[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Your Monster.]

The Big Picture

The film ‘Your Monster’ features a romantic-comedy story with horror elements, exploring toxic relationships and societal views on women.
Melissa Barrera was surprised to find herself in the horror genre, but enjoys the variety in her roles.
Barrera aims to differentiate her characters and embrace different roles to avoid being typecast.

From writer/director Caroline Lindy, the romantic comedy with a twist, Your Monster, tells the story of Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera), an actress who thinks she’s building a life with her longtime boyfriend (Edmund Donovan), only to be dumped when she needs him to be there for her the most. To make matters worse, he’s now staging the musical he created and promised her the lead role in, instead casting someone else (Meghann Fahy) and offering her the ensemble. While trying to figure out how to cope with it all, Laura connects with Monster (Tommy Dewey), the beast living in her closet, who encourages her to dream bigger and embrace her feelings.

During this one-on-one interview with Collider, Barrera talked about how surprised she’s been to find herself in the horror genre, always wanting to differentiate the characters that she plays, how it’s always fun to be covered in blood for a movie, why she was so stressed about the sad singing feeling real, how society tends to always looks at women as problematic, getting intimate without having the monster makeup rub off on her face, and shooting four full performance numbers for the stage show. She also teased how she’s living out her Alias dreams while shooting a new Peacock TV series.

Collider: I first became aware of you and your work with Vida, and you were so good in that show. Since then, your career has woven in and out of various aspects of the horror genre quite a bit. Have you been surprised by that? Before finding yourself in that world, were you a fan? Has this all taken you by surprise?

MELISSA BARRERA: Yeah, it has taken me by surprise. I used to be a really big horror fan when I was younger, and then I stopped watching horror movies for a while, in my late teens and twenties. It wasn’t until I got cast in Scream that I started watching horror again and fell in love with the genre again. I never would have thought, in a million years, that I would be making horror movies, but I love it. I’m so happy that I am, for a lot of reasons. I’ve also been very fortunate in the projects that I’ve gotten to do within the genre.

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People don’t always realize how many different kinds of horror there can be. There are so many layers to it, and none of the projects you’ve done feel the same.

BARRERA: I try to always go for something different. I feel like there’s always that fear, as an actor, to be put in a box and to just be cast as the same thing, over and over. Even if I find that there are similarities between two projects, I make it a point to really differentiate the character, so that everything feels different and everything feels distinct. I’ve done a little bit of everything, I feel like.

Melissa Barrera Was Drawn In by the Unexpected Ending of ‘Your Monster’

When you get a script like this, that isn’t considered horror, but has some horror elements to it, and you get to that moment toward the end where you suddenly find yourself covered in blood, what was your reaction? Was that moment always in the script? Were you like, “Why do people just keep wanting to throw blood at me”?

BARRERA: Yeah, I should put it in my contract that it should just be a part of every movie that I do. I just have to end up covered in blood. It was always part of the script. I always liked that ending a lot. It was part of the reason that I loved the script so much. It takes you on that unexpected turn at the end, and it was fun to do. It’s always fun to be covered in blood in a movie. Maybe I’m just so used to it that I love it. Especially in this movie, the reveal is so unexpected. I was excited on the day that we were shooting it, just because the camera movement and everything about it was exciting.

There’s a moment at the beginning of this, as we’re learning that your character’s relationship has ended, where she’s sitting at the piano and singing and crying at the same time. What was that like to shoot when you’re actually a singer? What’s it like to have to sad sing?

BARRERA: It was a whole thing. I’ve been training, half my life, as a singer, and I’ve been training to sound good and to sound like I can support my voice. This was trying to find a way to sound like I can’t, but naturally. When you’ve undergone a surgical procedure or when you’ve been sick for a while, you lose the lung capacity, so that was what I was focusing on, just the shortness of breath. If you don’t have lung capacity, you can’t make a note. So, I was really, really stressed about that feeling real and not exaggerating it, so that it was overly fake and bad. That was a whole thing in the house, and then also when I auditioned for Jacob.

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We learn, pretty much from the beginning, that Laura’s ex-boyfriend is really, truly the most narcissistic douchebag. What was it like to figure out that relationship, knowing that it’s a bit toxic? What was she even doing with that guy in the first place?

BARRERA: To me, it was very obvious why she is with Jacob. I could fully understand why she would be with him. He’s very talented and very charismatic, and he’s a presence. Those kinds of narcissists really have a way of being very magnetic. It made perfect sense to me that being this girl that dreams of being on Broadway is in a relationship with this very bright composer that has a big future. For her, it was like, “Oh, we’re the power couple.” That also adds to the feeling of being enamored, with not just the person, but the idea of both of you. To me, part of the double heartbreak is that she not only loses the man that she was in a relationship with for five years and that she loved, but she also loses her dream with him because it was so attached to him and that relationship. That really made a lot of sense to me.

What I figured out, when creating Laura, was that she is the kind of person that a lot of people will be able to relate to that give themselves to their relationships. And I don’t just mean romantic relationships. It happens with Mazie, her best friend. She is a person that becomes a shadow to the people that she loves, and she loves big personalities because she’s not that big of a personality. She’s more shy, so she lives vicariously through these people that she loves, and she does everything in service of them. That means forgetting about herself and disappearing. In the beginning, I would have conversations with (writer/director) Caroline [Lindy], where I was like, “Why does she not have any other friends? Wait, is she the problem?”

That’s potentially the whole point of the movie, with this gaslighting thing. We also have been conditioned by society to always look at women as the problem or as hysterical. It’s so easy to label a woman as problematic. And I found myself doing that with Laura until I understood, “No, she falls in love with people, and she dedicates her life to them, and she’s really focused on a select group of people.” I have friends that are like that. They’re your friend and you’re going out and whatever, but they get a boyfriend and they disappear from your life. That’s Laura. Once I figured out that was her, it was easy to build off that. The script was so great. I had a lot of great material to work with.

Melissa Barrera Had To Be Careful When Getting Intimate with the Beast in ‘Your Monster’
Image via Vertical

What was it like to also figure out a relationship with a scene partner who was in all the prosthetics? Even doing a kissing scene, did you have to figure out how to do it so that it wouldn’t hurt the makeup?

BARRERA: Yes, for the intimacy. Technically, I was like, “How rough can it be without pulling his wig off or his beard off?” We would separate and I would have his beard hair stuck on me because they were placed one by one on him. They moved and some of them would fall off and end up on me. But with the prosthetic, I don’t remember there being an adjustment period for me. As soon as I saw Tommy [Dewey] as Monster, I was like, “Cool. This is Monster. I’m in it.” It wasn’t ever weird. Tommy is so expressive and he’s such a great actor that it was really easy to work with him. It never felt weird that I was like looking at a monster. He’s so hot as the monster that I was just like, “Okay, this is all right.”

Since we hear so much about it throughout the film, I love that we do get to see a bit of the stage production. What did you most enjoy about that? How much fun was it to really go into full singer mode for that? And is there more that we didn’t get to see?

BARRERA: There is. There were four whole numbers that we shot, that ended up getting cut. There were four songs of the musical that we recorded and that are there and that exist, and they hopefully will get released as some sort of EP or as bonus features. The Lazours (Daniel and Patrick), who were the composers, were so brilliant in creating this musical because they had to teeter a fine line between it being good, because Jacob is supposed to be good, but also ridiculous because Jacob is such a narcissist. He’s thinking that he’s solving women’s issues through this musical, and that’s so roll-your-eyes and condescending.

Those songs were hilarious, but also good songs and catchy tunes. The lyrics were just amazing. And for my song at the end, it had to be a great song because it’s the finale of the movie. It was an amazing power ballad that is true to the story of Laurie Francis in the musical, but then also fits Laura Franco’s arc in the movie. That was a whole feat that they just did a magnificent job with. I was so happy that I got to sing an original song that they wrote for me. And I got to get into the studio and record and have this day of feeling like I was in the original Broadway cast of this musical that I’ve always wanted to do.

There Was a Version of ‘Your Monster’ That Didn’t Actually Include Any of the Stage Show
Image via Vertical

It still would have been an interesting movie without that, but I’m glad we got to see some of the show.

BARRERA: Me too. There was a cut where there wasn’t any of the show, and I’m sure more people said it, but I definitely told Caroline, “We shot four numbers. They designed an entire set for the production. Can we see a little bit of that? I feel like it was so great. We spent a day shooting those musical numbers, so it would be cool to see a little bit of that.” That’s when they did that little montage, and at least you get to see a little bit of it.

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Do you know what’s next for you?

BARRERA: I’m currently shooting a TV show right now, that is not this, but that is another dream of mine. I’ve always wanted to do a role like this. But I definitely love a romance. I feel like I really want to do a rom-com or a sweeping, epic romance. After I finish this show, I would love to do that. But I’m open. I never close myself off. I’m not like, “This is what I wanna do next.” I’m open to what the universe sends my way, and if the script is good and the character feels like a challenge, then I’m in.

Is that TV series you mentioned the one for Peacock (with Simu Liu)?

BARRERA: Yes.

What can you say about that character?

BARRERA: All I can say is that I’ve been dreaming of playing a character like this since I was obsessed with Alias growing up. There’s a little bit of mystery.

Your Monster After her life falls apart, soft-spoken actress Laura Franco finds her voice again when she meets a terrifying, yet weirdly charming Monster living in her closet. A romantic-comedy-horror film about falling in love with your inner rage.Release Date January 18, 2024 Director Caroline Lindy Runtime 98 Minutes Writers Caroline Lindy

Your Monster is now playing in theaters. Check out the trailer: