She wanted to be in this movie so badly.
Sometimes the simplest games can get really messy especially when drama between the friends under the water. That’s why games such as Truth or Dare, Clue, and Hide and Seek entered the horror/black comedy sphere in cinema. Now, the Mafia-styled game Bodies Bodies Bodies has entered the ranks.
The latest horror-comedy from A24 set on a group of rich, 20-something besties partying it out at a remote mansion before a hurricane. They decide to play the titular game Bodies Bodies Bodies. Eventually the game turns deadly once one of their friends shows up literally dead.
Coming off of the beloved indie darling film of 2020 Shiva Baby, actress and comedian Rachel Sennott is now doing, “the whole damn thing” with her first horror role. In Bodies Bodies Bodies, directed by Halina Reijn, she portrays self-obsessed, comic relief podcaster Alice, who garners some killer laughs in the film. Dread Central spoke with Sennott about her role in the movie, shooting in the remote haunted mansion, and her favorite type of horror.
Dread Central: How’s your press tour been?
Rachel Sennott: It’s been fun. I feel like we’ve, we’ve gotten to do a lot of interviews as a group, which has been so fun, because I think you get energy from all talking together. Then people bring up stories that you forgot and memories. So it’s been very fun.
DC: How’d you get involved with the project in the first place?
RS: I actually read an earlier draft of the script, like very early on in COVID. When I first had it, I was in my parents’ basement. It was dark there. I was so sad. And then I remember reading the script so quickly and being entranced by this world and being like, I love that, I would die to be a part of that movie. Then, I didn’t hear anything. whatever, it was still just in early stages. And then a year later I heard people were auditioning and then I begged my reps to get me an audition. I taped and then I did a callback with Halina and the whole time I was obsessed, I was like, “please, did you hear anything?” I love this movie. So that’s how it happened.
DC: How was it like tackling the horror genre for the first time?
RS: It was good. It’s such an interesting thing because I think we’re kind of blending genres, which I love to do. And so I felt like I had a way in with comedy and drama and sort of the way that we were playing it. I mean, I watched some movies too, but I watched more like I was watching Clue. We watched Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. So not your classic horror movies, but more like a whodunit sort of thrillers.
DC: Were you a big fan of horror, before Bodies Bodies Bodies. I know on your Letterboxd you have Jennifer’s body as one of your favorite movies.
Rachel:
I love Jennifer’s Body. But I can’t do gore. I can’t do torture porn. I love Green Room. It’s one of my favorite movies. I love Clue, these campy or multi-tone, horror movies.
DC: Did you get to bring any of your personality to your character Alice?
RS: I think so. I relate to Alice in that I think we both have a lot of insecurities and anxieties and I think that that’s where I connected with her. Also I love that she’s a podcaster because I’ve never had a podcast, but I would. I feel like I identified with Alice that she kind of sees herself as like the funny one of the group and that’s how she gets through her insecurities and anxieties. I think I brought that part of myself.
DC: What was it like embodying the role of the quintessential scream queen?
RS: It was fun. The part that wasn’t fun was getting wet. The rain is cold, but
DC: How many takes did you have to do during most of the intense scenes where you’re all screaming at each other? Cause at a certain point, I can only imagine y’all losing your voices.
RS: We honestly didn’t have that many takes cause we didn’t have a lot of time. After we wrapped, Amandla [Stenberg] made everybody these shirts that said “none for safety” instead of one for safety. because we would get it and then we would be like, “alright, moving on.” We did not have a lot of time to get everything. So I feel like once we got it, we were onto the next.
DC: Were there any new challenges and curve balls in your performance that surprised you?
RS: I think a lot of moments surprised me because once we were in the scene and we were shooting it felt very real. Jasper [Wolf] the DP, he’s so amazing. He would really shoot *moves around* here, and then here, and then here. The camera could be on anyone. And it starts to feel like he was part of the scene. The scene is real life. It’s all just happening. Sometimes we would just keep rolling and they wouldn’t call cut. You would just keep talking and doing stuff and then all of a sudden, stuff would just come out. You would say something or people would try stuff. So that was very exciting because you didn’t know what was going to happen.
DC: Did you have to do a lot of ad-libbing and riffing in the scenes?
RS: There was a lot of room for ad-lib and improv, which I loved. I think there were a lot of fun moments to do that. The scene in the kitchen where I’m defending Greg, I think the line was “he’s a libra moon”. I wanted to build up to that where I’m like, what is everything that I know about him? And I’m saying everything that I know, which, of course, is not anything very helpful or good information. But at that moment, she’s so desperate that she wants to prove this somehow. I think the improv was helpful in those moments where yes, it was funny, but also it was kind of a way to really make everything feel real. Just take the dialogue and say it how you said it.
DC: Not to get into spoiler territory but how is it to witness the reaction of the fate of your character?
RS: It’s interesting because different audiences react in different ways. At SXSW I heard people go, “Aw.” Sometimes I hear people laugh and I’m like, okay, feel a little bad. It’s very interesting because you get to see how people feel about your character. It feels very personal because sometimes you’re like, “Hey that’s me!” It’s fun to sit in the audience. I think this is a movie you have to watch with a crowd.
DC: And nothing compares to that paramount theater experience.
RS: No, you can never, after that. It’s a drug. I can only watch it with a thousand people in Austin.
DC: How was the experience like filming in that single set location of that massive mansion? What were your first thoughts when you just entered the set for the first time?
RS: I was like, this is a haunted mansion. There was a dark energy there. There was just something about it where it felt very creepy. You never wanted to be in a part of the house alone. It had a very ominous energy and I think that helped it make you feel very dropped into the world right away.
DC: Did you get to have fun in the house during off hours? Like that pool?
RS: I think any of that lost its charm because then you’re in the pool all day getting cold and you are like, “I hate this pool, get me outta this pool!” I think it works because the movie does it too, where it takes these things that are wealth and beauty then destroys them for you. The film makes you be like these aren’t that good. In fact, they can be a cage or a trap and be very scary.
DC: The camaraderie you have is electrifying both on screen and off, how was it getting close to this amazing ensemble?
RS: It was so amazing. It’s very rare that everyone clicks and it’s so easy. I remember going to the table read and I was so anxious and like, “everyone’s so cool. What if no one likes me, and I suck, and I get fired”, and all that stuff. Cut to a week later and we’re shooting that scene in the gym and I’m lying on top of the whole cast in a puddle on the floor. Now we’re best friends. We trauma bonded, I think so quickly. We were just in this bubble where we’re in this little town in upstate New York. It’s so the world of the movie becomes the only thing that is real. We had so much fun together. Like there’s nothing to do. So you were playing all these little question games and we’re hanging out and it was fun. It was really fun.
DC: Any fun stories on set, getting close with the rest of the cast?
RS: There was a night that we did this residency in Marriott, I forget what hotel we’re in. It was some weird little dingy kind of haunted hotel. We did a dress-up, which felt so good because it was Maria’s birthday. Both Chase and Maria had birthdays during the shoot, which was really fun. So we all dressed up, which felt like a luxury after being covered in blood and wearing the same outfits every day. We all dressed up and then we did this little photo shoot in our dingy hotel room. Then we went to dinner and that was really fun.
DC: What was it like to work with a director like Halina Reijn, who came from a theater background and is now doing this horror-comedy movie.
RS: She’s amazing. I love her. I wanna work with her again and again. Oh my God, last night at the premiere, she and Emma met. My Queens, my directing Queens! Halina pushes you to be free. She challenges you, she directs in this way where it feels like she’s in the movie with you. It’s never, okay, girls go in the mud. She’s standing there in the mud and the rain with you, so committed. When you’re in the scene, she’ll give notes where she’s so animated where you feel like she feels the character and she can come into the character with you. It’s such an animated way of giving notes. I think she’s just truly special. When I saw Instinct [Halina’s directorial debut] which was a cool dark psychosexual thriller, I thought, how will she direct this? And then to delve into this world together was just very special.
DC: Are there any other types of genres in the future that you wanna tackle? You’ve done horror-comedy, drama-comedy. What’s next?
RS: I wanna do it all. I wanna do the whole damn thing. and want to keep blending genres. I think that’s so interesting and fun. I would love to do a period piece. I would love to do a character completely different for myself. I just want to keep pushing myself and trying different things so far. I feel very lucky in that everything I’ve done, I haven’t done that much, but has been different from each other. It has been a challenge and exciting in its own way. So I think I just wanna keep pushing in that direction.
