Home Movie News M3GAN Star Reveals Her Reaction To First Seeing The Doll In Person

M3GAN star Allison Williams reveals her reaction to seeing the killer doll for the first time in person while filming the new hit horror film.

Allison Williams talks her first impression of the M3GAN doll. Williams portrays Gemma in M3GAN, a scientist charged with taking in her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) after she is orphaned. Gemma makes the fateful decision to allow her niece to bond with a prototype of an AI android, designed to be the young girl’s friend and help her through her recent loss, which has bloody consequences. Since the first M3GAN trailer was released, the killer doll has gone viral and taken the internet by storm, with Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum even dressing as her on Halloween.
SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY

During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Williams describes her first reaction to seeing M3GAN in person.

The actor previously spoke about the arduous experience working with M3GAN on the film, rating her co-star as the most difficult so far thanks to the efforts needed to bring the doll to life. Now, she states that her first impressions of M3GAN supported the idea that it would be a long journey filming the movie, since her initial thought upon seeing the doll was “this is going to be the scariest experience of my life.” Check out what Williams had to say about the moment below:

“I saw a bunch of digital renderings. But the first time I actually met the doll, she was doing a camera test, which means that before you start filming, to test the lenses and everything in wardrobe, you just go into an empty soundstage with a backdrop. And she was just standing there like [tilts head] this, and people were like, touching up her hair and stuff like that. And I just thought, ‘this is going to be the scariest experience of my life.’”

Related: Is M3GAN Supposed To Be So Funny?!

Why M3GAN Looks So Unsettling

M3GAN continues a long-established horror tradition – the creepy doll trope – which includes other well-known entries such as Chucky and Annabelle. Similar to scary clowns, creepy dolls tend to be a hit with audiences due to their juxtaposition, since dolls are generally considered to be cute, comforting, and are designed to bring joy to others, particularly children. By twisting that expectation and making the doll a killer, they automatically become even more unsettling to viewers than a regular killer with a more expected, traditionally scary appearance.

M3GAN modernizes this effective trope by making the AI android known as M3GAN appear as a young girl, with modest and old-fashioned clothes giving the impression of an American Girl doll. In addition to executing the creepy doll trope well, M3GAN also utilizes the scary robot trope, with the story lending itself to that reading thanks to the narrative shown of M3GAN becoming self-aware over the course of the film. M3GAN’s petite, feminine, doll-like appearance becomes creepier because she has the strength and capabilities of a robot with the look of an innocent child.

Even when M3GAN is not actively doing anything scary, her slightly robotic mannerisms, hyper-realistic expressions, and clearly synthetic traits make her look unsettling in her everyday life. Because M3GAN is clearly designed to look like a human, but doesn’t move or behave like a human, she is naturally creepy, becoming downright scary when she takes on a threatening demeanor due to her advanced capabilities. Voiced by Jenna Davis, M3GAN’s consistently high-pitched and girlish way of speaking increases this effect further, which is likely part of the reason why M3GAN has already garnered so much box office success.

More: Everything We Know About M3GAN 2

Source: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon