I cannot believe I'm in the presence of
Octavia Spencer, Academy Award winner,
dramatic actress extraordinaire,
who has been now embarked on
horror movies as a new territory.
Why was this the next step for your career?
I don't know that it was a — I was
even thinking about career.
I was thinking in terms of
something new and interesting to do
and 'Ma' is definitely new and
interesting to me.
She's unlike any character I've ever played.
I saw you say that this part was
originally for a white woman or race wasn't specified.
In 2019, why do you think it's important for
audiences to see you playing Ma?
And I wanted to play her
and I wanted to
have fun playing her.
But I think it's important that everybody
who does what I do
get to run the gamut of special characters
and interesting characters and
not set
in one or two archetypes that they get to play.
This feels nice.
Like we're the only two people in the world.
Without giving too much away,
how were you able to find the humanity in
her, and do you think that's important for
the audience to see?
Even though she turned psycho
on people. But what I had to do
though to make it real for me,
she exhibits a lot of traits that
you can do research on
and once know why she
does the things that she does,
I understood why she went from point A
to Point Z so rapidly.
I understood what those moments— how those
moments would unfold.
But you have to do a lot of research when
you're dealing with people and their issues.
And how much research did you do for this?
I know you're a true crime fanatic.
I am a true crime fanatic.
Was that part of the research?
Well, that I don't have to research it.
It's funny because when I was talking to
Tate about certain things I would say this
would never happen in this moment because
this, this, this, and this, and it's a working
knowledge because it's a part of who I am.
But the— I don't want to say
what her psychological—
because it'll give away a key component
of the film but
I researched that a lot and I watched a lot
of documentaries about that.
And did you have fun playing Ma?
I had a blast playing Ma, but
there were some tricky moments because we
saved all of the torture and
killing to the very end.
Luke Evans is tied to the bed naked.
He trusts me.
You know, I do—
Sew— it's all in the trailer that I sew
McKaley's mouth shut.
So you have to check in with your
scene partners and that was a
that was a tough week.
Thank you so much, Octavia.
I could think of worse days on set
than being next to Luke Evans tied to my bed.
It was one of my better days.