Summary

Welcome to a new episode of Collider Ladies Night with Wolf Man star Julia Garner.

During her Ladies Night conversation with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, Garner looks back on early projects like Martha Marcy May Marlene and Electrick Children, and teases two to come, The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Weapons.

Garner also goes into detail on her experience making Wolf Man with Christopher Abbott, and explains why it was such a challenging film to shoot.

Julia Garner has amassed an incredibly varied filmography over the years. Her first feature credit was the Sundance darling Martha Marcy May Marlene, she won three Emmys for playing Ruth Langmore in Netflix’s hit crime drama Ozark, and she’s about to make her franchise debut in one of the most anticipated films of the year, The Fantastic Four: First Steps. However, there’s one particular genre she keeps coming back to, and given it’s a personal favorite genre, I’m thrilled about it. Garner is delivering a steady stream of horror movies.
Her latest in that department is Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man, a new spin on the 1941 classic. In this version, Christopher Abbott and Garner play Blake and Charlotte, a husband and wife struggling with their relationship. When Blake receives a death certificate for his estranged father and the keys to his childhood home, he thinks that could be just the getaway they need to get things back on track. Along with their young daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), they head out to the remote house in the mountains of Oregon. However, just before arriving, they’re attacked and Blake suffers a scratch that kicks off a horrific transformation.
With Wolf Man now playing in theaters nationwide, Garner joined me for a Collider Ladies Night conversation to revisit her journey in film and television thus far, with an extra special emphasis on her experience working in the horror genre.
Why Julia Garner Was Drawn to Acting

“I felt like I could have a voice using other people’s words.”

Garner’s acting journey began with her determination to overcome shyness. She explained, “I felt like I could have a voice using other people’s words.” Where did she find the courage to practice a craft that calls for maximum vulnerability as a shy child?

“It’s gonna sound so depressing. I think I was so used to failing as a kid that I was kind of like, ‘Well, what’s the worst’ mentality, so might as well put yourself out there. And I feel like that is the most important thing, is failure, without a doubt.”

Garner continued to put herself out there, and her willingness to take such risks paid off big time. In fact, one of the very first communities she jumped feet first into wound up putting her on a direct path to scoring her first role in a feature film. Some of Garner’s very first screen credits came from acting in student projects at Columbia University.

“I didn’t know anyone. I had no connection to the industry at all so I was like, ‘Well, how can I get in?’ And this was at the time when there was still Backstage and stuff where you could circle and highlight, before the internet, really. But I had an acting teacher, my first acting teacher, Peter Miner, and he was incredible. So he was one of my first acting teachers, and he was a professor at Columbia, and so he was like, ‘You should do some student exercises there.’ Then I met some student filmmakers there and, with that, one of the student filmmakers there, actually, his girlfriend was casting the American version of Skins, and that same casting director, a few months later, cast Martha Marcy May Marlene, and that was my first job, and that was with Chris Abbott.”

Image via Phase 4 Films

Soon after award-winning casting director Susan Shopmaker cast Garner in Martha Marcy May Marlene, the film widely known for launching Elizabeth Olsen’s career, Garner scored another movie role, and that role would serve as yet another major milestone. It’d mark her very first lead role in a film.
Garner plays Rachel in the 2012 coming-of-age movie Electrick Children. Directed by Columbia Film MFA alum Rebecca Thomas, the movie was recognized by a number of film festivals, and nudged Garner closer to how we see her today – as a star.

“At the very beginning of my career, everything was like a test. I was still young enough that I was like, ‘Okay, well, maybe I can change the business and see where it goes. Fingers crossed.’ But that job, I kind of wanted to see if I could carry a film because that’s hard. I kind of wanted to see if I could do that and be consistent with the continuity with a story, and all that stuff, and emotional continuity.”

Image via Netflix

Related

Julia Garner Wins for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series | Emmys 2022

The 74th Primetime Emmy Awards aired on NBC on September 12.

Garner certainly did just that in Electrick Children, and she’d continue to do so in the slew of films and shows that followed. Ultimately, her talent would be recognized with one of the highest honors this industry can bestow. In 2019, Garner won her first Emmy. She won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her work in Ozark, and would go on to win that award two more times before the show wrapped up its four-season run.
While all three of her Emmy wins have great meaning, Garner stressed how special it was to be given that recognition for the very first time:

“Honestly, if I watch an award show and I hear anybody calling a name, I just go like this [tenses], because it’s such an out-of-body experience. But the first one. And also, it’s just like, you can’t believe it. But honestly, even the other ones, I couldn’t believe it too. But the first time, you can’t get that back.”

Garner Was Ready for the ‘Wolf Man’ Shoot to Be a Tough One

“I’m addicted to things that are hard.”

Since the success of Ozark and also Inventing Anna, which earned Garner an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, she’s been busy churning out feature films with no signs of slowing. While the 2023 Australian psychological thriller The Royal Hotel, the Rosemary’s Baby prequel Apartment 7A and now Wolf Man are all very different films, Garner recognizes at least one shared quality in all of the projects she takes on – they challenge her.
Here’s what she said when asked about signing on for Wolf Man and how she thought the film could help her evolve her craft:

“The thing that interests me with this film was that it took place in one night. Doing anything in one day — I did that with Grandma. It took place in one day, and that was really hard. But that was a comedy. I mean, it was still hard, but this was this kind of movie and had the different stages of grief, and it took place in one night, so that was just challenging. I knew that was gonna be challenging. And, of course, I was like, ‘Okay, this is hard, so I’m going to do it.’ Because, for whatever reason, I’m addicted to things that are hard.”

While discussing the challenges of making a horror movie like Wolf Man, Garner emphasized the possible dichotomy between how one can feel while filming and the quality of the end product:

“When I’m filming, I kind of disassociate in a way. [Laughs] It’s weird. I also notice the worse you feel, the more likely that the take is probably the better take. There’s something very bizarre about knowing that you feel really horrible inside, and then everyone’s like, ‘That’s great!’”

How exactly does Garner reach those darker headspaces when a fill calls for it? She needs to be left alone. She explained:

“It’s funny because when people are making this whole big discussion about method acting, whatever that means, it’s one of those things where it’s very easy to get distracted on set. Everybody needs to do their job. There’s always distractions every five minutes. So, just to kind of regroup and just be by yourself with that character that you’re playing and then go into the scene without a distraction because that is your reality.”

Garner Thinks Every Actor Should Do Horror At Least Once

Image via Universal

While making Wolf Man did get intense for Garner, in the end, it made her quite proud of the work and also upped her belief in herself:

“I think as hard as it was, how intense it was, the intense work made it cool in a weird way. The intense emotion constantly, as hard and at times awful as that was, it made me feel like emotionally I can handle a lot. Maybe. I think every actor should do horror at least once.”

Looking for more from Garner on her experience making Wolf Man and what to expect from The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Zach Cregger’s Barbarian follow-up, Weapons? You can find just that in our full Collider Ladies Night interview in the video at the top of this article, or you can listen to the conversation in podcast form below:

Wolf Man follows Lawrence Talbot as he returns to his ancestral home following his brother’s disappearance. In the village nearby, a brutal beast is terrorizing the residents, and Lawrence finds himself entangled in the hunt for the creature. As the mystery unfolds, he faces enigmatic family ties and a haunting curse.

Release Date

January 15, 2025

Director

Leigh Whannell

Runtime

103 minutes

Expand

Wolf Man is now playing in theaters nationwide.
Get Tickets