Lauren Cohan talks about her role in the doll thriller THE BOY
Lauren Cohan, one of the stars of the AMC hit zombie series The Walking Dead, took some time to answer a few questions about her role in the upcoming thriller movie, The Boy. Check out what she had to say, or read the Q&A after the jump.
Can you tell us a little bit about who your character is and why on earth she agreed to become a nanny to this doll?
Yes, why she went along with this crazy proposition? She is a girl who has a job opportunity – she’s leaving the United States and she has a job opportunity to be a nanny in England, in this big beautiful stately home, to look after a young boy, and it seems easy enough. But when she arrives there, she realizes that there is a couple that is much older than would have eight-year-old and it turns out that they have this doll in lieu of a son that they lost. So it’s very odd and very strange and then very sad and it sort of takes you into this really unusual exploration of people and why they do the things they do and kind of the strange way that they’ve decided to live. So, my character has the outsider’s view at the beginning of the film and then is herself somewhat bewitched the doll, so we go on a really strange trip here.
What was it that attracted you to this project?
It was the twists in the film. I mean, I read the script very quickly. I knew that it was special because it felt like an old-fashioned horror film in its set-up and in its style. But the twists that happen throughout the film, I never anticipated, and I felt chilled and scared, and actually a little too scared to want to do it, and that’s why I knew I should do it. So yeah, I think these things find you sometimes.
What is it about dolls that give it such a bad rap?
I think the idea that something could be sitting in a room and watching you, that can be in your house and be in observation of everything you do—you know, it’s an inanimate object and to think that maybe it’s actually not, or it’s actually hiding in a painting or there’s really someone that’s been with you and watching you the whole time is incredibly unnerving. That is played with to the nth degree in this film. I mean, she never really knows whether she imagining things, she’s under a great amount of stress, she has left the states, she has left home for a reason, um, she’s just really sort of drowning in this, in the doubt of what’s happening here.
Well, I do want to ask something about The Walking Dead. Greg Nicotero recently stated that if you read the comic books, you know we’re climbing towards a major death. What is it about Maggie that makes her so resilient to these deaths of those that she cares about, and how will this next major death affect her?
As you know, in the comic as will the show, sometimes we appropriate things to different people or to different characters and I don’t want to lead anybody anywhere, or give any sort of false anticipation for anything, but um, for Maggie, I think that as long as she has known that there is something worth living for still and that there still remains family or friends of people that rely on each other, that that sort of gives her the steam to keep going. And we saw that tested more than we have yet when we thought that we had lost Glenn, so it’s going to be a really, really taxing rest of the season. I mean, I can’t even—sometimes I stop and I go, “Oh my gosh! There’s those eight months and we did it! I can’t believe it!” And so, I know you guys will feel the same way. It’s like uh, huh, huh, huh, huh! You know! (laughs)
We do know, Lauren! And we can’t wait to see her in both The Boy, which comes out in theaters on Friday, January 22, 2016, and The Walking Dead, which returns for the second half of the sixth season on Sunday, February 14, 2016.
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About The Boy:
The Boy is a frightening thrill ride directed by William Brent Bell (The Devil Inside) starring Lauren Cohan (“The Walking Dead”). Greta (Cohan) is a young American woman who takes a job as a nanny in a remote English village, only to discover that the family’s 8-year-old is a life-sized doll that the parents care for just like a real boy, as a way to cope with the death of their actual son 20 years prior. After violating a list of strict rules, a series of disturbing and inexplicable events bring Greta’s worst nightmare to life, leading her to believe that the doll is actually alive.
