DeWanda Wise stars in IMAGINARY: “I love horror movies”
SUCOPRESS/Raquel Laguna. DeWanda Wise, Pyper Braun and Taegen Burns star in the horror movie IMAGINARY. In this interview, DeWanda, Pyper and Taegen talk in this interview about their characters, working together in the film and about being scared on set. In IMAGINARY, when Jessica (DeWanda Wise) moves back into her childhood home with her family, her youngest stepdaughter Alice (Pyper Braun) develops an eerie attachment to a stuffed bear named Chauncey she finds in the basement. Alice starts playing games with Chauncey that begin playful, and become increasingly sinister. As Alice’s behavior becomes more and more concerning, Jessica intervenes only to realize Chauncey is much more than the stuffed toy bear she believed him to be.
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00:00 I enjoyed it very much, you know. I relish the opportunity to play a character a little softer than I normally play.
00:05 And also just to join the canon of screen queens. The never ever was extraordinary, you know.
00:12 I'm proud of the way and I asked Megan Rogers, who was our set designer,
00:18 and I asked her if she was happy with the way that her work was captured on screen because in
00:23 person, I mean the level of detail, I'm like even, you know, it's the backdrop you're enjoying right now.
00:29 But the level of detail, the like the multiple colors of like blue paint,
00:33 there were so many craftsmen who worked on that set and so much thought that went into the construction of the never ever.
00:40 It was a real playground. Piper was our only choice.
00:44 Piper was our only choice to play Alice. We saw kids, so many kids,
00:50 we saw kids of every color cast and creed and we were casting the family around
00:56 the young actress who was gonna play our Alice. It's a tall order. It's a lot to ask of a child and
01:01 Piper Braun is, I feel like she's an actual discovery. I mean if she was wasn't already working before Imaginary,
01:09 it's gonna be non-stop now and you know as a EP on this job,
01:14 I was like, can we give her the introducing credit? And they were like no because she's been working since she was like four years old.
01:21 But she really is an extraordinary young actress. It's a great way horror movie, you know.
01:26 I grew up on horror. I love horror movies, you know. For children, it's a way to practice being afraid in a safe environment.
01:32 You know, there's something about being both
01:35 transported in a world in the movie theater,
01:38 but also knowing that you're still next to your friends and family, that you're all
01:41 laughing with relief together, that you're all jumping at the same time, that you are, you know,
01:47 experiencing that kind of fear in a safe place.
01:50 It's, you know, I'm really happy and super honored that I was able to, you know, add to the canon of this kind of horror movie.
01:57 When I think about The Basement,
01:59 it's a, it's something that we see in a lot of horror movies, you know. So striking the balance between
02:04 something where you're not
02:09 looking out of the corner of your eye and you're not going like, oh don't go down there. Like it's a normal basement,
02:14 but then you have that added element of like the crawlspace,
02:18 you know, this other world, this sense of like the blue door, you know, everything about it was just like really evocative.
02:24 So this was my first horror movie experience and the first horror movie I've ever watched in my entire life.
02:29 But no, on set and, well, first of all, in the movie you hear all the,
02:37 you hear all the creepy music and the
02:40 scary noises,
02:42 but those noises aren't there on set.
02:46 So it's, it doesn't make it that scary. And then I think the scariest part on set was actually the monsters.
02:54 Yeah. Like the monster costumes. Yeah.
02:56 I loved working with Dwanda and Jeff and I mean everyone in the cast was so incredible and learning from them and working with them
03:05 and, but with Dwanda and Jeff, they're both so,
03:08 they were both so willing to collaborate with me and willing to
03:11 discuss my character and discuss how she evolves and everything. So I think that was such a
03:16 nice thing to have that relationship with them.
03:19 And I mean also both of them are so much fun and I had such a great experience on this film.
03:24 I'm excited for families around the world to watch it and you know,
03:28 I want, you know what I want to do when this movie comes out? I want to go in the movie theater.
03:33 I want to sit at the end of the movie theater with my back turned to the movie.
03:36 And I will just want to watch every person's face. Well, I think what we all
03:42 did was read through the script once or twice and for me,
03:46 I sat down with my mom and I talked about Alice and I talked about the character and what she's going through and her
03:54 emotions and how how much she loves Chauncey and how lonely she actually is to become friends with
04:01 Miss Bear. I think that's just how I got into Alice. It was thinking about and what
04:07 feeling what she was going through. I mean, I was so drawn to Taylor.
04:11 I feel like she's such a complex character and she has so many layers to her and she has this great arc from
04:17 how she's at the beginning which is kind of hard to like. And then towards the end
04:23 she's kind of got this whole,
04:25 we see all this vulnerability in her and we see all the sensitivity with her and we get to really understand kind of why she
04:31 is that way at the beginning and get to really understand her more.