- I'm Octavia Spencer.
- And I am Diana Silvers, and we are
In Studio with The Hollywood Reporter.
- Thank you so much for joining us, you guys.
- [Octavia And Diana] Thank you for having us.
- Thank you for welcoming us into your home.
This is ma's home right now.
- It is (laughs).
- [Laela] Ooh, creepy home.
- Are you thinking of renovating any time soon?
- Oh, probably (chuckles).
This is creepy corner right here.
- It's like stalker central.
- Welcome to our creepy corner.
Octavia, you've had an incredible career so far.
And this has been touted as your first leading role,
which is about time, let's talk about that.
Does it feel different?
- The responsibility is different, yeah.
But the preparation and the level of commitment,
it's all the same.
But the responsibility definitely feels much greater.
- [Laela] How would you guys classify this film?
Horror, thriller, don't sleep at night?
- All of the above. - All of the above, yeah.
- Yeah, I saw it last night and
I had trouble sleeping, but that's okay.
- Oh, that's great! - See, we did it.
Good, real good.
- And many people in the theater were jumping.
- Oh really?
I love that.
- I almost wish you guys could have been a fly on the wall.
- That's my plan, I'm gonna go incognito into Union Square,
opening weekend, sneak in and then sneak out,
'cause I wanna see it with an audience.
- You do wanna see it with an audience.
- The best way to see a movie like this
is with an audience. - Definitely.
- Have you ever done that?
- I do it all the time, I do it all the time.
When I wanna, well, I won't say that I do it all the time,
'cause then people, "is that Octavia?"
No, it's Sherri Shepherd.
(laughs)
- When there's a mezzanine,
so you can really sneak in and out?
- Yeah, sneak in and out, exactly.
- I'd love to hear both your initial thoughts,
when you got the script.
What did you think?
I know Tate Taylor approached you about it.
Why was this a yes?
- It was a yes for me, because I'm a huge genre fan.
I love psycho, horror, psycho-thrillers,
horror, drama, all of the above.
And I wanted to do something that was
completely different and if Sue Ann
doesn't check all those boxes, I don't know.
- [Diana] She definitely does.
- [Octavia] What about you, honey?
- I just love that there was a complex teenage girl.
I feel like so often you read a script,
and there's, females are just one trope of a person.
And I love that Maggie is, she's all the things
that you experience when you are a teenage girl,
and in a new town, and there's such a
great mother-daughter aspect,
and I too am a huge fan of the horror genre.
And I like that this is a psychological horror drama.
It's not, oh, she's running after us with a knife.
- Well, she does that.
- A little bit. - A little.
- But it's so much more about this,
and even our villain is super, super layered
and Octavia, as you saw, did such a
fantastic job portraying that.
- Thank you, so do you, brilliant.
- How did you go about preparing for the role?
Diana, let's start with you.
- Well, my younger sister, I have a younger sister,
and I kind of just observed her and my mom.
All right, angsty comment there,
be nice to get what you want there, okay, cool, cool.
No but really, I just listened to a lot of Taylor Swift
and some old Coldplay, to remind myself
of what it was like to be 15.
And spent a lot of time with Juliette,
and I mean, yeah, that's pretty much it for me.
- For me, there are personality traits
that Sue Ann exhibits, and they're specific.
And when you know what they are,
because I really exist in the true crime genre,
I watch a lot of true crime,
and I read a lot of true crime.
And so when I started to realize,
oh, she has this, and possibly this,
so I researched those disorders
then it made it easy to connect the dots.
There's a reason she goes from
point A to point Z so rapidly.
And the reason why it's believable
is because this is how her brain works.
So I spent time watching those types of documentaries
about people who exhibit those personality traits.
- Let's talk about the atmosphere on set.
How did you guys keep it light,
when you're filming such a scary and dark film?
- Well, we didn't do the dark stuff until the last week.
- That was all saved, the last 10 days of filming
when we were at ma's house, where things got real,
but I mean, for me, everyone was just so nice
and easy to get along with,
and Tate is such a wonderful, loving person.
And I think when you have a director
that embodies everything positive,
everything love, it just trickles down to everyone else.
We were all laughing, even during the heavy stuff
when they called cut, it was great.
- Now this isn't just a scary movie.
There is a lot of humor to it.
So you guys got to exercise your comedic chops
a little bit, timing, it was great.
Diana, you gotta be honest.
Was it intimidating being on set
with Octavia and Juliette Lewis?
- It would have been, if they weren't so nice to me.
I didn't feel intimidated or afraid
just because everyone was very encouraging
and very patient with me, I was such a rookie,
still a rookie, but everyone was so patient
and no one was annoyed with me
when I didn't get something immediately.
Everyone was just kind of walking me through
and guiding me through everything
and Octavia's been a mentor to me since day one.
And I couldn't have asked for anything better.
- Well, I tested with her.
I tested with all the kids, except for Dante.
And they came in and they won those parts.
It might have been her first role,
but she was rocking when she was in the ring.
It was wonderful.
It was wonderful to play opposite you,
and all the kids, to be honest.
- What would say there was something you,
was there something that you learned being on set?
- Just be present, be extremely, extremely present.
Put your phone in your trailer.
You're just there, you're there to work.
You're there to bring truth to these characters.
And I mean I know for me, I wasn't thinking about,
what was I gonna do next?
What's gonna happen after this?
I was just like, no no, I wanna know my lines.
I wanna be here with an Oscar-winner.
You know when I think, hello?
And Juliette, who's an-
- An Oscar nominee.
- Yeah, I mean, you're such great company.
Why would you want to be doing anything else?
- Octavia, what other roles are you jonesing to play?
'Cause this is quite a departure
from some of your past roles.
- You know what, the one role that I've always felt
destined to play was that of a producer.
As producer, I don't have to want to play anything.
I can create those roles for myself at this point.
So that's the role that I'm happiest about.
And with friends like Tate, who brought me this,
I don't think I'm gonna have to really search.
I think people will be looking out.
But just in case they don't,
I'll be creating those for myself.
- Now you just started a production company.
That's very exciting.
- With Brian! - With Brian.
Brian was both of our agent.
- Mine because of Octavia.
- So this partnership's gonna happen more
in the future, let's say.
- Yeah, absolutely. - I hope so.
- What kind of stories are you looking to tell?
- I'm looking to tell the same types of stories.
Just perhaps from different storytellers,
people who haven't had their scripts bought,
who have original stories that no one's heard.
And I wanna entertain people.
I want you to learn something in some capacity.
But more importantly, I want you to be able to
escape whatever's going on in your life
for that two hours that you commit to being with us.
So yeah, that's it.
- Great, and now, Diana, I have to ask you.
How often do you get compared to Julia Roberts?
- Every day-- - What did I say?
It's Julia Roberts!
- I mean, that's a very large and lovely comparison
and if I have any sort of trajectory as her career,
I will be an extremely lucky human being.
- She's a lovely lady.
- She is so cool.
- Have you ever met her?
- No, there was this one moment,
I think when I was 15, I saw her in the Palisades,
and I looked at her, and she looked at me, and that was it.
She probably would be like, I don't recall.
- I recall!
I bet she's the one person who would recall.
- Yeah, she'd be like, "I remember that!
"I was, that girl reminds me of someone I know."
No, I mean, she's one of my favorite actresses.
So likable.
- What were you guys afraid of, as a kid?
- I don't wanna say that,
'cause there's some creepy people in the world.
And then you tell them, and they're like,
"Hi, I'm here at your house with this creepiness
"that you're afraid of," so.
(laughs)
- Do I say spiders, no. - No!
Don't tell anybody what you're afraid of.
Some crazy person might think it's a good idea!
- There's this moment in,
I'm gonna quote "The Office" right now,
'cause it's the perfect time, but
they're asking Dwight, "What is Michael afraid of?"
And then Ryan, the temp goes, "Loneliness."
And then Dwight goes, "Wrong, he's not afraid of anything.
"Also, I would have accepted snakes."
(laughs)
- You are nuts!
- Favorite show ever.
- It was a good show, it was a good show.
- All right, well, what are you guys obsessed with?
So you're obsessed with "The Office."
Anything else you're obsessed with these days?
- Music, I'm just, music.
Anything from the '70s, I am probably obsessed with it.
- Yeah, well, I'm obsessed.
- We've bonded over this.
- We did, 'cause you like art and music,
which is sad, 'cause we felt so old.
- I was like, let's listen to The Eagles!
- You know The Eagles?
This is terrifying!
- "New Kid in Town" would go on, and we're like.
- I'm obsessed with "Game of Thrones" and "Avengers."
So you can imagine, I have a broken heart.
- Lots ending for you.
- Lots of endings.
- But there are actually gonna be prequels and sequels
and et cetera, et cetera, so it's okay.
- Maybe you can remake some of them.
- I don't know, I don't know guys.
- Thank you so much, you guys, for joining us.
And be sure to catch "Ma" in theaters now.