'Annabelle: Creation' Stars Didn’t Want To Be In Same Room As Doll
- Details
- Category: Interviews
- Created: Friday, 04 August 2017 11:08
- Published: Friday, 04 August 2017 11:16
- Written by Lupe R Haas
That creepy doll from THE CONJURING gets an origins story with ANNABELLE: CREATION, and the horror movie’s stars reveal they weren’t acting when it came to being scared of the possessed doll. One actor asked the doll be removed during rehearsals.
In ANNABELLE: CREATION, several years after the tragic death of their little girl, a doll maker and his wife welcome a nun and several girls from a shuttered orphanage into their home. They soon become the target of the doll maker’s possessed creation, Annabelle. Directed by David F. Sandberg, (LIGHTS OUT) and produced by James Wan (THE CONJURING, SAW), the film stars Stephanie Sigman (SPECTRE), Talitha Bateman (THE 5TH WAVE), Lulu Wilson (OUIJA 2, DELIVER US FROM EVIL), Anthony LaPaglia (TV’s “Without a Trace”) and Miranda Otto (Showtime’s “Homeland,” THE LORD OF THE RINGS Trilogy).
At a recent interview in Los Angeles, the cast reveal their first encounter with the doll on set and what about the pint size toy they find so disturbing.
Miranda Otto said the doll creeped her out on set. In one scene, the doll sits across her bed as her character has a meltdown. “The doll is just really creepy,” says Otto. “It’s just aah!!” During rehearsal, she couldn’t concentrate with it sitting in a chair, and asked it be removed until they were ready to shoot.
“I cannot rehearse this scene with the doll sitting there,” she says. “It kept distracting me.”
Her co-star and on screen husband Anthony LaPaglia wasn’t affected by the doll but at one point he did see what all the fuss is about with that demonic face
“For me, it depended on the light. In certain light, it looked pretty benign to me. Then I’d walk in and it would be a different light and different shadow on the face, and suddenly the eyes would be on fire. So it was really effective that way. There’s something with the contour of the face that changes with the light.”
For Stephanie Sigman who plays Sister Charlotte, the Mexican-born actress took issue with the fact that the ANNABELLE: CREATION set wasn’t blessed as was the other movies in the franchise.
“Why didn’t we do that right now with this movie,” says the actress. “Before I got to touch the doll, I talked to Peter the producer and was like, ‘I’m not touching that doll until you bring someone and bless the set. Why not. You’ve got nothing to lose.”
The young actresses Lulu Wilson and Tabitha Bateman had similar feelings about Annabelle. The table read was the first time she met the demonic doll. The filmmakers propped Annabelle in one of the seats with her own water bottle, but that wasn’t the scariest part.
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Lulu Wilson recounts the story of the time one of the other actresses took her to a closet where the porcelain star was sitting. That’s the first time Wilson got a good look at the prop and her spooky eyes.
“Ok wow! Why are you taking me here?, she asked the actress. “Now I’m super freaked out. They look so scary. They look exactly like a human’s eye and that is what is so creepy.”
Talitha was also spooked by the doll on set specifically the one in the prop room. The beaten up version seen in an earlier film was sitting in the room.
“She was really creepy. She had like one eye out of her head,” says the young actress. “It was so scary. I was like ‘ok we’re not working with that doll, right?’
Luckily the ANNABELLE: CREATION production went smoothly with no accidents or freaky happenings, according to the stars. Let’s hope the audiences come out unscathed as well when the horror thriller opens August 11.