The Big Picture

Perri Nemiroff sits down with Dakota Fanning to discuss her new horror movie,
The Watchers
, directed by M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter, Ishana Shyamalan.
On top of that, Fanning teases Bryan Bertino’s new horror movie,
Vicious
.

The Watchers
hits theaters nationwide on June 7.

Dakota Fanning has done her fair share of genre projects over the years, but she’s in the midst of an especially epic horror movie one-two punch that could send her star soaring in that particular space.

Fanning headlines Ishana Shyamalan’s (daughter of M. Night Shyamalan) highly anticipated feature directorial debut, an adaptation of the A.M. Shine novel, The Watchers. Fanning plays Mina in the film, a young woman who becomes stranded during a drive through the forest in western Ireland. She manages to find shelter, but “the coop” isn’t the safe haven she hoped for. Along with three others trapped there, Mina is watched and stalked by mysterious and dangerous creatures each night.

After The Watchers hits theaters nationwide on June 7th, the next horror release on Fanning’s calendar will be The Strangers director Bryan Bertino’s new movie, Vicious. That one is said to follow a woman who’s given a strange gift from a late-night visitor. From there, she spends the night “fighting for her existence as she slips down a disturbing rabbit hole contained inside the gift.”

With The Watchers gearing up for its big debut, I got the chance to chat with Fanning about genre storytelling. Not only did she dig into what makes Ishana Shyamalan a standout collaborator and what makes The Watchers a one-of-a-kind horror film, but she also took a moment to tease how Bertino’s project pushed her like never before.

You can hear it all straight from Fanning in the video at the top of this article, or you can read the conversation in transcript form below.

PERRI NEMIROFF: When you first signed on for The Watchers, what part of this production were you most looking forward to tackling, but then I also want to know, what’s something that caught you by surprise and wound up being more creatively fulfilling than you ever could have imagined?

DAKOTA FANNING: You always have the best questions. I was excited to collaborate with Ishana. I really loved her right away, just as a person. She’s so full of brightness and lightness but also is very intentional with her writing and her directing style. What I really liked was getting to mix that mythical fairy tale folklore with a groundedness at the same time, and kind of blending that, and then with a supernatural, surreal suspense built in. I felt like I hadn’t seen that before, and so I was excited to just work on it with her. You know, sometimes you start a movie and you think it’s gonna be one thing, and then it turns into something way more than you could have ever imagined, and I feel like that kind of happened with this. If you can read it and think of it in one way, and then as I was working on it, it kind of builds and builds and builds.

Something that I hadn’t really thought about going into it that I was like, ‘Whoa, that’s interesting,’ was the set of the coop and acting in front of a huge mirror. You can read that on the page, but then when you’re actually doing it, having to separate any vanity from what you’re doing — you know what I mean? [Laughs] You’re not supposed to be looking at yourself while you’re acting. We’re not supposed to be looking at ourselves a lot, period! It became freeing, but at first I was like, ‘Oh …’ [Laughs]

That makes me think of when I go to the gym. Sometimes the mirrors are helpful and sometimes I want to fade away.

FANNING: Exactly! Why are there mirrors in the gym? No! I don’t like that. So yeah, that was unique. I’ve never done that before, acting in front of a mirror.

Bryan Bertino’s ‘Vicious’ Pushed Fanning to Her Limits

Related Director Ishana Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Watchers’ Is All About the Vibes Shyamalan had on-the-job training while working as a writer, director and producer on the Apple TV+ series ‘Servant.’

Just because you brought up that this movie had elements that you’ve never seen before — you can’t be in a Bryan Bertino movie and not have me ask about that as well, and I love the fact that it’s a one-two punch for you in the horror genre. After having done this, what is something in Vicious in terms of how it uses horror storytelling that is something you haven’t seen before or maybe will push you as an actor — or maybe did push you as an actor, because I believe you filmed that already?

FANNING: I did. I’m done. I was so pushed to the limits on that movie in the best, best way. Bryan is so awesome. He’s so amazing. I went to places that I hadn’t maybe ever gone before, or in a very long time. It was one of those really creatively fulfilling experiences. I’m just fresh off of it, too, so I’m really excited about that. And the thing with this one, when I think of Vicious, that to me is proper horror. Do you know what I mean? That’s how that feels.

From him, that’s what I would expect.

FANNING: Whereas with this one, it’s like that suspense that kind of sneaks up on you a little bit, you know? So I think I have them in two different categories in my mind. But I think something that they share is working with a director who wrote the script that you’re making, and there is something really special about that just because they have such a knowledge of the world and the characters and where they want to go in the edit with it, or where they were when they were writing it. There’s just a breadth of understanding about what you’re making that they hold, and I just find that very comforting.

I love that. In them, I trust.

Could Dakota Fanning Survive “The Coop”?
Image via Warner Bros.

I’ll end on a semi-silly question for you because one of my favorite qualities of any genre movie, or any movie in general for that matter, is when it leaves you wondering how you might fare in that particular situation. If you ventured into the coop and got stuck there, I want to know what would your greatest strength be in there and what would your greatest weakness be?

FANNING: My greatest strength? Oh, god. I thought about that a lot. I was like, ‘I’d give up. I just would have to give up.’ What would save me would be, you know when they watch that reality show, the Lair of Love DVD? That would save me! That always made me laugh in this story. I was like, ‘Maybe if I had some good TV shows on DVD, maybe I could get through it.’ But it would be hard. It’s a confining space and confusing because you know that you’re being protected, but you’re not sure what you’re being protected from and you also have a desire to escape. So I don’t know what my strength would be. My weakness would be all of it, I think. [Laughs]

[Laughs] I feel like you’re not alone in that.

The Watchers hits theaters nationwide on June 7. Click below for showtimes.

Get Tickets