It feels like Kate Siegel has been traveling nonstop as of late.
Now the pair are in Los Angeles for one helluva night.
Halloween Horror Nights, to be exact.
Kate Siegel has made a career in horror with her director husband, Mike Flanagan.
“I can’t wait!
I was like, ‘Sure!'”
It’s a promise he kept.
Kate Siegel as the specter of Marisol Chavez in ‘Oculus’.Relativity Media
I said, ‘I guess I want my arm to be like snaking around him.’
And they were like, ‘Snakey arm!’
I guess it just stuck."
Kate Siegel as deaf author Maddie in ‘Hush’.Netflix
Hush(2016)
In the years afterOculus, Flanagan and Siegel started dating.
He would help her prepare for auditions.
She would read through his scripts.
Kate Siegel as Jenny Browning in ‘Ouija: Origin of Evil’.Universal
(Macy would later be the officiant at Siegel and Flanagan’s wedding.)
“I wasn’t being taken seriously in my life and just felt like I’d lost my voice.
FromHush, Siegel learned to adopt a zen state when acting.
Kate Siegel as Jessie’s mom Sally in ‘Gerald’s Game’.Netflix
She remembers one scene where her costar,John Gallagher Jr., smashes a sliding glass door.
But Siegel, portraying a deaf woman, could not react to that.
“With indie filmmaking on that [production] budget level, we only had one door.
Kate Siegel as supernaturally touched Theo Crain in ‘The Haunting of Hill House’.Tina Rowden/Netflix
If I flinched in that shot, the whole day [would be] ruined,” she explains.
“That kind of meditative focus was something I hadn’t worked with in my career.”
Ouija: Origin of Evil(2016)
For Siegel, blondes do have more fun.
Katie Parker and Kate Siegel as sisters Perdita and Viola in ‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’.EIKE SCHROTER/NETFLIX
“I’d never been a blonde before.
It was the first time I’d ever dyed my hair for a role,” Siegel says.
Siegel appears in Jessie’s hallucinations and memories as her mother, Sally.
Kate Siegel as Erin Greene in ‘Midnight Mass’.EIKE SCHROTER/NETFLIX
Siegel was nine months pregnant at the time and was “very uncomfortable” from nausea while shooting.
“I remember saying early on to Mike, ‘Don’t glam me up.
I want the frizzy hair.
I want to be glowing and sweating.
I don’t want any of this pretend-glorifying-of-motherhood B.S.’
Then I’m watching the movie and going, ‘What was I thinking?!'”
She remembers the film as the moment Gugino was brought into the fold.
It was just the work ethic.
And the talent was through the roof.”
“The reality of shooting a full day wearing gloves became very clear,” Siegel recalls.
“Gloves get ruined really quickly by the moisture of your hands, the oils of your skin.
It was hard to open drawers.
So, we quickly changed to these more cottony, less fancy gloves.
I think that’s a really good metaphor for what I thought being an actress was like.
I had been working towards that my entire adult life.
But she didn’t know other people would like her until the promotional press tour forHill House.
They were fielding questions from reporters, who seemed like genuine fans of the show.
“I remember looking at Henry and both of us being like, ‘Here we go!
Flanagan largely directed the projects he worked on with Siegel, butBly Manorbrought in different filmmakers.
Siegel recalls, “When we were going through all of these [scenes] ‘She would wake.
She would sleep.’
[Axelle] would say, ‘In this one, I want it to be like this.’
And she would pull up an image of Dracula from long ago.
Having that kind of visual representation of what she was trying to get was so inspiring to me.
It made me want to collaborate more with her.”
“Those sunrises and the rays through the clouds and the island looked like that.
The quality of light to me, that’s whatMidnight Masswill always be about.”
Siegel stars as Erin Green, a woman living on the isolated Crockett Island.
It’s a story Siegel knows well because Flanagan has been trying to make it for years.
InHush, Siegel’s character writes a best-selling book calledMidnight Mass.
“There will always be the Flanagan fam,” Siegel says.
“We like to work together.”
Viewers will also notice the sameMidnight Massbook pops up as an Easter egg inGerald’s Game.
“It’s come in so many different forms,” Siegel says.
“It was a movie, it was a novel, it was a series.
Netflix first announcedMidnight Massat the start of 2020.
“The writers added so much to this story,” Siegel continues.
“They took what was a wonderful idea and turned it into an exquisite masterpiece.”
With Erin, “there was a sense that she was soft, light.
Erin goes through some really messed-up stuff, but it doesn’t make her mean and cruel.
I think actually Erin Green has the most inner strength of any of my characters.”
