The Big Picture

Welcome to a new episode of Collider Ladies Night with
Smile 2
star Rosemarie DeWitt.
DeWitt looks back on pivotal collaborations in her career, like with Jonathan Demme and Toni Collette, before digging into the extremes she went to for
Smile 2
.
Near the end of the conversation, she also took a moment to discuss what it took to pull off
Smile 2
’s downright wild blood and gore-heavy third act set pieces.

Rosemarie DeWitt may not love watching horror movies, but she’s certainly an absolute ace when acting in them. Soon after Smile became a genre sensation in 2022, Paramount green lit a sequel. While it was abundantly clear that first-time feature filmmaker Parker Finn was a next-level creative with an exceptional eye for top-tier talent and eerie imagery, the truth of the matter is, we don’t often see sequels do the “bigger and better” thing well and with purpose. That’s not the case with Finn’s Smile 2, however,

The sequel focuses on Naomi Scott’s Skye Riley, a global pop sensation who hit a rough patch courtesy of substance abuse struggles and a terrible car accident. With her mom and manager, played by DeWitt, at her back, Skye readies herself for her comeback tour. The pressure is astronomical, and her mom often reminds her of just that; she’s only getting one second chance. As though the stakes couldn’t be higher, Skye then has a downright nightmarish encounter. She witnesses someone take his own life and, in the process, he gives her the smile curse.

In celebration of Smile 2’s nationwide release, and hugely successful first weekend at the box office, DeWitt joined me for a Collider Ladies Night conversation to celebrate her filmography and dig into why an actor who’s terrified of horror films wants to make them.

How Jonathan Demme Teed DeWitt Up for Success
Dewitt worked with Demme on the award-winning 2008 drama, Rachel Getting Married.

Dreaming of becoming a professional actor is one thing, but having the confidence in your craft and your ability to make it in a challenging industry is another story. In fact, even with a filmography down to the floor, DeWitt still finds herself struggling to believe she can continue to make it as an actor. Here’s what she said when asked for the very first time she believed in herself in this business:

“Honestly, it was like, last week. That’s how I feel. I was just doing something with Eric Bana, and when it’s satisfying, I’m always like, ‘Maybe I can do this with my life. This is really fun! I kind of feel like I’m getting the hang of it.’ I always marvel at actors who are very young or in their 20s when they have that confidence, because I remember walking around for so long, being like, ‘Will someone tell me I’m good at this?’ You know what I mean? You want that validation to just keep going. And then, I think for me, I was changed by each role, so I was like, ‘
It doesn’t matter if anybody else wants me to act, I wanna keep acting for myself
.’”

While internal validation is of the utmost importance, DeWitt recalled two particular external forces who made an indelible impression on her and upped her belief in herself as an actor in the process. “The most impactful were the directors early in my career who saw me, like Jonathan Demme and Lynn Shelton.” She continued, “Jonathan used to whisper in my ear in between takes, ‘Be you, be you, be you,’ and you’re like, ‘Wow, that’s enough? That’s interesting?’”

Demme’s impact on DeWitt didn’t end there. She has vivid memories of Demme expertly diffusing potentially stressful on-set situations in order to make the Rachel Getting Married set a positive environment to soar as an artist. Here’s how she put it:

“I don’t even think I understood how special that was at the time. The directors that go into the books for a reason, you don’t even know that they’re pulling the strings when they’re pulling the strings. Two things from that movie; I remember somebody on the crew had a little bit of a disagreement with someone else on the crew, and
Jonathan walked over and said, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s not gonna be any of that
, so if you guys can’t work together …’ So it was just the most loving set, and it felt like a family.”

DeWitt also had an example of how Demme pulled the strings as an actor’s director without anyone realizing:

”
There was a moment where the scene was just getting too performative, like too slick, too good
, and Jonathan was just like, ‘It’s Declan’s birthday. We’re all gonna sing Happy Birthday to Declan!’ I’m like, ‘Now? In the middle of the scene?’ But he just wanted us to get away from acting for a while and then come back later with fresh eyes. And I think only people who have so much confidence can just chop up the day like that and be like, ‘Let’s look over here. Let’s go for a walk.
Let’s shake off all the things we thought that we knew as actors and then let’s rediscover it.
’”

Rosemarie DeWitt & Toni Collette Always Go Full-Out for One Another
DeWitt and Collette have collaborated a few times, beginning with United States of Tara.
Image via Showtime

DeWitt also took a moment to highlight a gem of a co-star, one with the habit of giving everything she’s got in a scene, even when the camera’s not on her, her United States of Tara co-star, Toni Collette. When asked for an actor with a similar approach to the work, DeWitt laughed and recalled:

“I wouldn’t say that our approach was necessarily in sync because, [laughs], we did a TV show for three seasons and the script supervisor was like,
‘Toni’s an A+ with matching. She just knows her craft, top to bottom. She knows what the camera is doing.’ She’s like, ‘You’re an F.’
And I’m like, ‘An F? Why am I an F?’ And they’re like, ‘Because you could match and you could do all these things, but you don’t.’ I’m like, ‘No, I couldn’t! I don’t always know what I’m doing.’ So Toni and I, we’re different in a lot of ways. She had a ton more experience, and she’d been doing it for a lot longer, but I just love that we were always in the same scene, whether the camera was on her, whether the camera was on me, we were always going. We just both loved to go full out for each other.”

DeWitt isn’t just willing to go full-out for Collette in front of the lens. She’s also willing to support her collaborator and friend in a big way off camera as well. DeWitt is terrified of horror films, but she still watched Collette’s jaw-dropping performance in Hereditary.

Why Would an Actor Who Doesn’t Like Watching Horror Movies Want to Make One?

Why would an actor who doesn’t enjoy watching horror films be so eager to make them? DeWitt revisited making that choice for both 2015’s Poltergeist and Smile 2:

“I think sometimes that the dynamics you’re working with as an actor can be more pronounced in horror. You want to still be believable and nuanced and whatnot, but the dynamics are so amplified that it’s almost more operatic in a fun way. So I really appreciate that as a genre.

Poltergeist
, it was because Sam Rockwell was attached.
I just really wanted to work with Sam and I love the director. And that one I was really scared because I didn’t really want to touch it because I think the first one is perfection. You know what I mean? So it wasn’t really about that. It wasn’t because I thought we could do something better with it or anything. It was really to just go on the ride with Sam and be like, ‘What would it be like?’ It was an experience. Like, ‘Let’s go have that experience.’”

11:34 Related This ‘Smile 2’ Kill Is One of the Most Violent Things Parker Finn Has Ever Done to a Character The writer-director discusses gorier kills, creature design that gives the ‘Alien’ queen a run for her money, and plans for ‘Smile 3.’

DeWitt noted that Poltergeist wasn’t as scary to her as Smile 2. Poltergeist “had scary themes, but it’s a family movie and a horror movie.” Smile 2, however, was a different story.

“This one’s a straight-up, like,
my kids can never see it. They’ll never be able to look at me the same way again
, maybe — who knows? — just because of the world you exist in in this movie. This one, honestly, and if I don’t separate it by genre, it was a really good script. It was a really good script, and there were some scenes in there that, on the page, I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll learn a lot about relationships and whatnot by playing the scene.’”

This Failed Bravo Series Came in Handy for Rosemarie DeWitt Making ‘Smile 2’
“I guess that was a good reason to watch a lot of bad reality TV.”
Image via Paramount Pictures

DeWitt’s suspicions about the film based on the script were spot on. Yes, Smile 2 is a horrific thrill that’s absolutely packed to the brim with vicious scare scenes, but those scare scenes are largely impactful courtesy of Finn’s character-first approach to horror storytelling. Smile 2 is a character piece, and a big component of that narrative is Skye’s relationship with DeWitt’s character, both as her mother and also as her manager.

How did DeWitt prepare to play a character wearing those two hits? She turned to reality TV.

“I did certainly get to do a deep dive on
The Kardashians
, and there was a TV show, [
I’m Raising a Fucking Star]
. It really helped the relationship just to see how much is riding on these people’s careers when your kid is famous. I guess it was really helpful for me to play the part for just like, where’s the line? Where is it for you? Where is it your best interest? Where is it your kid’s best interest? Where do they get blurry?
Where is the slippery slope? I guess that was a good reason to watch a lot of bad reality TV
. [Laughs]”

DeWitt goes above and beyond exploring those questions via her performance in Smile 2. Here’s what she said when asked for the particular driving force behind Elizabeth’s choices in the film:

“I feel like I really love my daughter, and I’m invested in her well-being. But I guess for me,
the through-line was also just the amount of work and sacrifice that we had put into her becoming this global pop star
. And then that’s where, we’re only human, you don’t know who’s driving the car after you’ve sacrificed so much. And then again, just the operatic nature of a horror movie, you just get to try things on that would be too much in a drama, where I’m like, ‘Is it weird if I look at her like this? If I feel menacing in this scene?’”

Here’s When DeWitt First Recognized Naomi Scott’s Ferocity While Making ‘Smile 2’
“My money is on that girl.”

DeWitt’s character functioning as a simultaneous foil and source of support for Scott’s Skye ups the complexity and intensity of her situation tenfold. Smile 2 doesn’t afford Scott the opportunity to take a breath and indulge in a more low-key story beat. This script demands that Scott take it to the max right out the gate, and then it keeps her there for the entirety of the movie.

While Dewitt was mighty impressed with Scott’s ability to go there from start to finish, she also emphasized one especially impressive quality of the performance. It’s the fact Scott was always in charge of the turmoil her character is subjected to. Here’s how she put it:

“She was going for it in all the right ways in every which way. I don’t think I was prepared for what a triple or quadruple threat she was as a performer – a singer, a dancer, an actor … Parker has a really strong vision for what these movies could be, and she kind of had to go there. It felt very Kubrick-like, take after take after take after take, and there was no cobbling it together. There was no, ‘We got it at the first half of that, so don’t kill yourself.’ It was like, ‘No, let’s do it again with a capital A,’ which is, I think, also why it’s so good. But I was like, ‘Oh,
this girl is not only talented, but she’s fierce. She’s tough and smart
. She really knows the story we’re telling.’ Again, sometimes the genre, I question, ‘Is it mean to women to have women be subjected to so much turmoil?’ But Naomi was always in charge of it. She just has such a kind of producorial, director hat, too.
My money is on that girl
.”

Looking for even more from DeWitt on the beginning of her career and her experience making Smile 2, including the extreme places she had to go for the third act of the film? You can catch our full Ladies Night conversation in the video at the top of this article!

Release Date October 18, 2024 Director Parker Finn

Smile 2 is playing in theaters nationwide. Find tickets to a showing near you below:

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