- I'm Hamish Linklater and I play Father Paul.
- I'm Samantha Sloyan and I play Beverly Keane.
- Hi, I'm Kate Siegel and I play Erin Greene.
- I'm Zach Gilford and I play Riley Flynn.
- My name is Annabeth Gish and I play Dr. Sarah Gunning.
- Hi, I'm Kristin Lehman and I play Annie Flynn.
- And today we're here with Buzzfeed
to answer burning questions.
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- So just be aware, there are spoilers for the show,
so if you don't want spoilers, stop watching now.
- When I was cast, I knew basically nothing.
I had two scenes that were both in the first episode.
And besides that, all I knew was Mike's work.
I won the job. I was really excited.
And then I got to read the scripts,
and I was like holy (beep),
like, this is really good.
- I knew everything about my character and my arc,
because I'd read the scripts.
Unlike Sam Sloyan,
who just like made up her role on the day.
- I knew quite a bit, but you never really know.
Even when Mike tells you where something's going,
until you read how he makes it happen,
you really don't know.
You're like, oh, that is what you meant?
- Going in, I only had one audition scene.
When I got it, I still knew very little,
until I started receiving all of the scripts
at the same time, then I knew everything.
But that was well before we began.
We knew immediately what we were creating,
which I personally find way more beneficial as an actor.
- Mike had sent me, he had texted me
about a role in the show.
I said I was definitely interested and probably in.
And then, he sent me a few episodes and I was hooked.
- Well, when the book Midnight Mass was in Hush,
it was in novel form.
Mike hadn't written it as a film,
which is what it became next and then a series.
So it was Mike Flanagan's great, unfinished novel.
So I always thought it was going to be a book.
And I thought the only life it would ever have
on screen was Hush.
Here we are.
I think it was really, really lucky.
Zach and I were together
for the first two weeks of shooting,
like we did all of the Erin and Riley stuff
at the beginning. And we would talk about monologue day.
"Monologue day is coming, monologue day is coming."
I mean, Zach had it plastered to his wall
like that meme of the person with the red,
like it's freaking "Zodiac" in there,
trying to put together all of these thoughts.
And then on the day, we just sat down
and kind of looked at each other.
And the thing about Zach Gilford is
he's this incredibly grounded and generous
and self-deprecating person.
And I would look at him,
and he would just be waiting for me.
And like, he was like,
"We're going to go on this journey together
for all of the shots we take at each other offset,
like, we're going to be gentle and kind with each other."
And I don't think I could have done it
it with any other human being, but Zach.
Because it's kind of an embarrassing thing, what we do.
- Yeah.
- Like, to play make-believe on that level,
and to truly let yourself pretend
that you're somebody else saying these things.
- She just was so present and giving,
and it feels like when you're talking to her,
she's listening.
A lot of times in different projects,
if you're not on camera,
a lot of people give it fifty or seventy
or eighty percent.
Kate, you know, always,
even if the camera, like she was literally sitting
on the Dolly with the camera,
she was still doing the one tear.
- I love the one tear.
- She's not even on camera!
And I don't, I don't even know how to do
the one tear and she's doing it off camera.
- I think playing evil comes natural to Sam,
trying to tear people down.
I'm more of a builder-upper.
- It's kind of worse if you think about it,
because you trust him.
You know what you get with me.
- Who do you want?
The guy who pulls the rug out from under you?
Or the person who comes running at you,
screaming and whacking you with the rug?
- And then rolls you up in it
and tosses you five miles out.
- Yeah.
- I mean really, I am the less villainous of the two.
- It was fun, to be honest.
There's not a lot of times,
in TV specifically,
but in movies as well,
where you get to shoot like a 10 minute,
or however long it is scene,
where it's just two people in chairs talking to each other.
In this instance, who is this weird (beep)-ing priest
telling me this craziness?
Hamish is amazing, and like,
I can't imagine anyone else in that role.
Him and I were friends before this project.
Good friends.
I didn't even know he had auditioned for it,
he was on the radar,
and literally when I got offered the part,
they were like, "Yeah, and Hamish Linklater
is going to be the priest.
I was like, "Hey, what?"
And as soon as I heard that,
I was like, "That's genius."
Like, I can't imagine anyone else in this role.
- When he was coming in to do a read, which you know,
he doesn't do a lot.
Like, he's an accomplished actor.
I begged to be the reader.
Like whether he gets this part or not,
I want to see him do it.
I dropped like a bunch of his cues,
because the second he started talking,
I was just like, (gasp) "Hamish is good at this."
- Zach lives like just down the street.
I was like, "Ooh, oh, that's why they cast me
to play this part.
That works, that works.
- Before I tried anything, we shot that.
It happened right on the heels
of her saying farewell to her only living son
in the middle of this very real, insane circumstances.
The weight with which I wanted to lean into that moment,
and really like, milk it,
I also was like, "I can't do that!"
This has to be...do you know what I mean?
- None of that was faked.
Like, the wind was ripping through everything.
These embers were flying through the air,
they had to position and remove and move trucks
so that we could just try and make this happen
before we had to shut down for the night
and we actually had to pull the plug.
So, it was one of those things where, you know,
nature conspired to help us and it was fabulous,
and yeah, I loved it.
- It didn't affect how I played Riley,
just because his arc was so there,
and made sense.
So, I just kind of played it as if
there were only five episodes,
and the two that happened after I'm gone,
like who's going to watch those anyway?
The end, show over!
But we shot that scene - it was our second day of shooting.
To go in and shoot your death scene,
your second day of shooting
for a seven episode show... is difficult.
And you don't know your scene partner.
Luckily, she was Kate and she was there for me.
- The one thing I do have to say is that before we shot the
before we shot the coverage of me screaming,
and that scream that last all over all the credits,
Mike and Trevor asked me if I wanted to see
the special effects shot that they were shooting.
And so they bring in this like wire dummy,
wearing Zack's clothes, rigged up to like some strings,
and on action, they cut the strings
and it just collapses like Pinocchio.
I was weeping, just like crying with laughter,
because it is the funniest, most insubstantial death,
that I'm now - and in reality,
it's going to be this incredible,
what turned out to be the special effect
that was like heartbreaking and all these things.
And then they're like, "All right,
up on the boat with you, time to scream!"
- Oh, you know, that was actually pretty great.
Kate is one of my favorite people in the entire world.
I love Bev's face as she gets taken,
you know, there's just the little like,
"Oh, there she goes."
You know, like everybody watches her go,
and then like she's being torn apart in the background.
And life carries on.
- At the scene around the table,
where I have a whole bunch of medical jargon
that I have to deliver.
It was a tremendous, I felt a lot of pressure
to deliver that with the right tone.
And medical accuracy (laughs).
- All of your scenes, but definitely the scene
where you say, "What's a little crazy between friends?"
(Laughing) And you've got crazy eyes!
- (Laughs) I know!
My son saw that and he was like,
"You're creepy, mom."
- A surprised favorite scene
is in the first episode that we have together,
me and Sam, where she asked me why
I'm wearing the wrong color chasuble.
That was like, one of the few scenes
that we like got the day before or something like that.
- Yeah. He's so right.
The other scripts, we had - you know, which is delightful,
we had sat with them for months and months.
Good choice, Hamish. Way to go.
- Me and Bev, in the school closet.
Sam and I have been friends for years,
and I crop dusted every single time I left that room.
So, she's just standing there in my farts.
(Laughing) It's true.
- Well, you outed yourself.
- That was before I knew I had a gluten allergy.
(Laughing) I just like inked. I inked myself!
- Sorry, Kate, but anything that I had with Henry, was...
- Yes, it's okay, I get it.
- Because, I couldn't keep a straight (beep)-ing face.
And there's this one scene where
it's the whole family at the dinner table.
He's like, "No. Uh-uh. Nope!"
- (Laughing) Oh, yes.
- And I was like, "You're so ridiculous."
But I really loved shooting the scene
of him and I on the boat,
and because it was like, there was plans of like,
we had this huge crane on another boat,
blah, blah, blah, but we're on the water
in the middle of the ocean.
So the cranes like, like they can't get a shot.
And so finally, Mike was like, "All right,
just get rid of that. We'll just have one camera
on the boat with someone holding it."
And after we did it,
and this is what I always feel like
is the sign of a good scene,
is when your crew comments on it.
Our focus puller, when they yelled cut,
goes, "That was really cool."
And then our camera man goes,
"It's like the awkward conversation
we all wish we could have with our father."
It made me just be like,
"Yeah. We did a good job."
- Thanks so much, Buzzfeed!
Midnight Mass is streaming now on Netflix.
Check it out.
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