- Hi, I'm Carly Gugino,
and I am here at BuzzFeed to answer your burning questions
about The Haunting of Hill House.
Okay, spoiler alert.
If you have not watched the show,
I need you to stop watching immediately
because we cannot spoil anything for you.
You have to watch this start to finish, for reals.
Number one, how does the red room actually work?
Is the house set up like a maze
like we see in the opening credits?
Well, actually,
the set of Hill House was the most extraordinary set
I have ever been on.
They built an actual two-story house
in which we could walk everywhere in the house.
And, in fact, we did it all in one take in episode six,
which you should see.
So, in fact, the red room is always in the same location
in Hill House.
It's just that it manifests differently
based on each person's psyche.
So, basically, it provides a space of solace
for each person, which is different.
Obviously, for Olivia, it's the reading room,
for Theo, it's a dance room, for Steve, it's a game room,
et cetera, et cetera.
So, the red room is actually where it is all the time.
It's just that you can't get in literally only
(clicks tongue) in there.
Time seems to be happening all at once in the show.
Do you think that means Olivia was able
to watch her kids grow up in some way?
Absolutely.
She's been watching the whole time.
I would say the scenes that you see evidence of that
are Shirley, when she's growin' up
and she has the model of the forever house in her office,
and you see as she goes up the stairs,
the lights blink as in come home.
That's Olivia doing that.
And then also, when Olivia crawls out from behind the desk
and you see that she's destroyed the forever house.
So, she's there with them the whole time.
How much does the mold have to do with
people going crazy inside Hill House?
Very interesting question.
The more mold there is,
the more mental disintegration is happening, for sure.
So, the further we get from reality
and the more we start losing our minds,
definitely, metaphorically, the mold is growing.
So, it is sort of seeping in and taking over.
And it's inescapable, as black mold is.
I have to say, for anyone just afraid of germs,
it was the most terrifying part of the house.
Shooting with, just seeing black mold oozing up the walls.
When Luke sees Olivia in a version of the red room,
did he actually die,
and was she trying to convince him to stay?
So, yeah, Luke dies for a moment.
You know how people do sometimes.
Their heart will stop and then they'll come back,
and Olivia's pull is so strong
and her love for her son is so strong and, of course,
she thinks that she is saving him and finally he is home.
But Nell is very strong now, too,
and so this is really a battle of wills
between the two of them,
both of them fighting for what they perceive to be
Luke's life, and ultimately,
Nell is able to pull him back to the real world.
Did Olivia and Nell die of their own volition
or did Poppy and Olivia, respectively, kill them both?
I think there's...
Ultimately, we came to the place
where I think there's no question
that neither of them would've fallen to their deaths
on their own volition.
There had to be that tap from Olivia, in Nell's case,
or Poppy, in Olivia's case,
that tap of someone who would already crossed over
the other side that actually doe push them.
So, no, it is not of their own volition.
Did Olivia feel genuine remorse for killing Abigail,
or was she too far gone to realize what she had done?
For sure, Olivia feels that she is saving her children.
So, initially, when Abigail is going,
when you see her frothing at the mouth,
when she is actually gonna cross over,
I think Olivia is dead set on the fact that
on the other side she would be at peace.
But, as you notice if you watch it carefully
or perhaps again,
when Olivia comes back up to the red room again later
and is truly devastated, because at that point,
she's in an out of being taken over by the house
and trying to wake up,
just trying to be there for her family, trying to come back.
At that moment, when she sees Abigail,
she is truly devastated and I think has no recollection
of what she's done.
Why was Olivia so taken with Poppy?
Was it because of the vanity Steve gave Olivia?
You know, this is a more subjective answer,
but since I played Olivia, I will answer it,
which is that I think Poppy really allowed Olivia,
in a moment where all of...
She's so unsure of what to do
and she's getting so confused by the house
and by being affected so much by the house
and because of her migraines and all of these things,
she's just much more susceptible than anyone else,
and she is a mother bear at heart,
is that Poppy really gives her the assurance
of a way in which she can save especially the twins
from this horrible fate that she has foreseen.
Because she has gone ahead and she has seen
that one of them is having problems with mental health
and one of them is an addict.
So, she has seen this horrible fate
and she really is trying to save them from it.
And so, the horror genre is a beautiful kind of way
to allow us to talk about a lot of very real things
in a heightened way.
So, in that sense,
I think Poppy seems so assured that if she does this thing,
the kids will be okay.
And at that point, she really believes her.
Why didn't the gasoline work in the house?
This is when Luke comes in at the end and lights it.
Was it the ghost protecting the house or something greater?
That is actually specifically Olivia.
So, he comes to find his mom in a lot of ways
and she puts out the fire.
You know, because he's finally home.
For her, it's the happiest moment of her life.
This is the last one.
Who do you think put the buttons on Nell's eyes
in the funeral home?
That also is Olivia because Olivia knows
how much Nell loved her buttons,
and it's her way of sort of making Nell at peace.
Thank you so much for your questions.
You guys asked such good questions.
I'm so glad that Hill House is really resonating with you.
It's a very important and amazing experience for us,
so so happy to be sharing it with you.
Bye, guys.
(light music)