LONGLEGS star Maika Monroe opens up about how scary it was to work with Method-trained Nicolas Cage

Nicholas Cage AND Maika Monroe They shared only one scene in the horror film Long legs. It was a key interrogation scene towards the end of the film, and shooting that scene was an intense experience for Monroe.

During filming, director Oz Perkins increased the tension between the two actors by keeping them away from each other throughout the entire shoot, until their first on-screen meeting.

While filming the scene, Monroe’s heart rate went up to 170 bpm. After watching the scene, it wasn’t that scary or unnerving. I guess I just had to be there.

Monroe recently spoke about the experience, saying, “The whole lead-up to that scene was crazy. They had been shooting with Cage for five days at that point, and it was his last day, probably after three weeks of shooting.

“The director chose not to show me anything, not to meet him, not to show me what his face looked like. He created this character, this thing, so I was so nervous.”

He went on to talk about how he actually shot the scene: “The assistants take me to this door that leads into the room where he’s in. The cameras start rolling on me and the director calls ‘action.’ I open the door and what you see is all very real, and it was incredible.

“He’s unrecognizable, and so I didn’t feel like I was in a room with Nic Cage. I was in a room with Longlegs. After I finished that scene, he was finished.

“He’s in this method world, but he’s been able to let it go. We’re sitting across from each other and he leans over, with his whole look and everything, and he says, ‘Oh, I’m a big fan of yours.'”

Cage then shared his thoughts on Monroe as an actress, saying, “I wanted to follow her after ‘It Follows.’ Especially the first few scenes in the opening where she’s in that wheelchair, being pushed around. I felt bad for her, and she continued to do that throughout the movie.

“It’s an energy that’s different from other actors. That’s what makes her unique, and what’s special about her is that Maika has a personality and an energy that sets her apart from everyone else. She’s like no other, and that’s a great compliment.”

Cage went on to talk about the intensity of the scene they shot together, saying, “It was important to us, the director and I, that Maika and I didn’t spend too much time together in company.” He wanted the scene to be a surprise for both of us, and I thought that was a stage direction.

“I went into it as a fan, and I told him because I’ve followed his work and he was very nice. We only had maybe two or three lines with each other that weren’t dialogue, just a little conversation.”

She continued: “My feeling about Maika is that she’s spontaneous. I think there’s an ease in her performance style that I don’t see any acting in.

“I find her to have a childlike charm, which is compelling, especially when you consider that she plays Lee Harker, a young woman who has essentially had her childhood stolen from her, but who has this innate grace and vulnerability and charm that children have.

“You immediately care about her, the character she plays, and I think you care about Maika. I don’t know her at all, I don’t know her story, I don’t know her background. I only know her as a fan of her films, and she can do the most difficult kind of acting, which is when you don’t see any acting.”

The director also spoke about letting Cage approach the role however he saw fit, saying, “You have Nic Cage in your movie, and it’s like all of a sudden you have a tiger. You’re not like, ‘Hey, Tiger, I think you should do this,’ or ‘Hey, Tiger, I think you should move like this,’ or ‘Hey, Tiger, I think this is what you want to eat.’

“There’s such a power that comes from someone who is such a titan of the industry and one of the biggest movie stars ever. When you have an entity like that, you want to let him do what he needs to do. You want to talk to him about it and help him and answer questions and say something if you see something.

“But he made it clear from the beginning, in a very friendly way, that he wasn’t going to stop there, he wasn’t going to meet anyone. It wasn’t a method, I mean, he talked to me between edits, between takes.

“He was himself, I was talking to Nick. That said, his concentration is extremely good. He doesn’t socialize, he doesn’t meet people for dinner, he doesn’t go out, he doesn’t chat, he doesn’t shake hands.

“I had a lot of access to Nick, it’s just that I was only someone who had that access. And it worked to my advantage in that I could keep him away from Maika and then just have them be together in the one scene they had.”

In the story, “As the case takes complex turns, uncovering evidence of the occult, Harker discovers a personal connection to the ruthless killer and must race against time to stop him before he kills another innocent family.”

If you saw the movie, what did you think of the scene where the two characters meet for the first time?

Source: Variety