Maika Monroe has spent a decade as one of horror’s most recognizable faces, and her latest work pushes her deeper into the genre from two directions at once. In ‘Victorian Psycho,’ she plays Winifred Notty, a governess she describes as innately, purely evil. She is also shooting ‘They Follow,’ the sequel to ‘It Follows,’ the 2014 film that first made her a scream-queen fixture. Monroe talked through both projects in a conversation with comedian Jordan Firstman published Sept. 29 in Interview magazine.
The ‘Victorian Psycho’ script landed as a shock. ‘I remember reading the script and being like, What the hell is this?’ Monroe told Firstman. Playing an aggressor rather than a target changed the job for her. ‘It was fun not being the one running away. You feel very in control playing a character like this,’ she said. Monroe framed Notty’s cruelty as something she was born with rather than the product of a tidy backstory, describing a character who does nasty, bad things without apology.
Monroe had grown wary of returning to horror at all. Her 2024 turn in ‘Longlegs,’ the Osgood Perkins thriller that became a surprise box-office hit, left her guarded about the genre. ‘Post Longlegs, I was like, It’s going to take a lot for me to do more horror,’ she said. What eventually pulled her back included the rare chance to revisit the story that started her run in scary movies, this time with the audience already on her side.
Reprising the lead in the ‘It Follows’ world was new ground for her. ‘I’ve never gone back to a role before, and it’s a crazy experience,’ Monroe said. She was candid about the physical and emotional cost of the parts she takes on. Asked whether emotionally demanding roles wear on her mind and body, she answered plainly. ‘One hundred percent,’ she said. The sequel reunites her with the slow-moving menace that defined the original.
For all the blood her filmography contains, Monroe said she has little stomach for the real thing. ‘I hate it. I even hate seeing someone get punched. It makes me sick,’ she said. ‘Victorian Psycho’ and ‘They Follow’ extend a career that has kept her close to fear without letting the genre dictate every choice she makes. Firstman, a friend and fellow performer, kept the exchange loose, trading jokes with Monroe between questions about why she keeps signing up for the dark.
