just have to show up for your son.” And the way that she said it and the way that she was looking at me, it just made me get to where I needed to get. Every time I would just choke up completely just by the way that she was delivering that line to me. I think it was like the last day of shooting, too, so it was also us being like, “This is one of our last scenes together.” But it was just so beautiful because she’s such a generous scene partner. It’s really incredible to work with her.

Because you brought up the ending, I’ll lean into a theory question next. Abigail does say to Joey, “I’ll see you around.” Do you think they’ll ever cross paths again, and if so, what might that look like?

WEIR: I think they will. 100%.

BARRERA: Honestly, my dream is that Joey gets home and she turns into a vampire. So, she then comes back and is like, “You lied to me, Abigail! You told me I was going to be fine.” And then they have to fight some other vampire clan together.

WEIR: [Laughs] Yeah, I think so.

This is the sequel I want. Sign me up for this!

Alisha, I’m a little obsessed with backstory. I’m not sure how much you worked on this with Matt and Tyler, but did you ever discuss what she was like before she turned, or what some of her previous kill nights were like?

WEIR: 100%. Definitely talking about that and talking about her past. There’s so much to unfold about Abigail’s history and with her father. She seems like this crazy, awful person who’s brought people here, but there’s always a different side that you don’t see, and that vulnerability to Abigail. You find out so much about her past with her father and what that was like. Really focusing in on that to help me get into the character really helped me. Definitely finding out more about her past really helped.

The ‘Abigail’ Cast Transformed the Script for Melissa Barrera

I love talking about how scenes can evolve on the spot, so which scene would you say changed the most from script to screen based on what you found in the moment?

BARRERA: Good question. I was constantly surprised. Like, to me, when I read the script, I was sure that the movie was gonna be like a certain type of movie, like a more serious movie. Then, when I got to set and I saw how funny everyone was, I was like, “Oh, okay, this is the movie we’re making.” So every single scene I was surprised by what my co-stars were bringing to it. I was just in awe of how creative they were getting, and I think that’s what makes someone great. I feel like any actor can read a scene and just read it, but it’s the great actors that are bringing something different and cool and unexpected, and that was consistent. Alisha was doing that, Dan was doing that, Kathryn was doing that, Kevin, Will, Angus. Everyone. I was like, “I had no idea these were going to be the characters. No idea.” And so it was just thrilling to be a part of a movie like that with such a stellar cast.

Looking for more Abigail talk? Be sure to check out Perri’s hour-long Collider Ladies Night conversation with Barrera below:

Abigail is in theaters now. Click below for showtimes.

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